Belkin Nostromo n-52 Speedpad .. unreal!

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 3:13 pm

Buy.com has them for $24.95 right now.

supster · Post by **supster** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:13 pm

Tarekith wrote:Buy.com has them for $24.95 right now.

Wow. If you are reading this thread, and the lightbulbs went off in your head at all about what this can do with Live .... you are in on the best
secret ever.

Ive been using for two weeks now, and it is the most perfect, reliable
adaptable Live controller ever.

TIP: (one of thousands)

You can create keystroke macros of any combination of keys.

SO:

Clicking multiple track on / off switches is now possible with ONE KEYSTROKE!

Route your drum hits to a Drums group.... now you can solo any drums WITH the Drums group simultaneously ... no need to click twice or three times hunting around.

Assign ANY menu control to a single keystroke - even those you couldnt map before (How? Macro - ALT - DOWNARROW - ENTER

Thats only a tiny bit of what this can do. If I could only keep my UC-33e or this ... I would toss my UC in a heartbeat ... its that good.

I wouldnt use Live without this thing now.

(and no I dont work for Belkin distributor LOL)

m-laboratories.net · Post by **m-laboratories.net** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:25 pm

i read somewhere (maybe in its manual? lol) that you can set keys to send any given macro command N times per second. did i read correctly, and has anyone messed with that yet?

I can just imagine all kinds of real-time stuttering if the command for key 01 is "track on - delay 1.2 sec - track off - delay 1.2 sec" and the command for key 02 is "track on - delay .6 sec - track off - delay .6 sec" etc....

Again, I haven't gotten this thing home yet to mess with it, but it seems pretty unbelievable.

supster · Post by **supster** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 7:05 pm

When any key is pressed:

- Play macro one time ,, OR (trigger)

- Repeat macro while key is down, OR (gate)

- Repeat until key is pressed again (toggle)

and yes, you can set the delay time between macro keystrokes to
any value you like

No, havent tried to come up with a use for that yet, I've spent
most of my time with it coming up with default configs for a variety
of other tasks.

Once I finish my profile to where I'm happy with it, I'll post it with
an explanation as to the logic behind it.

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Fri Jan 14, 2005 9:05 am

omg, 250 kroner in denmark! Thats f*ckin cheap! excellent

ct43 · Post by **ct43** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 5:28 pm

whats this thing like when you are using it stood up? Someone on another forum said it only works well if you are sat down (as if you where playing a game).. im guessing it falls away from your finger tips as you press down on the keys - yes / no?

supster · Post by **supster** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 5:52 pm

You could press down on the keys from above, the keys angle slightly away from your fingertips but it doesnt prevent you from working that way.

However its like a mouse in that your palm really needs to be flat on it in order for it to be fully functional.

I think this applies to laptop performing in general: you really would want / need to have everything raised on a higher platform that traditional decks in able to do it comfortably.

That includes laptop, mouse, MIDI controller, and this Speedpad. They all want to be higher, no?

Liam · Post by **Liam** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 5:54 pm

Nice hardware but out of stock!

Ableton ought to have MACROS ability in LIVE. That would be very nice.

ct43 · Post by **ct43** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:34 pm

supster wrote:You could press down on the keys from above, the keys angle slightly away from your fingertips but it doesnt prevent you from working that way.

However its like a mouse in that your palm really needs to be flat on it in order for it to be fully functional.

I think this applies to laptop performing in general: you really would want / need to have everything raised on a higher platform that traditional decks in able to do it comfortably.

That includes laptop, mouse, MIDI controller, and this Speedpad. They all want to be higher, no?

right I get you... like you say, most effective on a flat surface then... I just had visions of being able to have one hand totally free roaming, while sorting stuff out with the other... still think ill get one though.

ejectorset · Post by **ejectorset** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 6:59 pm

couldnt you mount (velcro?) it to something lightweight and flat (small piece of thin wood?) and strap that to your wrist. just a thought.

Alexander · Post by **Alexander** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:33 pm

This thing looks cool....
I´ve a question to those who already own it:
The manual says something about a DI (MS direct input ? ) Joystick compatiblity. I once read about a tool, that cool transform a pc joystick into a midi controller. Is it possible to use the thumbpad to control one of lives x-y controller ?
In Germany you can get one for less than 30,- €

Lo-Fi Massahkah · Post by **Lo-Fi Massahkah** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 7:37 pm

Alexander wrote:Is it possible to use the thumbpad to control one of lives x-y controller ?

Well... The thumbpad isn't analog, so what you could do is assign a keystroke or macro to each direction of the pad, but not fully assign it to the x/y controller.

That's an update for the Nostromo N55 - an analog stick instead of the directional pad. Jausa!

supster · Post by **supster** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 8:00 pm

Interesting you should bring that up:

Just before I bought this, my last tech project was turning my PS2 Dualshock controller into a MIDI controller.. Main goal was to use the two analog sticks as XY controllers for Live.

But, I checked out all of the homegrown software that has been written so far and none of it could get everything working 100%.

Software was either not totally debugged, did not work for everything, and or was too cumbersome and unreliable to deal with.

Since the Speedpad is about a million times more practical and useful than that setup - for so many other things - I've concentrated on using this in my setup ... as someone just said ... I think the thumbpad would need to be analog in order to convert to MIDI XY

.. but the Speedpad is just amazing for everything else Ive asked it to do.

Alexander wrote:This thing looks cool....
I´ve a question to those who already own it:
The manual says something about a DI (MS direct input ? ) Joystick compatiblity. I once read about a tool, that cool transform a pc joystick into a midi controller. Is it possible to use the thumbpad to control one of lives x-y controller ?
In Germany you can get one for less than 30,- €

supster · Post by **supster** » Mon Jan 17, 2005 8:01 pm

ejectorset wrote:couldnt you mount (velcro?) it to something lightweight and flat (small piece of thin wood?) and strap that to your wrist. just a thought.

interesting thought but, no .. its too heavy and the layout doesnt really lend itself to that kind of thing.

Lowride · Post by **Lowride** » Fri Feb 04, 2005 11:34 pm

Only just got my new toy, and it seems pretty neat.
I disagree with the guy that say it's too heavy. You could possibly afix some kind of velcor strap to it, but it my make it just a little bit too easy to hit buttons when you don't mean to. What I noticed though is that soem kinf of custom built wedge (sort of like a wide doorstop) would be handy to make the controller point away from you. If you had that, it would mean that live playing when stood up wouldn't be such an ergonomic issue.

Still to have a play with it though - I'll let you guys know how I get on...

Lowride

Belkin Nostromo n-52 Speedpad .. unreal!

just picked one up......

Belkin controller