WirelessPocketPC MIDI Controller Ended

gafferuk · Post by **gafferuk** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:00 am

mikemc wrote:You need to be able to 'gang' faders and other controls, or else you've just shrunk the one pointer/one control problem.

That's what live 6 racks does if i'm not mistaken, assign midi control to more than one fader/knob.

gafferuk · Post by **gafferuk** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:38 am

I won't be finishing off this project as ive discovered a problem with live, you can only assign one controller to a fader/knob so if you use my pocketPC controller on a effect you can't use your existing midi control gear as well.
Shame i didnt include this in live 6 wishlist, may be lve 7? But i would imagine it would require a major rewrite of live.

zappen · Post by **zappen** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:06 am

could not be possible to merge the 2 midi streams with some virtual midi cable? i think there was a utility that has that function..
if you have done some progress already, i wish you just release it as general pocket midi controller.

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:34 am

technically you can assign two controls to one thing (at least you could in live 5 - haven't checked in 6 yet). live doesn't seem to bother about which input the control is coming from, only which midi channel. so if you have two separate controllers both sending the same cc on the same channel they should work fine on a single assignment. if live could sort between the different control inputs and allow different assignments based on that it'd be sweet, but how often do you really need that?

what you need to do is allow the controllers in your pocketPC setup to be assigned to different midi cc's so that you could configure it to work in with your existing setup.

i'd be interested to see it if you finish it anyway (not that i have a pocketpc yet mind you...) as i've often played in pretty small venues where it'd be nice to have a tiny little configurable controller. the only semi regular gig i play is too small to take any controllers other than a mouse so something like this would be perfect!!

i've been looking out for something like this for a while and nobody has done it yet so i've put getting a pocketpc on hold...

gafferuk · Post by **gafferuk** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:21 am

Clearscreen wrote:technically you can assign two controls to one thing (at least you could in live 5 - haven't checked in 6 yet). live doesn't seem to bother about which input the control is coming from, only which midi channel.

Does that include midi output? will ableton send out midi messages to more than 1 device?

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:23 am

In live 6, you assign as many parameters as you want to 1 knob.

You don't need macro's for this. It's a global improvement.

gafferuk · Post by **gafferuk** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:27 am

hoffman2k wrote:In live 6, you assign as many parameters as you want to 1 knob.

You don't need macro's for this. It's a global improvement.

Thanks, that's great to know. Ill presume that's the same for midi output, ableton sending out midi messages to more than one midi device.

gafferuk · Post by **gafferuk** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:44 am

hoffman2k wrote:In live 6, you assign as many parameters as you want to 1 knob.

You don't need macro's for this. It's a global improvement.

How do you do this? because when i asign a control to a fader it replaces the previous assignment. Any ideas?

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 11:52 am

gafferuk wrote:
hoffman2k wrote:In live 6, you assign as many parameters as you want to 1 knob.

You don't need macro's for this. It's a global improvement.
Thanks, that's great to know. Ill presume that's the same for midi output, ableton sending out midi messages to more than one midi device.

I don't think thats possible.

I'll give an example of what i mentioned:

You can map CC10 to multiple parameters in Live. (like instrument and effect parameters)

I'm not sure if that is the case with the mixer faders. But i would just use an automapping protocol to use those.
That way you wont actually have to remap messages, everytime you change the tracks position.

gafferuk · Post by **gafferuk** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:24 pm

Im back on track. Thanks Clearscreen for your advice. As long as I use same channel and cc I can use any controller and which is great is ableton sends out cc's to all controllers on same channel.

Now that I have to have a dialog to change cc's on the pocketPC for every control means A LOT more work. Now I understand why there isn't a free PocketPC Midi controller available already. Im quite surprised one isn't available to buy thougth.

So ill end up with worlds first PocketPC Midi Controller? Now Im wondering if I should charge say $20 dollars for it? Im guessing it's going to take about 40,000+ lines of code for the program.
Thats around 50 lines of code per control for both the PC application and PocketPC application.
Thats 50 * 2 * 400 controls = 40,000!

I'm thinking about scraping the idea about bulding it around ableton and building a general midi controller with 4 outputs so can control 4 pieces of equipment/software? I would imagine that being quite useful?

Could also use it to control things around the home like lighting and heating etc but thats just a after thought.

Thanks all for your advice so far...

apalomba · Post by **apalomba** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:26 pm

While we are on the topic of PocketPCs, I was wondering if anyone knew
of a good PocketPC sequencer for making music when I am on the go.
A sequencer that allowed me to load samples would be great.
Any suggestions?

gafferuk · Post by **gafferuk** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:32 pm

apalomba wrote:While we are on the topic of PocketPCs, I was wondering if anyone knew
of a good PocketPC sequencer for making music when I am on the go.
A sequencer that allowed me to load samples would be great.
Any suggestions?

Try Griff.

zappen · Post by **zappen** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 3:38 pm

Go on gafferuk, you are creating something really special!

gafferuk · Post by **gafferuk** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 4:04 pm

zappen wrote:Go on gafferuk, you are creating something really special!

Thanks! I am surprised no one else have made such a piece of kit.

Will be a little while before i release a beta version, i had to take my old PocketPC back to store few months age, got to buy a new one.

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Thu Oct 19, 2006 1:34 am

as far as i can tell, you'll be the first to do this! i had a pretty good google over a couple of nights at one point as i was looking at getting a pocketpc and being able to use it as a controller would've tipped me over the edge. i found a couple of people talking about it, but noone actually doing it.

it's up to you whether you charge for this i guess. it's a difficult question to answer whether people would pay, and if you do charge people for it you'd have to provide reasonable support for the finished product, which may prove a pain in the arse...

i'd certainly be prepared to pay a reasonable fee for it, mainly as it would seem to suit a specific need i have, but as for anyone else... i have no idea how much demand there'd be...