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0 pointslaserlight4y ago0 comments

Can you give some pointers? I’m interested in using non-traditional input devices but don’t know where to start.

0 comments

At least in linux, midi devices can be read just like any other character device. It's not a ton of work to read the midi data and translate it to keypresses or whatever else you want.

I used to have a Griffin Powermate and did something similar with it. It was a ton of fun.

laserlightOP4y ago

Thanks for the suggestion. I looked up some devices, but all of them cater to musicians -- obviously -- and therefore don't have many different types of input. Korg nanokontrol and nanokontrol studio seem to be the best ones in this regard. I wish there was a device made for hackers with small and large knobs and buttons, horizontal and vertical sliders, touch panels, etc.

For Mac users, BetterTouchTool [0] allows assigning system-wide actions to MIDI inputs. I haven't used its MIDI capabilities, but I happily use its other features.

[0] BetterTouchTool. https://folivora.ai

hiptobecubic4y ago

They cater to musicians because that's what midi was invented for. At the end of the day it's just a protocol and you can interpret it however you like. Any random midi controller will work great.

My relatively cheap keyboard has midi over USB and I was able to dump raw midi into a terminal after five minutes of googling.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

hiptobecubic4y ago

At least in linux, midi devices can be read just like any other character device. It's not a ton of work to read the midi data and translate it to keypresses or whatever else you want.

I used to have a Griffin Powermate and did something similar with it. It was a ton of fun.

laserlightOP4y ago

For Mac users, BetterTouchTool [0] allows assigning system-wide actions to MIDI inputs. I haven't used its MIDI capabilities, but I happily use its other features.

[0] BetterTouchTool. https://folivora.ai

hiptobecubic4y ago

They cater to musicians because that's what midi was invented for. At the end of the day it's just a protocol and you can interpret it however you like. Any random midi controller will work great.

My relatively cheap keyboard has midi over USB and I was able to dump raw midi into a terminal after five minutes of googling.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse