if i buy a controller

[daf]

i'm thinking about buying a MIDI controller to plug in to my computer
i like the look of this one: http://www.novationmusic.com/news.asp?id=85

but i don't really know anything about MIDI or hooking stuff up in that dept.
so I was wondering at all whether you can get the maximum out of these things in SC,
can you usually do everything via MIDI if you know what you're up to?
eg. i want to use the LED strip on the novation one

Dewdrop world mate, i got you in mind writing this a bit because of your
MIDI M-V-C thread ( good stuff, thanx   but what does everyone use them for

Sorry bit of a fuzzy question

[robo_creeler]

I recently bought an M-AUDIO trigger finger (it's like an empty MPC) for tapping drum trax into me drum machine - the SC side of things was well easy - but my sound card has a minimum of 512 samples buffer which means there's too much latency to play the thing live with any accuracy - this dicked me off quite badly.

MIDI is a bit shit tho.  you only get 127 values to play with per controller which isn't much if you're controlling filter frequency accross a 10000 Hz range.  pitch bend wheels have a much better range +/-8192??? so I think someone should just make a MIDI controller that consists of 16 pitchbend wheels!  much more use.

or sell a kidney and get a lemur jazz mutant thing - http://www.jazzmutant.com/

[dewdrop_world]

daf -- meant to reply to this some time ago but got really busy.

Yeah, go for the ReMOTE. It's a decent price point and I like the variety of controllers. You can even fit it into an airplane carry on.

Here's what I use mine for:

- keys: note input, triggering processes (the latter based on the MVC thread)
- knobs, mod wheel, pitch bend, touchpad: tweaking control values
- encoders (step controls): haven't found much practical use for them. I have a good way to use them to dial up values in a pop up menu (SelectorMIDIControl) but I need to tweak that code to make it generally useful.
- sliders: mixing board levels

I went back and forth for awhile on whether I should dynamically create and destroy MIDI controller objects as needed, or if I should pre-allocate them to match the hardware and then assign them to different targets during a performance. Eventually I decided on the latter. Especially for the mixer--I start up with eight empty mixer GUI slots, hooked up to the corresponding slider on the ReMOTE. Then, when I need to control something's level, I drop it into a slot on the GUI board and it's automatically ready to control by MIDI.

Yeah, I know MIDI is a limited technology, but it has the advantage of being cheap and well supported. You don't get very fine control for frequency ranges, but you can smooth it out and get rid of zipper noise by wrapping the control inputs in Lag.kr UGens.

hjh

[daf]

Thanks for the info both.
I'm excited about getting one now!