[LAU] hardware midi control--footswitch? or Jack audio transport

Len Ovens len at ovenwerks.net
Wed Jun 19 23:37:21 UTC 2013


On Wed, June 19, 2013 9:30 am, Rusty Perez wrote:
> Hi folks,
> If this seems like a stupid question, it's because I'm very new at this.
> Is there a way to control the jack transport system start/stop with a
> hardware controller or footpedal? I want to control jack, thereby
> controlling other jack aware applications which do not have
> implementations of start/stop via midi.

USB keyboards are cheap (I'm talking about the qwerty kind). Inside is a
tiny circuit board and lots of switches. Figure out the lines that go to
the space, left arrow, right arrow (or whatever you think would be
useful). Most programs will deal with key strokes. If you want it to be
separate from your desktop KB there are ways of doing that probably in X
or use a raspberry pi and run netjack and jack_transport or
jack.transport... Or no jack at all on the pi and just have it ssh into
your computer and run jack_transport.

The same thing can be used for making a foot switch to advance
impress/lyricue/or other presentation SW for displaying lyrics or a chord
chart for that matter.

Very simple project... put pc board in box, put how ever many 1/4 inch
jacks you want foot switches for. Get epiano sustain pedals to plug in
(make sure they are normally open or changeable). The pc card will have
two sets of contacts for scanning, so each switch will be connected one
contact on each set. I normally follow the traces back that go to the
switches I want. I don't know about now, but it used to be Yamaha and
Roland switches were opposite... One being NC and the other NO. Take an
Ohm meter to the music store :) (this one would work for sure:
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/KSP20/ as it is switch-able)

Don't worry about running out of switches... 101 should be enough to keep
your foot tapping happily.


-- 
Len Ovens
www.OvenWerks.net



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