[LAD] help on creating MIDI from linux input events

Hello to all, I would like to write a program which does the following: detect the input events generated by a usb device which i own - the Rig Kontrol 2 from Native Instruments which is a pedal board intended for guitar use and which already has a linux driver - and trigger with those midi messages; i.e, pushing a button would create a midi note on/off, rolling the pedal a midi CC. As said, the pedal produces already linux input events so it would be a matter of creating a midi client (jack or alsa), grab these events and create midi from them. I would then use these midi messages to control Jack applications (mostly rakarrack) My C/programming knowledge is basic, so I ask your advice: 1) would it be easier to achieve this through jack or alsa? I'm confused here because jack applications i use - hydrogen for example - for what concerns midi, they all appear under the ALSA tab in qjackctl's Connection window. Are they really alsa midi clients being wrapped by jack? Is there a reason for writing alsa midi clients instead of native jack midi clients? So my problem is if i should learn the jack api or the alsa one. 2) Once I've decided on 1), which is the best place to document myself? I would prefer, if possible, to learn only what i need for this simple project - which for me btw is anything but simple. I mean not learning the whole jack or alsa api if i'm only going to use the basics. I really want to do this, but as you can see it's a difficult project for me. It would be wonderful if someone could give me kind of detailed advice on what "bricks" i'll need: relevant functions from the apis, general code structure and well, anything that will make me life easier :) thank you, Renato