12 Jul
2010
12 Jul
'10
5:26 p.m.
I'm not sure if I got all your questions right,
but I'd summarize the
situation as follows.
- The Native Instruments Audio Kontrol 1 is fully supported by Linux. It
can playback and record audio just like under Windows or Mac OS X.
Great!
- It can also receive and send out MIDI messages over
the standard 5-pin
connectors. The userspace interface is standard ALSA MIDI.
Awesome :)
- The LEDs are controlable via the ALSA mixer/control
interface (see the
amixer command line control interface for example)
But aren't the LEDs dependent on the hardware switches?
- The three buttons and the wheel are exported as
Linux input interface,
just like the buttons on the Rig Kontrol 2 and 3. You would need to
write your own software to actually use them (which is easy), or write
some mappings for existing software (which should even be easier).
Renato explained that nicely in his reply to your post.
Yes. I think i can hack something that emulates a MIDI interface,
using ALSA or JACK.
- Don't let the NI manuals confuse you. What NI
says about the buttons
producing MIDI events only refers to their own mapping application. We
transport button events etc. via a propietary kernel interface on OS X
and Windows, and the NI mapping application takes this information and
can optionally feed faked MIDI messages into the MIDI stream.
The Linux driver itself doesn't do anything like that, but you're free
to write a similar application that does the same thing under Linux.
Yes, that's what I had in mind :)
- There are currently no devices ready for purchase
that comply to the
USB audio class version 2 standard.
So, I assume this one is not standard... well, otherwise it'd be using
usb-audio instead, no?
This is mainly because the
standard wasn't implemented in any operating system until some months
ago. That situation has changed for ALSA and Mac OS X recently, and
so we can expect to see more devices in the future. They'll be all
supported then without any special driver. Stay tuned for a brave new
world ;)
Great :)
Hope that answers (most) of your questions. If you
want any more
information, please let me know. Feel free to forward this mail to the
LAU mailing list.
Thanks a lot for your very detailed answer!
Cheers,
Pedro