>>Serious question: what do y'all do about the 1980's-era idiocy of MIDI, in that it only has 127 steps in its CC's (sheesh, not even a lousy byte!). Do you burn two controllers with fine/coarse adjustments? If so, how do you determine the scale for fine and/or coarse?<<

one thing i have done in pd is turn my midi controller into an accelerator.  it's a bit different to use, but is really good for filter sweeps and stuff like that.

quick explanation:

1) scale the midi data into a nice curve between -1 and 1

[ctlin]
|
[- 64]
|
[/ 64]
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[expr pow($f1, 3)]

2)   add a flat spot in the middle of the curve so that midi data between 55 ->75 will cause zero acceleration

[* 100]
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[div 100]
|
[/ 100]

3) use this acceleration data to feed a counter


(bit hard to draw here, so see attached patch)