[LAU] control surfaces

[Len Ovens]

On Tue, 9 Sep 2014, Kelly Hirai wrote:

> hey linux audio users,
>  about a year ago i purchased the korg nanokontrol one when they were
> dumping them to make room for the nanokontrol II. the last month i'm
> finally getting to using it for some csound live processing. but im
> beginning to find shortcomings. for one i could use more knobs. also
> 14bits of resolution would be nice. finally it would be nice if when i
> reassign the knobs it would be nice to be able start from the values
> they are operating on.
>
> so im looking into the bcr-2000-b by behringer. any linux users had any
> experience with this device?  any other device suggestions for a budget
> minded music coder?

Lots of rotary encoders, looks good. I don't have one. The spec does say 
something like 7 bits for the controllers but 14 bit if you hold down an 
alt key. As in I think you can get the MS 7 bits by turning and the works 
by holding down one of the switches. My advice is to read the manual:
http://www.behringer.com/assets/BCF2000_BCR2000_M_EN.pdf
Then go over to your local music store and ask to try one out. Plug it 
into your laptop and try things. This is the way I do things... and I 
don't always buy either  :)

If you want really cheap  :)  I have a program that will allow you to have 
a jack MIDI port from a 10* key computer keyboard (USB). I have seen these 
for $3 in the local dollar store (I bought three). There is code to use 
two keys as up/down keys to fake an encoder or pitch control. I used the 
key rep to go up/down by 2s or 10s. I was able to fake a Mackie control 
surface (five channels not 8 though). My next trick will be to hook up a 
real encoder to two of the keys... After we clean up from the small flood 
we had :(  The program is not complete, comes as src and has no 
./configure so you would have to figure out what libs you need. (I think 
the only thing I added was libjack-jackd2-dev over the normal libc stuff) 
It is based on actkbd (and can be used as such even with the mods I have 
done).

Docs are not there yet :( but follow the same path as the original.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net