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dragster · Post by **dragster** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 8:18 am

I'm looking at these 4 xy controllers for zebra2 and I'm wondering what kind of hardware solutions are out there. This could be really cool for live performance. Can anyone recommend a controller for zebra? Does anyone use it live?
cheers,
d.

tangentmusic · Post by **tangentmusic** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 9:47 am

Novation x-station(with inbuilt synth)
M-Audio Axiom.
alesis photon.

dont own zebra but these all have a xy contrller on them.

stale bread · Post by **stale bread** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 9:50 am

man i was thinking the same thing, i wonder if there is a controller with like 4 xy pads on it that would be intresting for sure

Urs · Post by **Urs** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 10:34 am

I have been thinking about this for years. Unfortunately track pads have been too sluggish while joysticks have been too expensive.

But I saw something just a couple of days ago. A really good and affordable joystick. I'm going to contact the manufacturer soon and see if he's interested in a ZebraCon.

Urs

symplectiq · Post by **symplectiq** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:40 pm

Urs wrote:I have been thinking about this for years. Unfortunately track pads have been too sluggish while joysticks have been too expensive.

But I saw something just a couple of days ago. A really good and affordable joystick. I'm going to contact the manufacturer soon and see if he's interested in a ZebraCon.

Urs

I hope it will look like one.

bmrzycki · Post by **bmrzycki** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:42 pm

I use a Kaosspad 2 and a very hackish command line program I wrote that massages the KP2 midi to something a bit more palatable to the 4 XY pads.

The good news is finding a KP2 used is fairly easy. And one of these days I hope to write the program properly in JUCE...

It actually works very well.

beej · Post by **beej** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 4:55 pm

You could always get four Wavestations - they're quite cheap now because of the software version...

(Beej - who has just one Wavestation... and the software version)

symplectiq · Post by **symplectiq** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:01 pm

To clear up the pic. It's a hungry user (lion) trying to reach to control of zebra, joystick (tail of zebra).

bmrzycki · Post by **bmrzycki** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:23 pm

tangentmusic wrote:M-Audio Axiom.
dont own zebra but these all have a xy contrller on them.

I own the Axiom 49 and I can say it does not have an XY pad. It has 8 sliders which can be mapped to the 4 XY's but it's definitely not the same as a real XY pad.

raikard233 · Post by **raikard233** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 6:45 pm

I've builded one year ago a midibox with 64knobs and 64 buttons, it works perfectly, no a single problem.
Now i'm thinking to build some custom boxes for single vsti that i use often, designed over the main parameters and they will use buttons and encoders to keep out the different values that can come with program changes.
In the forum of the midibox project some peoples are searching a way to have these xy pads and over this thing i've thought about a 4 pad ctrl to use with zebra.
There's a manufacturer that is developing an xy pad that act like 2 pots, and the great thing is that they "stores" the lasts values. But seems that no news are out right now.

Here's the forum where you can find some infos:
http://www.midibox.org/forum/

MitchK1989 · Post by **MitchK1989** » Sat Dec 08, 2007 7:43 pm

a controller with nothing on it but 4 joysticks would be so unbelievably kickass.

amoeba · Post by **amoeba** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:26 am

MitchK1989 wrote:a controller with nothing on it but 4 joysticks would be so unbelievably kickass.

i've been wanting something like this since i started using zebra. i almost think trackballs would be even better than joysticks tho. like an 80's arcade game (missile command?). they would need a 0,0 button for each, tho. in fact, any controller could use those.
still, pads could be very cool too - you could tap them to "jump" the input a bit. get some really cool stutter effects that way.

amoeba · Post by **amoeba** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 12:36 am

amoeba wrote:(missile command?)

that just got me thinking - what about 4 old trackball mice like this? i wonder, is it possible to intercept mouse input and just map it to whatever you want? hmmmm....

politcat · Post by **politcat** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:32 am

i'm getting an axiom for xmas. I thought the closest i'd get is to have a sort of etch-a-sketch setup by assigning one knob each to X and Y and move them at the same time the way the toy works. Am I crazy to think it would work like that? I can't try it until the 25th, ha!

bmrzycki · Post by **bmrzycki** » Sun Dec 09, 2007 7:38 am

politcat wrote:i'm getting an axiom for xmas. I thought the closest i'd get is to have a sort of etch-a-sketch setup by assigning one knob each to X and Y and move them at the same time the way the toy works. Am I crazy to think it would work like that? I can't try it until the 25th, ha!

I have used both the knobs and the sliders as inputs to the XY pads. I have to say they really don't give the same expressive feel as a real pad (or even the mouse).

Jumping parameters, snapping back to zero, and smooth angular movements are probably the 3 biggest differences to me.

However, a slider or knob works wonderful if you just use one X or Y as a macro for 2-8 parameters. If you want interaction between X and Y, a pad (and I would assume a joystick) works much better.

u-he

KVR Audio

hardware controllers