So I had this idea, and I wonder how hard it would be to build. Disclaimer: I have no real experience building electronics except for my PC (which has to be beginner level building). So I'd probably look to pay someone to do this for me, if it's even feasible.
Basically the idea is to put an endless encoder on the left side of a QWERTY keyboard w/ a touchpad on the right side (probably modifying a existing keyboard with touchpad is best).
In my fantasy, you navigate your DAW (in my case ableton) with the touchpad on the right side, and when you click on a fader or other control area in the daw and hold down the clicker, the endless encoder on the left side automagically controls that parameter. If this isn't possible, then maybe there's a shortcut to put the DAW into midi learn right next to the encoder, so you can very quickly map and remap the encoder seamlessly as you click around your DAW making all kinds of adjustments on the fly.
Is this something that a skilled modder can pull off relatively easily and somewhat cheaply? I'm willing to invest in the idea if it's possible.
The keyboard would also be skinned with all the keyboard shortcuts for Ableton too, of course.
QWERTY keyboard with touchpad and endless encoder
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- Beware the Quoth
- 35449 posts since 4 Sep, 2001 from R'lyeh Oceanic Amusement Park and Funfair
The hardware isnt, really, so hard. There are 3rd party touchpads out there, its just a spare USB connection. The encoder, less common, although sorta easy for anyone who knows their way around an Arduino or the like.
http://echolevel.tumblr.com/post/497379 ... -echolevel
http://www.yankodesign.com/2013/06/21/lone-as-in-1/
Getting those things to play the way you want, though, would need a DAW which had all that functionality in the first place , and some (scriptable?) way of driving it from specific external devices in that particular manner. Maybe a custom Ableton or Bitwig thing could do the control side, probably less so for other DAWs though unlessyou can set your hardware up to look like a single MIDI controller.
http://echolevel.tumblr.com/post/497379 ... -echolevel
http://www.yankodesign.com/2013/06/21/lone-as-in-1/
Getting those things to play the way you want, though, would need a DAW which had all that functionality in the first place , and some (scriptable?) way of driving it from specific external devices in that particular manner. Maybe a custom Ableton or Bitwig thing could do the control side, probably less so for other DAWs though unlessyou can set your hardware up to look like a single MIDI controller.
An idiot on Set Theory:
"In some cases there is an object called red that contains everything that is red. In much the same way a pot is a plate."
"In some cases there is an object called red that contains everything that is red. In much the same way a pot is a plate."
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- KVRAF
- 10136 posts since 16 Dec, 2002
I recently bought a Wacom Bamboo for £20, total bargain and works great using fingers or stylus.
Also works great as a midi controller with wmidi.
I previously bought a Griffin powermate to use as an encoder as you describe but it outputs values in steps, couldn't find any remedy for this on Windows. Shame as its a well made.
Also works great as a midi controller with wmidi.
I previously bought a Griffin powermate to use as an encoder as you describe but it outputs values in steps, couldn't find any remedy for this on Windows. Shame as its a well made.