SteamSHIFT

Custom USB Keyboard for Controlling Ableton Live

I just finished reworking an old USB QWERTY keyboard to serve as a custom keyboard for controlling Ableton Live, and thought you might like a look. The whole thing is well-documented with photos and comments at my Flickr site:

flickr set: Custom keyboard for Ableton Live

The basic idea: instead of buying an expensive controller to expand my tactile control of Ableton Live (or building something custom with MIDI controllers), I decided to use an old USB QWERTY keyboard and custom-paint it to enhance its use as a live performance device.

The big idea behind the keyboard is that the humble QWERTY keyboard offers a ton of control possibilities, thanks to the flexible keymapping capabilities of Ableton Live. I’ve been using the built-in keyboard on my Powerbook for a while now to trigger clips in performance, but it’s tough for a couple reasons. First, it looks like you’re writing e-mail during a show, and that’s kinda boring. Second, all the keys look the same (minus the markings, of course) - there’s not much that lets you navigate easily in low-light conditions and in the heat of the moment on stage.

You can see a full write-up here:

custom USB QWERTY keyboard for Ableton Live [Ableton forum]

Simple and yet effective!!

(Via createdigitalmusic.com.)

New version (BCF2000_1.1.dmg) available now. Download and enjoy!

What’s new?

• Auto update system.
• Code clean-up ready for new features!

Ever since I started using a BCF2000 midi controller for my visual experiments with Quartz Composer, I have been left with the problem of having to carry the controller around with me if I want to do any work with my patches; which makes it all rather less portable. The answer; a virtual BCF2000.

I put this to my friend Joe and we began work; here is the fruit of that labour:- I proudly present the Virtual BCF2000. It is built using Cocoa.

There are a few things you need to know:-

1. It requires MidiPipe or similar; this is because it doesn’t act as a midi endpoint in and of itself - it requires an application to do that for it.
2. Because of the origin of the application, it is designed to work in a very specific way; it is designed to mimic the way that the BCF2000 controller works once you have applied Steve Mokris’ Quartz Composer Sysex files. In short, this basically maps all of the buttons (barring the encoder group buttons) as midi controllers.

Usage

First launch MidiPipe and create a new pipe - with just a midi in element and a midi out element. Then launch the BCF2000 application; you can now select the MidiPipe midi input from the drop down list. For control of Garageband, for example, that’s all you have to do.

Enjoy (and if you use it let us know how we can make it better). SteamSHIFT out.

Technorati Tags:
VJ, quartz composer, midi, mac, osx, bcf2000, cocoa

I realised that in my last BCF2000 controls macro, I hadn’t put the rotary encoder push buttons, so here is a new version with them in. Same caveat about needing the Kineme plugins, still applies.

Technorati Tags:
VJ, quartz composer

Quick post with a handy little counting macro; on receiving a signal it counts from 0 to 1 (over the specified time period), and then stops. When it receives another signal, it counts back down again. I’m sure there are other ways of doing this, but it works.

Technorati Tags:
VJ, quartz composer, mac, osx

Building on Steve Mokris’ great patches, here is a quartz composer macro with all of the controls of the Behringer BCF2000 midi controller mapped on (based on Steve’s Sysex files). All of the outputs are normalised to QC (0-1). It takes a single input to set the channel (defaults to 0).

NB: This is nothing that anyone else couldn’t do, it’s just posted here as a timesaver for anyone else! Also, you must have Steve Mokris’ plugins installed.

Technorati Tags:
VJ, quartz composer, hardware, midi, mac, osx, gear, performance, Peripherals, bcf2000

Perhaps it would be useful if I also linked the zip archive of the materials!

Due to the excellent work done by Steve Mokris with his MIDI CC in and out patches, I present a tiny little proof of concept…

This has 3 parts:-

1. a midi pipe (you’ll need the MidiPipe application) which (in this case) just routes an input to an output.
2. An output composition:- included is just one that sends a looping controller value from 0-127 and back again.
3. An input composition:- this simple receives the controller value and shows the value on screen

You will need to run all 3 at the same time. This allows you to control 1 composition from another. Why would I want to do this? Well here’s one scenario …

I have a VJ presentation running full screen on a projector, and I want to be able to choose from a list of movies to play. The list of movies could be on the midi output composition with thumbnails, running on my laptop’s built in screen. When I click on an thumbnail in the output composition, it sends a midi message with a numeric reference to the movie requested. The input composition receives the message, looks up the number in a list of movies and swaps it into the composition.

The big advantage of this way of doing things over creating an application? Both compositions can be edited on the fly, and I don’t have to learn how to create applications!!

SteamSHIFT out.

Technorati Tags:
VJ, quartz composer, mac, osx, motion graphics, experiments

Over at Create Digital Motion a while ago there was a post about Better quality projection over longer wires: S-Video to CAT5 Baluns

A staple of the security industry, video baluns allow you to send S-Video, Composite, Component or even VGA signals through normal CAT5 ethernet cable. This allows a far greater cable run with less loss of quality. They’re reasonably inexpensive and since discovering them I’ve taken a couple and a hefty coil of CAT5 to every gig, locally and internationally. They’ve saved my signal many times, both from the ignominy of composite and the embarassment of "What? The stage manager didn’t say that you’d have to bring your own cable for the projector? Well no, we do’t make the DJ bring his own speakers and hook up foldback 15 minutes before the doors upen, but you’re a VJ, you should be used to backbreaking toil and endless disappointment."

To Anglicise it a little:

These are VGA versions (£ 105 + VAT), you can also get any number of variations of s-video, component video etc. A good UK supplier seems to be CyberSelect.

(Via Create Digital Motion.)

Technorati Tags:
VJ, hardware, technology, accessories, cables, gear, performance

I recently acquired a Behringer BCF2000 midi controller, and wanted to use with Quartz Composer. A quick google turned up the quartz composer patches and sysex files that Steve Mokris (aka Softpixel) had produced for this device. Bonus thought I and downloaded the software from Behringer to apply the files. It didn’t work and I left the project for another day…

Technorati Tags:
VJ, quartz composer, midi, mac, osx, windows xp, parallels, bcf2000

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