Using a Rock Band keyboard with the QinHeng USB MIDI adapter Long title, I know, but I’m going go into details on just what it says on the tin. As you may know, the new Rock Band 3 game has a keyboard controller that has a real MIDI port on it, allowing it to be used as a controller for…

Inexpensive USB MIDI interfaces Following some of my recent posts, I’m looking into finding inexpensive audio/MIDI ephemera for use with inexpensive audio nodes like the Raspberry PI running Pure Data. Since a PI only costs 35USD or so, it doesn’t make that much sense to have to get a 40USD MIDI interface for it right? Actually, don’t answer this question…

Cheap USB audio interfaces – SYBA SD-CM-UAUD (C-Media) I’ve written a little bit about using the Raspberry PI for audio, but as you may know, the PI doesn’t support audio input. However, this is easily solved by adding a USB audio interface. In addition to use with the Raspberry PI, I thought it would be kind of cool to have…

Alternative performance interfaces I’m a big proponent of getting out from behind the laptop screen and especially just getting out from behind the table that most electronic live acts tend to stand behind. I found this passage in Hans-Christoph Steiner’s piece in the Bang Book: > Performers of live computer music generally stare at the screen intently while performing, rather…

The setup is the instrument I’ve been toying with various methods of MIDI control lately as you guys know, and conceptually I’m pushing the idea that the software configuration is part of the instrument. That is, something like a key split or CC controller mapping is essentially part of your instrument as much as the whammy bar and tone control…

Methods of (MIDI) control I’m setting up my controllers for live PA but I’m not completely sure how I’m going to get things set up. I have a keyboard controller, a foot pedal and a drum pad. I think I’m going to mount the drum pad onto the keyboard controller somehow. I’m still up in the air on how to…

Edirol PCR-30 keyboard repair I’ve had to tear down my PCR-30 more times than I can count now. I’m starting to wonder why I keep putting up with this keyboard. If I didn’t like the feel of it so much I’d probably ditch it in favor of something else. In any case here are some photos of one of my…

Troubleshooting the Casio DG-20 fretboard I’ve owned a Casio DG-20 for a few years now, and while I play it every once in a while, it hasn’t been one of my main instruments. However, I’m interested in using it as a controller for my livepa rig so I wanted to get it set up better. This includes fixing some dead…

Meeblip open source synth I’m thinking about how some other projects have approached open source hardware. Some of the projects I’m modeling my thinking on are the MIDI Fighter and the Aurora open source DJ mixer. Well today I realized that there was an open source synth put together by the Create Digital Music guys called Meeblip. This thing looks…

Developing DSSI plugins I was looking around for a sampler instrument on Linux to test my Pedal Fighter project with, and while I remembered Specimen from a while ago, I remembered that there weren’t many samplers out there apart from the Linux Sampler project (which I’ve had problems with in the past – way too complicated for quick setups). I…