Ableton Forum

could I cut it open, rearrange the keys into a more practical arrangement, and put it back together, makeing my own controler? has anyone done this? does it work?

Good idea, should work!

Greetings

Steve

loren! wrote:could I cut it open, rearrange the keys into a more practical arrangement, and put it back together, makeing my own controler? has anyone done this? does it work?

and how would you write a simple email? or can you connect more to 1 keyboard to your PC and with both of them control Live? maybe I am saying something stupid...

AFAIK, you can gonnect two keynoards and both will work. One will need to be USB though.

one great thing about this is that lives qwerty assign is case sensitive.

i have a usb KB that i plug into my laptop and keep on caps for more keys to assign.

why not use something like a game controller, it may be simpler !

check out this thread from a long long time ago
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=19337

Angstrom wrote:why not use something like a game controller, it may be simpler !

check out this thread from a long long time ago
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=19337

I just ordered the PS2 --> USB adaptor to hook my Playstation controller up to controll 2 XY axis and 16 functions

But the custom keyboard idea is a good one as well ... hmm ...

I tried this with my Apple Pro Keyboard. Here are my steps for making a practical setup for a keyboard controller.

1 - Get a keyboard that you can remove the keys from by poping them out.
2 - Get some spray paint, "black and green for this live 4 controller"
3 - Take out the keys
4 - Spray paint the keys Green and spray paint the keyboard board black.

5 -only put back the keys this tells you to ....put back the keys like this...

Live only accepts the letter areas for controlling, but we will keep a few other keys like the tab are and the caps lock for doubling our controller.

For a basic 6 row from right to left keyboard "Apple Pro is a good example"

KEY --- O = NO KEY ///// [ANYTHING] = KEY ///// - = key section divisions ///// X = no place for a key.

O-OOOO-OOOO-OOOO--OOO--OOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO--OOO--OOOO
[CONTROL][1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]OOOO--OOO--OOOO
[CAPSLOCK][F1][F2][F3][F4][F5][F6][F7][F8][F9]--XXX--OOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOO--XOX--OOOX
OOO[SPACEBAR]OOO--OOO--OXOO

6- enjoy your new black and green keyboard controller. matching colors of ableton live will brighten your spirits!

hi i am also thinking to hook another keyboard on to my lap-top,and use it to control live 4,but what can you control with that keyboard??

front line

i was thinking if you could show us some pictures of your project??that would be cool??

another question is there a way too build some knobs in too the keyboard??

no, keyboards can only send midi messages that are ether 0 or 127, or on or off. they are just sensor pads.

and i can't post pictures but i can make a diagram in photoshop.. ill post it tomorrow.

Curious!

I'd recommend you have a look at the Nostromo Speedpad (intended for gaming), made by Belkin.

It's a small USB keyboard for one hand... each key can be mapped to what ever key you desire, using the driver. In fact, I believe that even *sequences* of keys can be mapped to a single Speedpad key.

Anyway, it's cheap, and easily configurable using the driver.


http://catalog.belkin.com/IWCatProductP ... Id=157024#

Cheers

dude, i really like this idea.

what i like is

1) keyboards are friggin cheap

2) you don't have to load any driver or anything to work with the interface, one less things to worry about causing a conflict and possibly locking up your laptop playing live.

thanks for thinking outside the box

Jon

readers of this thread might be interested in this hardware:

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-16045-1608-x-x-x

looks pretty cool!