M8 and Kaoss Pad.
Most of my week was spent designing and building a custom MIDI controller for an upcoming show I have.
This song was designed as a sort of live ambient jam so that I could use the knobs to edit parameters in real time.
It didn't turn out exactly how I envisioned because I didn't have much time with the controller fully complete and functional, but it's alright.
More details about the controller:
I originally bought some MIDI controllers but they didn't have the features I needed, so I bit the bullet and built my own.
It uses endless knobs, so I can save and load their virtual positions in software.
Knobs also have push buttons, which is useful for inputting settings.
The two buttons let you navigate between different modes so you can change settings, as well as save and load configurations.
If you hold either of the buttons, they act as modifiers.
In the default MIDI Send mode, they make the knobs functionally act as completely separate knobs.
Because of this there are 7 real knobs and 14 additional virtual knobs (you could add a fourth layer for 21 virtual knobs by holding both buttons but I didn't think it was worth it).
It lets you shape the velocity curve per-knob and set its sensitivity.
It also lets you set MIDI CCs for each knob.
It can share MIDI CC values intelligently between knobs.
So if you set one knob with a MIDI CC, any other knob with that same MIDI CC will be updated.
I'm experimenting with sending to multiple MIDI CCs for each knob but not sure how that will work with sharing CCs.
Being able to save and load these settings is great for the M8.
Instead of having to remember to set knobs to certain starting positions for each song, I can just load.
Overall, having a MIDI controller during a show should be great for tweaking parameters.
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