Your feet are your two most valuable, underused extremities for music. Your hands are busy, but your feet can trigger transport, recording, looping, different instruments … you get the idea. All you need is a perfect controller.

AlexMC on the Ableton forum liked our $10 DIY footcontroller for Ableton Live, as engineered by Mike Una. But he thought he could do better. So he takes the design from ghetto-fabulous in Mike’s previous iteration to dead-sexy.

The starting point is again a USB QWERTY keyboard, but now AlexMC takes the brains out (the PCB that handles input from keys and communication with the PC). Alex has copiously detailed, step-by-step instructions for soldering and assembly, along with circuit diagrams and specs for the case. There’s even still an LED attachment.

And because it all sends keystrokes, this is hugely useful in something like Ableton Live:

I now have 21 buttons, 20 of which send up to 40 unique outputs depending on the status of the BANK switch…

The main intended use will be to control REC, PLAY and STOP for each of 12 separate tracks in Live, leaving three switches for:
- CAPS (i.e. BANK)
- Stop/fade out all tracks
- Tap tempo/engage metronome

Of course I can dynamically re-assign any function during a Live session by activating the Key Mapping function – without stopping the music.

Sure beats a Boss looping pedal, doesn’t it?

DIY Ableton foot controller build thread!

Thanks to gbsr for sending this out way!

Previously (and with additional tips on key mapping):

Get loopy with the DIY $10 Ableton Footcontroller (no soldering required)

Elsewhere (and in a slightly more compact form factor, as that’s what that author desired):

Okay, that’s my hand. But my feet are eager to stomp on this, too.

People looked at me funny when I told them the most promising gear I saw at the NAMM show was a foot controller.

Well, not just any foot controller. First off, the design and build quality are really exceptional, even in the pre-production model, as you’d hope from a premium-priced Moog box. But it’s brains, not beauty, that set it apart. The MP- 201 is a controller that finally gives your feet some intelligence.

Here’s Amos from Moog Music taking us through the MP-201 — including a peek at what’s coming between now and when the unit ships in the spring. And Amos is worth listening to, as he’s one of the folks working on presets for the unit.

NAMM08: Moog Multi Pedal Preview from cdm tv on Vimeo.

My first impressions of why it’s cool:

It triggers anything: Simultaneous control voltage, MIDI, and MIDI over USB means you can easily control analog hardware, digital hardware, and computers.

It does a whole lot: Four momentary footswitches and a pedal may not seem like much, but the MP-201 can transmit four channels simultaneously, and perform tasks like tap tempo.

It has built-in LFO functions with user-programmed rate, amount, and different waveforms (triangle, square, sawtooth, ramp, and sample-and-hold)

It’s adjustable and programmable: calibrate the footswitch, edit the settings, do SysEx dumps, adjust the lights, etc.

There is more I want to know — sure, there’s a quad-channel mode, but does that mean the footswitches are relegated exclusively to turning channels off and on? And just how programmable is it in terms of MIDI? And it’s not cheap: US$500, its expected price, makes it more expensive than Roland and Yamaha foot controllers with more input.

On the other hand, think about this: the Moog foot pedal promises to be more compact, better built, better looking, more programmable, and more connected than any of its competitors. Even if you don’t have analog gear to take advantage of CV, that could make it appealing even as a laptop controller. And unlike most other foot controllers, it gives you lots of capability without having a giant piece of gear at your feet — the main problem with the stompbox-style competitors.

Moog hopes you will connect this to a row of Moogerfoogers, for a kind of pricey Moog Multi-Effects Suite — like an integrated software bundle, only, you know, in hardware. But I think it could appeal even to people with other analog gear.

I can’t wait for it to come out. It’s making me try to think of ways to acquire something with control voltage inputs. But even with just a laptop, if could be interesting.

Here’s how to set up your own system in a similar hands-free operation style, for about US$10, without having to solder anything. It’ll take you about an hour once you gather the parts required, or less. No joke.

You will need:

• A QWERTY keyboard, preferably with a USB connector. Otherwise, you’ll have to buy an adapter to fit your laptop, which costs extra. You can get one for $7.50 at AllElectronics.com, but you can find them even cheaper at your local thrift store’s “technology pile.” I got mine for $2.
• A flathead screwdriver.
• Ableton Live. Ed.: Live is a perfect choice here, but you may find this useful with other music apps, as well — or even in a VJ set. -PK
• A free keyboard-mapping utility called Autohotkey (if you’re running Windows). If you’re running Mac, the program to use is calledIKey.

  That’s it. Here’s how to make it go:

  
  

  Above: Steps 1-2. Simple enough.

  1. You’re going to remove a significant number of the QWERTY keyboard’s keys, leaving only those spaced far enough apart to operate with your foot. Identify which keys you want to keep with a magic marker BEFORE you go hog-wild with the screwdriver, otherwise you’ll lose track of which is which. I ended up with 12 remaining keys, in two rows. Your feet may be smaller or bigger, so experiment with it.

  2. Glue some squares of larger, stiff material to the keys to give your foot a bigger target. I used some plastic lenses (20 cents apiece at American Science & Surplus) and hot glue. Epoxy or a plastic welding cement might work better in the long run.

  3. Plug the keyboard into your computer and boot up Ableton Live.

  4. Download and install either Autohotkey (WIN users) or IKey (Mac).

  5. Here’s the almost-tricky part: In Ableton Live, you need to create a new project with six audio tracks. Arm recording on all tracks. Turn off monitoring for all tracks except one.

  6. Use the keymappping function (click the “KEY” button in the upper right hand corner of Live’s screen) to assign a keystroke to each track’s “record/play” button. It doesn’t matter which keystrokes you assign, because we’re going to be remapping them anyways. For this example, the keys I used were !,@,d,h,k, l.

  7. Create a new script with Autohotkey and enter something similar to what’s pictured below. The 12 keys left on your QWERTY should be put at the start of each line. The idea is that as each key is depressed, Autohotkey remaps those into a sequence of keystrokes.

  I chose to have my top row of buttons select the track, delete whatever’s there, and begin recording. The bottom row of buttons hits “play” on the corresponding track, which stops recording and begins looping on the corresponding track. You can re-trigger loops this way also.

  Here’s an image of my keymaps in Live and the AutoHotkey script I made. Pretty simple, all things considered. I would be happy to share my blank Ableton set and accompanying AutoHotkey script to any windows users who need a little help getting started.

  
  

  If you’re running Mac, here’s an idea of what you’ll have to do using IKey. It’s very similar but slightly different. For instance, we permanently glued the shift key down, to skirt some of IKey’s trigger-key rules.
  

  8. Save the script, activate it (you’ll see the AutoHotKey icon appear in your taskbar), and you’re good to go. It’s that easy.

  The end result? Not too shabby:

  You can hear a track recorded by myself and bandmate Cameron Moore using two MIDI-linked Ableton Live setups here.
  Note: Cameron runs Mac and I run Windows, and we had no issues.

  Check the forums for a more in-depth discussion, and feel free to ask questions. Also, if you decide to undertake this project, please post your results!

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  ]]> http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/08/get-loopy-with-the-diy-10-ableton-footcontroller-no-soldering-required/feed/ 69 http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/07/nintendo-wii-fit-more-bizarre-music-controllers-to-come/ http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/07/nintendo-wii-fit-more-bizarre-music-controllers-to-come/#comments Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:15:13 +0000 Peter Kirn http://createdigitalmusic.com/2007/07/25/nintendo-wii-fit-more-bizarre-music-controllers-to-come/ Continue →]]> Nintendo keeps cooking up innovative new control schemes for its Nintendo Wii console. And if the Wii controller was any indication, you can expect musicians, DJs, and artists will be taking up this latest controller shortly after it’s available. The Wii Fit controller is a force-sensing panel the player stands on; it’s used to measure weight and balance. “Ah, just what I need during a workout,” you say, “an always-on scale to demoralize me.” Amazingly, though, this simple controller is used for some pretty impressive controls, from balance for yoga to leaning weight in one direction or another.

  Foot-based controllers are a wonderful thing for music, because we usually greatly overburden our hands with tasks — play guitars and keyboards, twist knobs, run faders, etc. It’s not hard to imagine the Wii Fit board as an expression controller, in place of a pedal. And it shouldn’t be hard to get data out of it, either, since it looks like it also uses Bluetooth, just as the Wii controller does. (Musicians and DJs, among others, have happily employed the Wii remote in creative applications for Mac, Linux, and Windows.)

  Previous Wii Coverage on CDM

  While we wait, though, I’d like to ask another question: does anyone know of creative uses of foot controllers for music over the years? Most of what the Wii remote does had been done previously in various forms by music researchers, composers, and inventors, up to a couple of decades before Nintendo shipped their remote. That’s not to say Nintendo was ripping off their efforts; on the contrary, it suggests the design of controllers is more than just fad and will continue to evolve.

  So — fabulous foot inventions? We’d love to hear them.

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