My usb controller is alive now and great fun. Thank you for the prompt and patient reply, David. I thought I needed to rely on the [hid] object to map the device as I saw in some tutorials, but as you suggested (and if I had just read the manual):

"When you create the ctlin object without arguments, it´s listening to all cc´s and to all channels. This is useful as an analysis tool to know which cc and channel sends each fader/ knob of your controller. " http://write.flossmanuals.net/pure-data/using-midi/

This gives me a good deal to work with before I get into trouble again.

Hello, I've added the hid external from the "find external"/deken function in pd-vanilla, running on debian jessie. I can see when adjusting sliders and knobs on my usb controller that it affects values and channels in [ctlin] under "Test Audio and Midi". However, when I try something as simple as:

[print]--[hid]

I only see in the console:

info: open 0
info: device 0

No other information is printed as I adjust sliders or knobs. All the tutorials I see use this object under pd-extended, so I'm not sure if I'm missing some other necessary external, or if something else is the issue. If there's a better workaround, I'm basically just trying to map a usb controller for use with pd.