Thanks ... it is indeed. What does it do? The help file just has a patch which lists devices without explaining what it does ... How can it help me route keystrokes to PD when its not the active window ?

if it helps this is what I get when I run the patch

hidin: ** found 9 devices on your system
DEVICES: -1 None
DEVICES: 1
DEVICES: 2
DEVICES: 3
DEVICES: 4
hidin: -- could not get device #5: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 5 Unsupported Device
hidin: -- could not get device #6: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 6 Unsupported Device
hidin: -- could not get device #7: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 7 Unsupported Device
hidin: -- could not get device #8: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 8 Unsupported Device
hidin: -- could not get device #9: Access is denied.

hidin: -- can not read from mouse and keyboard
DEVICES: 9 Unsupported Device

Thanks again.

W

I'm working on a setup where the pitches of a PD patch are controlled by the computer keyboard using the bottom row keys (Z - , ) and a few of the second row keys (S, D, G, H etc.) set up like a piano keyboard.

The keyboard control patch is basically a [key] connected to a bunch of

[sel #] <---# is obviously the key
|
[#( <---# is the pitch in HZ

This feeds the pitch into the synth patch.

How would I have to alter this to be able to press more than one key at a time in order to play multiple pitches?

I can set up the synth patch to play multiple pitches, but using the keyboard, I only register one key at a time

I hope that was clear enough..
Thanks

Ok, i finally took a first initiative on this one but without succes. What i did was indeed buy a second usb keyboard and attached that to my laptop. However, apparently (under winxp that is) all keyboard control is dealt with by the os. So if i press the shift key on one keyboard the second one also generates capitals. The same goes for shiftlock, capslock,...

I've been looking at the gumstix machines, but i'm not sure if it has a keyboard connection, or wether its linux version would support pd.

The search goes on.

This patch was something I first made several years ago in Max/MSP, inspired by Leon Gruenbaum's Samchillian controller. Here it is in cleaned-up Pd form:

http://www.lubbertdas.org/rela.pd
And here's an example of how to connect it to an instrument: http://www.lubbertdas.org/relaphasor.pd

Basically what you do is use the QWERTYUIOP keys (not sure if you need to change the patch for different keyboard layouts) to go up and down a scale by different degrees. The space bar repeats the last note, the - and = keys temporarily transpose the current note up or down a semitone, and the ` key turns sustain on and off. You can also change the musical key and scale.

It's hard to play a melody with this patch, but it's good for wanky prog theatrics, especially if you connect it to a more expressive-sounding instrument.

Modifications you may want to make:
-try adding keyboard shortcuts for certain key/scale changes, or to certain notes of the scale
-assign two keys to take you up/down one degree of the current scale without retriggering the note attack. This adds a great hammer-on/pull-off functionality to guitaristic shredding.
-figure out how to use a MIDI keyboard with it so you can play a note on the MIDI keyboard and go up or down from there on the QWERTY keyboard

EDIT: Forgot to mention that this probably only works right in Pd-extended, as it uses [sort] from Zexy.

Yes the caps lock would only give you extra letter keys.

If you hacked the second keyboard so that every key was a Shift+<key>, or that the shift key was always down, that would give you a completely new keyboard(caps and symbols etc).

One thing I noticed, is that if you start the [key] help patch holding down the shift key, [key] get repeated messages. However, once you hit any other key while holding shift, that stops and you are good to go. Note that when you hold down shift for 8 seconds on windows, you get a pop-up about filterkeys. Just go into the settings for filter keys and turn off the shortcut to activate filterkeys.

also, take a look at http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-your-own-Roll-Up-Keyboard/

some DIY fun

I've been working on a (4) voice allocation system. I built a very simple sine synth with an very basic AR envelope around it. The main purpose of this patch is to test the voice allocation.

Oh yeah, it's built to be played with the computer keyboard. Note that the keyboard layout is belgian-dutch, which means AZERTY.

Any suggestions to improve it are welcome.

cheers,

Domien.

http://www.pdpatchrepo.info/hurleur/KEYbOARDER.0.0.2.pd

I can't answer the question exactly. But depending on the platform there's more than one way a keyboard signal can get to Pd or GEM. Objects that read the device directly like [key] in linux, take their input regardless of the focus of the window system, X-Windows in linux. Other times, if the object is reading from window events, then you have focus only when the mouse is in that window and then you get the input of the keyboard. Try different combinations of [keyboard], [mouse] and the low level [hid] to experiment with giving mouse and keyboard events different behaviours.

hi, can the keyboard affect gem when gemwin is open and selected? I have tried though it seems the keyboard has no effect. If gemwin is open but a patch window is selected, however, the keyboard works as normal. Though, when gemwin open, or in fullscreen, it does not. I'm using Mac currently. I don't see why my computer's speed could halt keyboard operation here, and my computer seems fast enough otherwise. I'll be testing this with linux hopefully tonight.

I have an Athlon XP 1700+ with 1GB RAM and an original Creative Labs Audigy soundcard with an emu10k chipset. I run Fedora Core 3 with a PlanetCCRMA kernel. I use a Fostex Mixtab MIDI controller.

I have a Novation BassStation Rack monophonic analogue synth module, but a friend is borrowing it at the moment. I used to have a Korg X5 keyboard (back when I use my Amiga to make music, long before I heard of Pd), but it died. After that and before I got my non-obsolete computer I made a couple of tracks with synths borrowed from friends (Yamaha DD50, Roland EM10 maybe).

The sound reaches my ears through Spirit Absolute 2 monitors powered by a Samson Servo-170 amplifier.

I want to get a 5.1 surround sound setup soon, and an AMD64 laptop with 5.1 output, it'll be awesome. And a small MIDI keyboard would be fun, but I can't find one with a 3-octave keyboard and no expensive extra fancy controllers that I don't need, having the Mixtab.