Hello,

Brand new to Pd (just today) and was able to create an ASCII to midi convertor patch that allow me to trigger Apple's Mainstage from a wireless USB keypad.

And guess what, it worked (after a couple of hours messin' w/ it).

I actually have two small issues that would make this work better and hoping you might be able to help.

1. Due to the patch grabbing ASCII values from keypad, I need to have the patch as the forground application. Not a big deal because I can minimize the window and put it in the corner of the screen and still see/interact w/ Mainstage.

My question: Is there a way to have the patch in the background and still be capturing the ASCII keypad input?

2. I will be doing more research learning about Pd but thus far I could not find an object that would allow me to send anything other than noteout values. Mainstage does not accept note on/off values to control parameters (at least not in my test) but did accept midi data values after I sent the note on midi data through a midi filter program (midipipe for mac) and grabbed that value in Mainstage. I would like to eliminate running an additional program if I could.

My question: Can you suggest an object that will take the ASCII value and convert it other kinds of midi out value within Pd?

Thanks so much and I look forward to many more projects w/ Pd

Larry Knox