[ardour-dev] Using USB-HID-devices in Ardour

[Steve Harris]

On Sat, Feb 14, 2004 at 11:39:14AM +0100, Frank Barknecht wrote:
> Hallo,
> 
> is it possible yet, to use alternate, non-midi USB control surfaces,
> in Ardour? I am thinking of devices like the Griffin Powermate, the
> Contour Shuttle PRO and especially the Contour ShuttleXpress
> (http://contourdesign.com/shuttlepro/shuttlexpress.htm), which I
> bought yesterday. All these can be talked to by using the
> event-interface (/dev/input/eventX) and they are supported for example
> in the Kino video editor (http://kino.schirmacher.de/) and there is
> lots of documentation at http://www.frogmouth.net/hid-doco/linux-hid.html
> 
> I think, these kinds of Jog/Shuttle wheel devices would be really cool
> to use in Ardour, and they aren't as expensive as a Mackie BabyHUI. ;)

Agreed, very strongly. I own a griffin powermate (not actually that good
for ardour control) and nearly bought a shuttlepro on thursday.

One option might be to write HID -> MIDI+JACK Transport translator
programs for them, which would be a bit more general than specific ardour
drivers. Though I'm not sure how practical that is, and if it would be
lossy. Doing shuttle in JACK trnasport would be tricky.

- Steve