This isn't really advertised anywhere but you can control Caustic using a bluetooth QWERTY keyboard on Android. Obviously you don't get the nice big keys or velocity information, but BT keyboards can be bought for little money and can useful for other purposes while traveling, like typing emails. Some phones (less and less) even have built-in keyboards and those should work too.
The key mappings are the same is in Caustic for Windows:
You can use PgUp/PgDn to change the octave on the preview keyboards. You can use the up/down arrow keys to scroll the rack quickly. You can also use the keys to type song names, presets, etc.
This is Android only as iOS doesn't allow for raw access to input devices (although I think they might now in iOS 7...)
Rej, that's really cool. I may give that a try and report back here, and maybe add that to my video project list.... BlueTooth? I may try that and wired also -- they're cheap.
Yeah I been playing around with my controllers tonight, and threw together a little tiny jam session with organ, funk bass, and one of my PocketKits, and it really starts to spark some ideas in my head from some things, I hope to showcase soon.....
Lets just say that FMSynth and MIDI yields a very expressive and dynamic control over tone, when coupled with creative effects and modelling, gives some really cool sounds...
But to be really on-the-go, the little mini USB/BT keyboard seems to be a really cool idea, I may try that out this weekend too.
Works on my Nexus but not my iPad. Is this because you didn't implement in the code or it's Apple trying to control everything?
Like I said, it seems Apple didn't allow for apps to receive keypresses unless they're a textfield or something (but then you'd get the software keyboard popping up all the time if there's no BT).
Now with Apple having introduced their game controller with iOS7, this might be possible, I haven't looked into it since.
Well, I did look into it and it seems like it's still not possible without a Text input field or without resorting to undocumented APIs (which are grounds for getting pulled from the App store)
Can you play notes with a QWERTY (or AZERTY) keyboards ?
http://pquenin.free.fr/pqnaudio
http://www.soundclick.com/thepqueninproject
Idea sounds cool! But I have two questions:
Thanks for the chart/map Rej. this is something I had planned to do & the image helps a lot. I find myself using a qwerty with Caustic more and more.
Qwerty only, it's just a quick hack.
I'm pretty sure Gingerbread had blue tooth support (look for it in the settings if not sure)
Latency is negligeable, about the same as MIDI I'd say (which is pretty much nothing)
It's not like blue tooth audio which has huge latency.
The only applicaiton that I know but there may be more that can use a Bluetooth keyboard is RD4 so it is funky that it is possible with Caustic to!
This is the time the night and the year
Must try this.
it works also with my Asus transformer prime with the keyboard-dock, but the deepest note is always Y = C4 and the highest note is F6. It's not possible to change the octave.
PgUp PgDn doesn't work?
I was just looking on Amazon and the internet for Bluetooth Low Energy controller keyboards, no luck. So this comes as a welcome surprise.
Miselu is making a BLE keyboard but is marketing it towards iPad only, I wonder if it work with an Android 4.4 device.
If you mean the C.24, I believe it will offer class compliant MIDI over USB as well. I'll tell you once I receive mine.
Did anyone else get in on their kick starter?
If you're in a fix and really want keys, any ol USB keyboard should work too. Assuming your device supports USB host.
Same problem here, unable to change octave. Page up/down just moves me from the synth itself to the pattern editor. scrolling through the virtual rack.
Any Ideas?
Found it! fn + page up/down. Knew i'd find it as soon as i'd asked the question. D'oh!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/miselu/c24-the-music-keyboard-for-ipad
super... that's it..... with fn key it works with the transformer prime too... thanks for hint..
tested with an USB keyboard(no bluetooth) on android 2.3.7 works great excepts the octave shift , anyway grat work rej :)
Great feature Reg!
The one I've got is wired but is small and has a touch pad which is pretty handy, My tests with an Apple Blue tooth seemed to indicate that Having blue tooth on drained the tablet battery quicker but i should probably test again
Coolbeans.... Well I went to MicroCenter earlier today to check out mini BT keyboards, and for some reason they were out..... A few mid sized ones were $50+ so I passed on that this time, but I did pick up a new pair of Senheisers, nice flat response, so it wasn't a total wash.....
Hey, I'm a very happy new user of Caustic, been playing with it for about a few weeks now. I really like being able to use my bluetooth keyboard (despite occasional latency issues), but my keyboard has no Page Up or Page Down. I tried various combos with the Shift, Function, Alt/Option, and Command/Windows keys, but nothing seems to work. I even tried moding my keyboard map files, but ended up disabling not only my keyboard, but also my tablet's power and volume buttons (fortunately I was able to recover my system folder from my rooting backup).
Long story short: is there any way to change the octave swap mapping to another key combo? It would be extremely useful to have octave shifting, even if it was the ones already on the screen and my keyboard only played the visible notes.
SoundCloud :: Website
As the owner of a device that cannot do MIDI input, I'm glad to learn about this undocumented feature!
I had noticed and figured out most of the mappings in Windows, except for PgUp/PgDn (obvious in retrospect), but would not have thought of using a Bluetooth keyboard for my phone.
I'm an AZERTY keyboard user, so the mappings are a bit off for me, but it's not too hard to switch keyboard mappings in Windows. I'll have to consider whether buying a QWERTY Bluetooth keyboard is worth it…
Azerty. he he, French?
If u can load or somebody a pdf of caustic's key-commands dat would be awesome!!!!
Yup.
never mind. the jpg workz just as good. thank u. it is lil small and i was thinkin' it would be more key-commands than this but i could not sea it very from a tablet. so it kinda is a small file until i transfer the image two a mac.
Me too. Did you have a look at my little site?https://sites.google.com/site/thecausticsessions/home
Maybe, if we have enough French speaking people here, I can start a French forum page on my site.
Excellent. I'll keep an eye out for a cheap bluetooth keyboard then as my phone (Galaxy Ace 2, Jellybean) doesn't support usb on the go so i can't do the usual midi in that way.
www.youtube.com/chrislody www.robotsfounderrors.com www.etsy.com/uk/shop/SymetriColour
I'm a bit late to the party with this. Is this a feature in 3.0 or 3.1?
Also has anybody tried it with a Blackberry Playbook?
hey pablo64...works in 3.0 and 3.1....
....not sure about playbook...
...it works with my samsung tablet...although i had an issue...the keyboard disconnected whenever i pressed more than one key at once....
My name is quokka on soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/quokka
Blackberry doesn't offer easy access to the Bluetooth keyboard like Android does, this is Android only.
This is a great feature but I still prefer to interact with the keys on screen. With the bluetooth there is always lag, playing bluetooth speakers, or playing the instrument with the bluetooth keyboard. It's understandable because of all the packing and repacking of data across the different components. I would hope to see a feature in the near or distant future that provides a full screen keyboard because I use the on-screen keyboards all the time.
Edit: I should add, however, that Caustic's midi implementation is totally unmatched with virtually every on-screen control mapable. One of these days I'm going to get my studio unpacked again so I can have some real fun with the program with my full sized Casio.
Okay, thanks Rej but I was actually curious about whether it works with a connected USB Qwerty keyboard. That could be useful on the Midi-less Playbook.
I fairly recently acquired an Asus Transformer (the one that looks like a laptop) and i can confirm that its keyboard works GREAT in caustic as a controller. The Transformer (the newer Prime would be better!) is also pretty ideal for Caustic cuz it has FULL SIZE USB PORTS (no OTG cable needed!) that you can use while the power is plugged in (!!) making it WAY more suitable for live performance than a lot of android devices.
Cheers!
17hex
https://soundcloud.com/17hex
I wish there was a way u could change the program (instrument) within each module with a bt keyboard. I hav a logitech mx5500 which is nice bcuz it's full sized & the keys r customizable, so I was hoping I could set it up to be caustic optimized, but I haven't been able to get it too far beyond what everyone here has. Latency seems to be a little slow but hey, @least I'm playin sum keys instead of just programming!
Cool!
My bro has a Yamaha s80. The problem is finding the adaptor. Lol
I make creative EDM utilising Caustic and many other Daws. See for yourself on my SoundCloud, you may like it :) https://soundcloud.com/xandyaudio thanks!
read Poor man - immediately opened it
'Askar
https://www.soundcloud.com/xenoplas
I can confirm this works with fl studio on pc too :'D
'Askar
https://www.soundcloud.com/xenoplas
Dear Rej,
Thanks for your guidelines of using a USB QUERTY Keyboard with Caustic I was able to create an actual Poor Man's Moog Taurus Pedal!
My blog explains the full project at http://wp.me/piXfS-k. Here's the idea:
And here's the result:
And a video to show it at https://youtu.be/jAjGx97JLjY:
Your software rocks!
Javier ROCAMATICS
The PC version: Are there any keyboard shortcuts for the most basic tasks in the wav editor, like zooming in/out. I found using the mouse wheel hardly responsive. I am not sure why, since it is very responsive in other daws. But using the wheel in Caustic or Sound Forge for example is a pain the ass.
Hello there, someone still in this thread? I've just discovered this wonderful feature and started using a wireless kb with my nvidia shield (this way I'm able to charge it while playing), but i got this strange problem: some keys don't play when there are other two keys pressed, but only some combinations. For example if I'm pressing "v" and "n" together,, "m" doesn't work, but woth other two keys (just a random example). Any idea of why? Could be a keyboard issue? (Maybe some keys are grouped and the signals can't overlap? That would make sense considering how keyboard are normally used). Thanks in advice!