# I'm working on a typing keyboard to MIDI tool



## porrasm (Nov 20, 2019)

I'm working on a tool which transforms a regular typing keyboard into a MIDI macro tool. You can for example bind a key combo to s function, for example 
Pressing V and 1 sends midi program change to change for Violins 1 patch and set the articulation to legato.

Or you can type V1 spic to change to V1 patch and send spiccato keyswitch. You can also add delay between commands.

It's still in very early progress, I will share it here when it is ready enough. I'd like to hear what features you'd find useful.

Currently you can bind any combination of keys (order of keypresses is also possible) to an action. An action consists of midi commands and delays. You can send note on/off, CC, program change, pitch and aftertouch to any (or select) MIDI channels.

Also it will be possible to hold down a key and write a command, e.g. Shift + 'cc1 127' which would set CC1 to 127.

The program can also intercept the key press so that other programs will never receive it, preventing you from activating some other unwanted DAW function when typing a command.

Currently it listens to key presses globally but the intention is that you could plug in 2 QWERTY keyboards and use only the other one as a the macro keyboard and the selected keyboard would not send any key presses to other programs.

This will be ready for testing in maybe a few weeks as I'm a bit busy right now.


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## porrasm (Nov 20, 2019)

PS: Only for Windows I'm afraid


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## eagri1967 (Nov 21, 2019)

@porrasm as I type quite a lot on the keyboard, want to learn more about MIDI and I'm a Windows user, I'd be willing to try it out. So far I don't have a MIDI controller. I started to use a DAW, Reaper, only two months ago. Will this be a stand-alone function or will it work as an FX or plugin in the user's DAW?


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## josephspirits (Nov 21, 2019)

I'm a mac user, but I always thought it would be great to have a program where you could drag and drop midi notes, or keyswitch commands, to whatever keys on the typing keyboard you want. A nice, simple graphical display of the keyboard. It would be fun to be able to drop different midi notes, chords, or samples to different parts of the keyboard and then free yourself up to compose outside of the traditional piano keyboard layout. Basically I want a way to convert typing dexterity to music making.


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## porrasm (Nov 22, 2019)

eagri1967 said:


> @porrasm as I type quite a lot on the keyboard, want to learn more about MIDI and I'm a Windows user, I'd be willing to try it out. So far I don't have a MIDI controller. I started to use a DAW, Reaper, only two months ago. Will this be a stand-alone function or will it work as an FX or plugin in the user's DAW?


It'll be stand-alone and it will function as a virtual MIDI device. It requires to install this, unless if you have a device which supports MIDI input: https://www.nerds.de/en/loopbe1.html


josephspirits said:


> I'm a mac user, but I always thought it would be great to have a program where you could drag and drop midi notes, or keyswitch commands, to whatever keys on the typing keyboard you want. A nice, simple graphical display of the keyboard. It would be fun to be able to drop different midi notes, chords, or samples to different parts of the keyboard and then free yourself up to compose outside of the traditional piano keyboard layout. Basically I want a way to convert typing dexterity to music making.


I'll keep this in mind but I suck with GUIs so unfortunately this might never make it into the app. It will be open source though, so someone else might do it.


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