Katapult source is public

The source for Katapult, in an early, but working state is now up on Google Code. Check out the Katapult page for more details.

Katapult update

Update: All the source, plus an absolutely-alpha-beta-alpha build will be put up on Google Code very soon, but please be patient, since I have a lot of work right now. I’m trying to squeeze in work on this wherever i can, so I can get it out there

So, here is a few more details on Katapult. I’ve been adding a lot of stuff today, and getting close to something that is release-worthy. The current features include:

Fully customizable layouts can be mapped to the entire grid of the Launchpad

Multipart layouts are supported and can be toggled using buttons on the Launchpad

The layouts are loaded into Katapult from a simple easy-to-write text-file (line example: yfader 0 7 8). This is kinda like mrmr-style layout files.

LED-colors of the controls can be set to any of the supported colors of the Launchpad

Katapult supports bi-directional control-messages. This means that changing a fader in for example Traktor, will also update the corresponding fader on the Launchpad surface. Me thinks this is cool.

Controls currently implemented are:

• Hold button
• Toggle button
• Horizontal fader
• Vertical fader
• Horizontal slider-zone
• Vertical slider-zone

Okay, might have forgotten something, but it does give a good overview of the current state of the thing. I’m going to implement support for 2D-pad controls, as well as an “indicator” control, that doesn’t send output, but can be used as an indicator light, before releasing it. I think that will make it out for a pretty suitable start. And after that? More advanced visualizers (beat-grid style, etc), timed functions, triggered after x beats, controller-chaining (altering one control can influence others), macros(!). A visual layout-editor would be nice but definitely won’t be first priority, since the layouts really are very easy to write by hand. Here’s a new video. It doesn’t show any of the bi-directional stuff, but it does make it clear how multi-page layouts are handled.

The more technical stuff: It’s all written in Processing. I’m writing and using it on OS X 10.6, but should work fine on other platforms as well. I found Processings MIDI support a bit annoying to work with (for output), so I took the easy route and offloaded the MIDI output handling to PureData through OSC. When I get the motivation, I’ll probably move the MIDI output back into the actual program, but I couldn’t find any MIDI-framework that did what I wanted to do, so PD is a fine solution right now. The patch is very simple and looks like this:

So, that’ll be it for now Hopefully a release soon!

Katapult, I say

Yes, I say Katapult. What is it you say?

Well, I recently, after much struggle, got my hands on Novations Launchpad controller, hooray. It’s pretty cool, and very functional for controlling Ableton Live. Unfortunately my plan was never to use it with live, but instead with Traktor. In this regard, it is utterly lacking and uncool. Mostly because Novations Automap software is absolutely featureless in terms of what i wanted to do.

So when the software to make your dreams come true doesn’t exist, you just have to write it yourself. Hence I started writing Katapult. It’s intended to be a dynamic, totally customizable mapping solution for the Launchpad, that allows for much more functionality than the pretty mediocre hold-button scheme of Automap. So what does it do?

It allows you to create various controls on the surface of the Launchpad such as faders, buttons and “slider zones”. The MIDI output of these indivdual controls can then be mapped to different fuctions in Traktor, for example.

I have a lot of interesting ideas planned for this thing, but basics first. When I feel I’ve gotten all the basics down and tidied up the code a bit, I’ll release a preview and move on to some of the more interesting stuff

Okay, it’s late and I’m brainsmashed, so this might not be a very informative and detailed post. Intsead, I give you ZE VIDEO!

Here’s a rather uninspired and boring “mix” using the thing. It definitely won’t give you eargasms, but it’ll give you a general idea of how it works. Promise to post the technical nitty-gritty later

Oh. Yes.

Apple and DRM

It’s a well-known fact that Apples iTunes Store sells music crippled with DRM software. This is sad, since the iTunes Store, in my opinion at least, is a great place to discover and purchase music. Agreed, their catalog is not complete, but it is by far the largest and most varied I have found to date. I have bought at least 250 tracks from the iTunes Store, and the first thing I do when my downloads finish is removing the DRM protection. Back in the days, you could do this easily with an application called JHymn. This, unfortunately is not possible anymore, since Apple updated the DRM system, also known as FairPlay. Anyhow, the most obvious method of removing the DRM still works. Just burn the purchased tracks to a CD, and rip them back to your library. In iTunes 7, Apple made this even easier. iTunes now automatically detects that you are importing duplicates, and asks if you want to replace the old files with the one you are importing. One could wonder if the ability to remove DRM this way was left in the software intentionally.

End users who know what DRM is, know that it restricts the fair use of legally purchased content, and I think everyone would rather see it removed altogether. Turns out that Steve Jobs agrees. Such a statement is a powerful open letter to the music industry, but more importantly the end users. If DRM is ever to be abolished, the first step is educating the users about why it is bad. The next step is putting pressure on the music companies, for example through anti-DRM legislation. This can only be done if awareness about DRM is raised in the masses. Hopefully this statement from Jobs will make it to mainstream news, in some form.

If you have no, or little idea about what DRM is, I suggest viewing this humorous introduction to DRM.