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Easy Bluetooth ToeStuds!

Building organ consoles for use with Hauptwerk, adding MIDI to existing consoles, obtaining parts, ...
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Romanos

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Easy Bluetooth ToeStuds!

PostWed Jan 18, 2017 11:29 am

Hello All--
I wanted to share a little success story regarding a bluetooth toe stud option for Mac users. There is a product known as the iRig Blue Turn.
http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigblueturn/
This small bluetooth pedal connects to iOS, Android, and Macs. It is technically intended to work with score viewing programs to turn your pages however I found a workaround to repurpose it as toe studs.

Backstory: I have a Johannus Sweelinck 30 console. It's built in MIDI will send signals for all my stop tabs, swell shoes, pedals, and keyboards. Noticeably absent, however, is any signal coming from pistons or toe studs. For a long time, my solution has been to simply use my console's built-in capture system. The capture system triggers the physical stops which in turn trigger the virtual equivalents. This works fine for smaller works however it does not work for large works that require many pistons / multiple levels. While the ideal would be to buy a special encoder and hijack the wiring of my console and repurpose the pistons and toe studs exclusively to HW use, I don't have the time or know-how to do all of that. As a result, I was left looking for other options. Enter: iRig Blue Turn.

It was Christmas and Sweetwater was running a promotional sale so I bit the bullet and ordered one at a discount. It arrived and I opened it up and was instantly dismayed. The device itself is well made, the buttons feel nice (and gently light up) and it instantly connected with my computer. My dismay? I tried all three modes and couldn't get HW to cooperate with the device.

The blue turn has 3 modes: Left/Right arrow, Up/Down arrow, Page Up/Page Down. Depending on which button you press, the blue turn will send any of those corresponding key commands. I could scroll through a web page on my browser for instance. HW? No dice. It turns out that each of those key commands is not accessible within HW. I assume it's because the arrow keys need to be accessible at a system level?

The Workaround: in MacOS, you can establish custom key commands for each individual program if you so wish. You go to system settings: keyboard: shortcuts: app shortcuts. At this point, you can select a program (HW) and tell the system which menu command you wish to trigger when that program is in the foreground and assign it a key command. So I selected HW and the "stepper +1 (increment)" command and assigned it the forward arrow key (again, this is at the system level, not within HW). I then started the blue turn in forward/back arrow mode and VOILA! Works like a charm. The result is an instantaneous sequencer (stepper) controller that is a wireless, bluetooth toe stud in all of its hack glory. I couldn't recommend it enough for anyone looking for a simple way to update their consoles to achieve a sequencer button without doing any rewiring.

Here's the link to a little video where I show you exactly how to configure things on your Mac:
https://youtu.be/2in6rfV1lCQ

Cheers everyone!
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mdyde

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Re: Easy Bluetooth ToeStuds!

PostWed Jan 18, 2017 11:48 am

Hello Romanos,

Romanos wrote: I could scroll through a web page on my browser for instance. HW? No dice. It turns out that each of those key commands is not accessible within HW. I assume it's because the arrow keys need to be accessible at a system level?


Yes -- the navigation keys wouldn't work properly for triggering Hauptwerk functions in general since they have special system-level behaviour (menu and item navigation, etc.). Hence Hauptwerk doesn't allow them to be auto-detected.

Glad to hear you've come up with a satisfactory solution anyway.
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Romanos

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Re: Easy Bluetooth ToeStuds!

PostWed Jan 18, 2017 12:25 pm

I figured that was probably the case. (Although, tbh, I was a little surprised about the "page up / page down" buttons.) I imagine there have been many other confused people as to why they couldn't assign their keyboard arrows. No matter, it works fine just the same! And as usual, since I assume you'll see this post, THANK YOU for this wonderful software and for the wonderful forum you've created. It changes lives, Martin!
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mdyde

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Re: Easy Bluetooth ToeStuds!

PostWed Jan 18, 2017 12:42 pm

Thanks very much -- you're very welcome!
Best regards, Martin.
Hauptwerk software designer/developer, Milan Digital Audio.
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Arp

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Re: Easy Bluetooth ToeStuds!

PostThu Jan 19, 2017 6:33 am

I built a button to turn the pdf pages by following the instructions in this post:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3NxQ60E72k

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