As touchscreens grow in popularity, let’s pause to reflect on the joy of the tangible, the physical. Juda (oneworldoneband.com) writes to share his rig coupling the Sega Arcade Controller for the Dreamcast game system with a computer. The ingredients: one terrific Sega game controller, one USB adapter, one Max/MSP app called MultiControl (runs via runtime if you don’t have Max), and then MIDI into whatever app you desire. This is an easy formula to follow if you happen to have any similar controllers around – or if you get lucky in summer garage sale season. (Other sticks for consoles like the Xbox 360 would work, as well.) Alternatively, because of the popularity of DIY arcade cabinets, buttons and joysticks like this are really easy to come by, so you could build your own hardware, too.
There are other HID solutions, too: Pd has an object that’s included if you download pd-extended, and GlovePIE is a free and immensely powerful way of connecting inputs on Windows.
And yes, this is partly for our readers over at Harmonix Music HQ. I’d like to see another controller turn around and play PowerStone.
Here’s a second example with the monome.