Using gamepad as midi controller

[OeAi]

Hello, well, i'm not so much good drummer, but i know some gamers who plays nice with buttons
actually i got 3 gamepads, pretty much old, but still working, and i wanted to use it to control maybe just a transport
but of course modern beat boxer should do it that way. i mean any pad table works too easy - it even doesn't control a pressure<
i got midi board, so i can control the pressure, but you know those old sound cards had a midi/joystick plug - so it was builtin feature.
Reaper got this support with very old version, but i cannot change the note range for it (needs some script programming maybe)
there are those solutions with loopbe + some gamed to midi translators, but it's not that safe to install everything in mind
and basically all that is needed to include those devices in a list of control-devices, maybe with some sort of setup.

yes. maybe it is not so good for a hardware makers, but they should make something better than just a gamepad.
one of a problem is a switching presets - my midi has some programming interface, that i just can't understand,
but i want it to play and i need fast switch for banks/presets and also play/stop button , maybe switch instruments
to play drums - just switch to loop mode and record, maybe use analog sticks as sustain and velocity, 
but as it is analog - this can be analog control too, switch octave
i mean there's just few presets to use it. but for example if you use it as analog control for XY,
then it needs some switch to save current state and switch to next XY.
so 2 sticks can control 4 knobs, but you can switch and control others
i can tell you - it's hard to control 4 knobs with real knobs,
sliders can be better as you need just 1 finger to push it.
But with 2 joysticks you can control 8 sliders in about the same way,
so it's like split mode for few devices or controls united.
this can be done in more like advanced way.
it wont be alesis turbo or roland dmk, but i bet they got gamepad too

For example you know what's the trigger and turbo switch, for drums there can be retriggers and combo to use as trigger
or control note length for retrigger 1/4 1/32 with another note (instrument)  - thats' the arp-combo
this can be interesting music tool with programming interface.

Most of the time we are using 3-6 major chords, so assigning chords to buttons and switching octaves can be equal,
then just switch the manner of playing - finger/all at once = arp modes
don't forget - UDLR is also 4 buttons + combo between

and one more - bind mouse buttons, it's impossible to use mbtn/5/6/7

Edited August 30, 2021 by OeAi