DIY Monome
Hey everyone
I’m trying to go the inexpensive route, but I would like to have a monome controller. So.. a computer keyboard can trigger midi values correct? Just not velocity. There are more than enough buttons on a keyboard for a 64 button monome. Could the board from a computer keyboard be used to connect 64 switches and leds on to? Would this work? Or am I just wasting my time? Not quite sure if I would prefer arcade or traditional monome type buttons, but either way I would be looking at just spending a few dollars compared to what I would have if I bought it retail.
you could just use a keyboard as it lays.
There is one problem though. Keyboards are designed to not allow certain button combos… you would have to avoid those.
Right right. I think I would stick to using alpha numeric characters for the layout. I’m sure between those and the punctuation keys I can sneak in about 64. Well, I could use just the keyboard but I want the 8x8 layout and possibly some led output as well…nothing fancy though.
Thats a pretty awesome idea. I’m really curious how it will play out.
if you wanted to hook up arcade buttons to a traditional keyboard, you’d be better off with a keywiz or similar keyboard encoder… they usually come with their own software to record macro shortcuts too (for example you could make it so when you press the ‘J’ key that it actually responds as ‘SHIFT + A’ or whatever you program it to be)
the other advantage of using a keyboard encoder rather than a regular keyboard, is that a regular keyboard will generally let you hold a few keys at once before it stops registering the rest.. whereas a keyboard encoder will usually register more presses at once.
while this may seem a cheaper option than a monome, the price of the arcade buttons adds up rather quickly, then you gotta build a case, buy LEDs, mount it all, etc.. if you want a cheap monome get a novation Launchpad and run the monome emulator thats available for it 
+1 on the launchpad/monome emulator. It works like a charm.
Bring mine with me for shows and run this monome app called “nerdscroll”, and scroll LFDM (La Fin Du Monde is kinda long) and other randomness, and the crowd seems to love it.
You can see it occasionally in this video…
Check this out..
http://post.monome.org/comments.php?DiscussionID=1361
I guess somebody has already written a program to do this. I haven’t checked it out yet and I’m not sure what you need to run this but it looks very interesting. Apparently the software displays a virtual on-screen monome, so despite the keyboard not lighting up, at least you can see what’s happening on your monitor.
This looks very interesting also…anyone have experience with this keyboard encoder?
It’s 8x8 
http://tomscarff.110mb.com/midi_8x8_keys/midi_8x8_keys.htm
Excellent find! I just wish they had an 8x8 midi out to go with it
