Virtual F1 → Opening up the Remix Decks
Hi guys,
We were just brainstorming how to go about making the Remix Decks open to all controllers when we were cordially requested to post this in the modding part of the forum, so here it goes.
The proposition is to see if we can get some of you modding guru’s to work together on a Virtual F1 driver that translates the MIDI outputs and inputs of controller X to a virtual replicant of the Kontrol F1 and let this driver communicate with Traktor.
The idea:
To create a driver that acts a a Virtual F1 (let’s name it that way for now), that listens to MIDI signals from your controller, and maps these signals to the same HID messages that the Kontrol F1 sends and receives.
Now that might sound too easy, and of course it is. If we look at it, there’s communication in two ways, some of which might be quite straightforward, but some might prove difficult
1: controller → Traktor:
Controller sends message to Virtual F1 via MIDI
Virtual F1 analyses the MIDI message and maps it to the relevant HID message
Virtual F1 triggers the HID message
Traktor get’s the HID message and acts on it following the original Kontrol F1 mapping.
2: Traktor → Controller
Traktor outputs HID message (for instance, RGB LED variables)
Virtual F1 interprets the HID message and breaks it down into MIDI
Virtual F1 sends MIDI message to controller x
Controller x outputs the MIDI messages (by triggering the LED)
I’d say we need to try and break this into steps and see how far we get: first try to get MIDI messages translated into HID and see if can control some of the locked features. If that works we have a proof of concept and we try to map all of the F1’s commands to Traktor. If we get that far we might have some idea of how to translate the more complex messages from Traktor to your controller, but for me that’s a ‘nice to have’.
So how could we go about it?
1 find out exactly what messages the F1 sends out for each button, get a read-out of all of Kontrol F1’s messages
2 write a driver that can send those messages to Traktor
3 create a mapping table in which we can link MIDI messages to the according HID messages
Some remarks that were made in the original thread
[QUOTE]"indeed. in midimasher a hid device is defined in similar manor to a midi device - just that you’re defining hidpackets with offsets+bitmasks instead of midi messages of type cc/note/pc/pb etc
they all get converted to event names - pretty similar to how vdj does it. then piping these event names from a hid device to a midi device is as simple as from midi to midi etc.
fyi hid support is going into mixxx 1.11 not that it helps in any way here."[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]“someone reverse engineered the X1 I believe.”[/QUOTE] Does anybody know about this?
[QUOTE]“You could also put it in the modding forum, where the modders could see it.”[/QUOTE] Okay
not that it helps in any way here 
will even have builtin key detection soon (for those that care about that kind of thing)