Start writing about MIDI controllers.

[nageru-docs] / audio.rst

diff --git a/audio.rst b/audio.rst
index ea949839ffcd2d963e838fdd1efc1f9f2ee73137..8023a5f705c4eb3b2f3a545bcdd3632f2e6180e9 100644 (file)
--- a/audio.rst
+++ b/audio.rst
@@ -326,5 +326,34 @@ put it in neutral, and the entire EQ code will be bypassed.
 
 .. _midi-control:
 
-MIDI control
-------------
+MIDI controllers
+----------------
+
+If you are doing audio work beyond just setting up a mix and letting it
+stay there, dragging controls with the mouse can feel limiting. There's
+a wide range of controllers out there that have physical faders and knobs
+you can twiddle for a much more tactical feel; all the way up from about
+$50 to more than $5000. (For reference, Nageru has been tested with the
+`Akai MIDImix <http://www.akaipro.com/product/midimix>`_ and the
+`Korg nanoKONTROL2 <http://www.korg.com/us/products/computergear/nanokontrol2/>`_,
+and both work fine, although the nanoKONTROL2 needs some one-time Korg-specific
+SysEx commands before the lights and buttons will work with Nageru.)
+Nageru supports these in multichannel mode only.
+
+For historical reasons, these speak the MIDI protocol as if they
+were instruments, and thus, Nageru refers to them as **MIDI controllers**.
+However, you won't really notice; they come with USB plugs to transport
+the MIDI data, so you just plug them in and have Nageru automatically
+talk to them. (For simplicity, Nageru will assume *any* MIDI device
+connected to your machine is such a controller.)
+
+Since different controllers have different numbers of faders, knobs,
+buttons and lights, you will need to make a mapping. However, just like
+with the audio input mapping, this can be done once and then saved
+to disk for later loading. (You can load a given mapping on startup
+using the “--midi-mapping” flag.) The dialog, loaded with the included
+preset for the Akai MIDImix, looks like this:
+
+.. image:: images/midi-controller-setup.png
+
+(TODO: Write more.)