A Helpful Rodent?

As the market for hardware MIDI controllers explodes into the massive home studio revolution, there was also a mouse, ailently making its' way to controller fame. Except this was a completely new kind of controller- a software MIDI controller. Of course, many hardware synths, controllers, even DAWs have controlls on screen that can be manipulated. But this is a pure breed of software, and rodent. Meet midimouse, a simple why-didn't-we-think-of-that XY software controller for just about any MIDI parameters. It is plainly a 2 parpameter assignable pad on the screen controlled by mouse or trackpad movements. the large size can expand to the entire height of the screen, and can even fit rectangular spaces with the click of a button. The many different 'skins' midimouse uses are grreat tools, from the cross hairs screen showing the X and Y MIDI values, to the bubbly trail of blue dots that chases the pointer around the pad.

One of the only preferences, yet a good one, is the controller value difference when the mouse is being clicked or not clicked. This could make for instant changes in just about and effect or synth parameter, gate, wet/dry, track levels, etc. Easing into Ableton Live, I brought up a string loop and added a simple Multiband Filter. For effects, Live already displays a small assignable XY pad, yet accuracy isn't very high and tediousness is. Using the standard Cutoff Frequency and Resonance parameters for each of the axes, I was able to easily control it with a huge, 8"x8" pad on my laptop screen. Awesome.

Did I mention it's free?