Key switch options?

Could you use your phone + OSC ?

vanMeerdervoort said:

Not exactly a newbie, but my question probably fits here. So there we go:

I normally use my trusted Fatar SL-88 keyboard. But lately I find myself travelling and working on a laptop plus a small 2,5 octave keyboard. This works fine until I use a sample db with many keyswitches.

I am thinking about a way to add an additional device to use solely for keyswitching and perhaps pitchbending and so on.

I want to avoid having to carry two 'small but still large to carry' keyboards. Something small and handy would be superb.

What device would you recommend for this?

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I’m using a Korg Nanokey 2 for this exact purpose

if you only need to access the main articulations you can use shortcuts with Keyboard Maestro, then edit them after the recording.
otherwise streamdeck or if you have an ipad there is metagrid pro or touch osc

Thanks all, great options! Phone with OSC is quite interesting, had not heard about that before!

I’m a noob, but I’ll share my experience since it seems relevant. I tried Touch OSC, but had difficulty getting it to synch with my setup (Logic Pro on m1 mbp). Instead i used the pad controls on my board (Novation launch key 37) to send a custom midi cc value (I use cc 90 with the value stepping up in 5 pt increments). I then created articulation sets in logic that map these midi messages from my controller to the key switch value.

There are two benefits to this approach:
1) you can use articulation sets when writing in the piano roll (which is cleaner than key switch notes)
2) you can remap between libraries so that the articulations work across different vst’s. This makes it easier to change your orchestration on the fly.

Hopefully this helps. Btw - if anyone knows how this approach might bite me later, feel free to correct me—as I stated above, I’m still figuring this out, too.

vanMeerdervoort said:

Phone with OSC is quite interesting

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Self plug here, but if you use Logic, check out LAS. All the benefit of OSC, without the manual setup.

I have sliders and keyswitches plus an x-y pad on my iPhone for when I’m out and about. I use TouchOSC and connect the phone to my laptop by USB cable. Using Macbook/iPad/cubase…

If your keyboard has drum pads, you can set those to the note values of your key switches.