The Official Sequential/Oberheim Forum
OTHER DISCUSSIONS => General Synthesis => Other Hardware/Software => Topic started by: LPF83 on May 08, 2023, 05:07:25 PM
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I finally found exactly what I've been looking for -- a handheld "remote" PC keyboard that would provide good control over the DAW from across the room. Some of my keyboards are far enough from the computer that I need something remote for, at minimum, basic transport controls (stop/start/rec etc).
Plenty of remote mini keyboards exit, but most of them either have some sort of flaw for my use, like the keyboard layout (i.e. putting the Enter key too close to Delete and encouraging very unhappy accidents or similar) or the general ergonomics was wrong or the price was too high. Originally I wanted something like the Elgato StreamDeck but wireless, and since I have two StreamDecks already, I considered using the smaller one using a USB extension cable, since it's so easy to program the buttons (layout a non issue) and of course the custom LED labels are great. But I really wanted one less cable to get tangled up in as I already have enough of those.
As a long time Cubase user, I recently started using Ableton more, in part for reasons such as the Akai MPC can export a project as an Ableton Live Set, but more importantly I was interested in Session View (which to me is one of the only compelling features Ableton has over the others) because I like how effective it is in looping, and how conducive it is to throwing together ideas as small blocks and pasting them together in creative ways. I had rigged up a custom similar solution in Cubase using cycle markers and hot keys, but it's not quite the same.
So pretty quickly I started wanting a way to control the recording and navigation of tracks and clips, but without necessarily being close to the main keyboard and mouse and preferable be able to do transport controls with my left hand and play with my right.
So this Pepper Jobs Gyro Air is perfect for my needs, and not too expensive.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B078NT49MJ
The positioning of the Enter key as the center button with arrow keys around it is perfect for session view work. The full qwerty keyboard on the back of it only lights up/activates when it is face up, which means no risk of accidentally pressing keys unintended. An Undo button (Ctrl Z) on the remote side would have been a welcome addition, but the Ctrl and Z keys are right next to each other on the keyboard side, and in a position to the thumb that makes using them quite fast. It's almost as if it were designed exactly for my purposes. As a bonus, the gyro mouse feature works very well for navigating around when arrow keys aren't enough. I tried tweaking a few on-screen knobs and sliders with it and it was surprisingly usable.
Although this particular model doesn't seem to work with Mac, I'm pretty sure an equivalent device out there exists. It just comes down to your particular keyboard shortcut needs, whether you have synths too far away from the DAW in the first place and need full keyboard/mouse control in one hand, and having the patience to find one with the specifics you need (that was the hardest part, paging through all the products out there and finding the right one).
The one thing that would make the device a bit more perfect is programmable buttons (and less of them on the remote side), but I'm sure that would be a more expensive device .