MIDI keyboard

MIDI keyboards will on the whole only play notes in GB: some may alter the volume of the selected track or the overall volume but that's about it.

If you want to do track mixing, transport control or control of effects you need the iControl:
http://www.maudio.co.uk/products/en_gb/iControl-main.html

Going price is about 80UKP:
http://www.nusystems.co.uk/product/M-Audio.iControl

Is there any way to control GarageBand with footswitches? I'm thinking of using GarageBand as way to play backing tracks for guitar practice and my hands are already in use. I can do this with a CD player that I have (Tascam GT-1) but I want to do it with rhythm tracks that I create in GarageBand.

So, could you plug in a midi footcontroller and "wire" it up to control GarageBand? If not directly then would the iControl allow the use of footswitches?

Thanks,
Stuart

iControl doesn't have the facility for footswitches as such. I don't know what's available in the way of footswitches: you would need something with either a USB connection and a driver, or a MIDI connection which you would use with an interface or iControl's MIDI in: but you would need to be able to configure the footswitch to send the appropriate control codes: see
http://homepage.mac.com/rfwilmut/notes/GBcontrol.html
which since these are non-standard may very well not be possible.

Roger,

Thank you for the information. As for the midi control commands that you have listed on the page you linked to in your message, do they only work when the iControl is connected? You speculated that on your webpage. Have you found that to be true?

I have found that there are fully programmable midi footswtiches available (e.g. this one from Behringer - http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHFCB1010http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHFCB1010) and if GarageBand will respond to those midi commands that you give then this footswitch should be able to send them.

Thanks

As for the midi
control commands that you have listed on the page you
linked to in your message, do they only work when the
iControl is connected? You speculated that on your
webpage. Have you found that to be true?

As my keyboard is fairly basic I can't answer that one. I was hoping that eventually someone with a more complex keyboard would try it and report back.

Roger,

I haven't been able to verify it directly but I have found that there is software out there to allow MIDI commands to control GarageBand. That seems to me to indicate pretty strongly that GarageBand won't natively respond to MIDI and that you were only able to see it happening because of the iControl.

I've found Garage Remote that will allow the control of the transport controls.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/23026

Even more interesting is MidiPipe which will do very many things with MIDI data. In relation to GarageBand it will listen for MIDI messages and then fire off AppleScript programs in response to the MIDI. That will let you do virtually anything with MIDI messages on the Mac. You could use it to control GarageBand, Safari, Mail, anything.
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/16154