MIDI
Recently, I released a major update to DMX Assistant, and launched a new product: MIDI Friend!
DMX Assistant
You can now trigger Scenes with MIDI Control Change or Note messages – this enabled you to use a simple MIDI controller to control a simple lighting system, or for a show control system (like Qlab) to trigger a more complicated lighting system.
MIDI Friend
While I was working on the DMX Assistant MIDI update, I had a problem – I always had to have my hardware MIDI controller (a Korg nanoKONTROL) around with me to send MIDI messages to test things with. There’s some useful tools already out there (like Snoize MIDI Monitor) for analysing MIDI going through your Mac, but I couldn’t find any easy way to simulate a MIDI control without using a whole big app really designed for other purposes.
I quickly hacked together a little app that had a “Send MIDI” button and a slider or something. Because it was so useful, I deiced to put in the extra effort and turn it into a releasable product. For some extra fun, I decided to play around with custom interface design (I love my motion-blurred tab transition animation!)
It currently only supports Note, Control Change and Pitch Bend Change messages, but I plan to add more in the future (let me know what would be useful to you!).
You can find both DMX Assistant and MIDI Friend for sale on the Mac App Store. Feel free to ask me any questions and let me know what you think!
I’ve prepared a press pack filled with screenshots of both DMX Assistant and MIDI Friend.