Poor-man's Kaossilator

The Korg Kaossilator is a touch-pad synthesiser. It allows you to drag your finger across a touch pad similar to a mouse track pad on a laptop, and alter the pitch and timbre of a synthesised sound depending on your finger position on the pad.

Here's a picture of the original device (source: Korg, 2008)

I've created a software version of the kaossillator using a combination of Windows software. The first is from LiveLab who made an excellent piece of software called Touchpad2MIDI (mirror: touchpad2midi.zip).

Touchpad2MIDI needs a Synaptics touchpad!

We feed the output from Touchpad2MIDI to a PureData patch and then to a software (or hardware) synthesiser. Now you have a Kaossilator, but with sounds you can design yourself. (The real Korg Kaossilator has only a few preset sounds inside).

You could also use any other X-Y controller (and avoid using Touchpad2MIDI), feeding the data directly into the PureData patch.

Downloads:

• Touchpad2MIDI (mirror: touchpad2midi.zip)
• PureData 0.39.3-extended (Windows installer: Pd-0.39.3-extended.exe)
• MidiYOKE
• my PureData patch
• (a newer beta-testing PureData patch is here)

• Instruction sheet - block diagram of components required
• MidiYOKE (see MidiYOKE download page) is a crucial component here, it facilitates routing of MIDI internally so that the separate pieces of software can communicate with each other

Video:

Also see: the instruction video on youtube

Screenshots:

Make sure to configure the Touchpad2MIDI plugin by picking the correct options (highlighted in red) so that they correspond with the image below:

Main patch:

Constraining notes to scales:

Velocity mapping: