Control a web browser using a USB controller (Korg NanoKONTROL)?

May 25, 2013 9:09 PM

I want to be able to use my Korg NanoKONTROL to DJ using Grooveshark and other things. Does anyone know if/how this is possible? Thanks yall.
posted by defmute to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

I can't imagine that this would be feasible at all. Is there a reason why you'd want to use your controller with grooveshark and youtube instead of a regular DJ program?
posted by Jairus at 9:27 PM on May 25, 2013

Response by poster: yeah cause it's a lot faster for me to just pull up a song on the internet plus then i don't have to have a copy of the track. plus, i dunno, it sounds fun.
posted by defmute at 9:40 PM on May 25, 2013

What operating system? Also, what is the hardware interface? You might be able to rig something up with USB Overdrive if your Korg NanoKONTROL has a USB interface and you are using OS X.
posted by oceanjesse at 9:57 PM on May 25, 2013

You already know this I'm sure, but the files on Grooveshark are 192kbps MP3s. They sound OK for personal listening, but for a large crowd over a good sound system they will sound "dead."
posted by 1adam12 at 10:02 PM on May 25, 2013

Oh sorry, I neglected to answer your question! The short answer is "probably not." This is a MIDI controller, it's not a standard USB HID device. To get this to provide any useful control of a non-MIDI application would require you to write a bridge app. I found the reverse of what you need here, but I can't find any pre-written software to convert MIDI to normal keystrokes. USB Overdrive only can read inputs from HID-compliant devices, and I am almost positive that the nanoKontrol doesn't send HID signals (although some DJ controllers do these days. Traktor S4 does, but then if you had an S4 you might not be asking this question!).
posted by 1adam12 at 10:23 PM on May 25, 2013 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I've not tried this myself, but I think you can use SoundFlower to route audio from a browser into an audio app like Traktor, Live, or Max, which you could drive with the controller to do the actual mixing. You'd have to cue up using the applications / websites normal interface though.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 11:48 PM on May 25, 2013

Response by poster: word, inpHilltr8r. that sounds like it might work. thanks for the responses everyone.
posted by defmute at 3:10 AM on May 26, 2013

Not even remotely plausible because of latency problems.
posted by empath at 5:35 AM on May 26, 2013

You could definitely control the browser using Bome's Midi Translator.
posted by Magnakai at 6:46 AM on May 26, 2013

Empath's right in so far as you're not going to be beatmatching with this sort of arrangement. There's more to being a DJ than that though.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 6:50 PM on May 26, 2013