Faking Monome

I spent saturday night at home trying to recover from a cold, so I decided to investigate a bit more about monome.

First thing I did was install and try the software:

To use monome's software, you need to install Max/Msp for some applications and also chuck for others. You can download the runtime version of Max in their webpage for free. Chuck is also available for download in their webpage. The runtime version allows running software but not making your own or modifying the existing. Then I downloaded from here the following software:

• monome base: This contains monome40h_fake, which is a "virtual Monome", which can be controlled by clicking with the mouse in a monome displayed in the PC screen.
  
• mlr: What seems to be the most popular application for monome, a live sample-cutting platform.
• Other cool apps are 64Step and life, for example... those are the ones I tried.
  

BTW, I am using PC, but everything should work OK in Mac, not sure about Linux.

Some tips to get the thing to work quick:

• Read the instructions provided with the software.
  
• Make sure your soundcard is working properly in Max by going to extras->audiotester (not sure if that is available in the runtime version).
• For monome40h_fake to work with mlr, you need to set the prefix to "/mlr". Other monome applications use "/box" (64Step, another cool app) or "/life" (for the game of life).
• mlr only seems to support aif and wav files... do not try mp3s.
  

Once you start working with mlr and monome40h_fake, you will realize that you are missing a lot of functionality by only being able to click on one pad at a time. The solution for this is to use nonome, a monome emulator with keyboard support. You may find nonome here. The way to use nonome is explained with a lot of detail in the same link, so I won't bother. There is also a modified version of the mlr software (you can see it in the picture above).

Once there, you are all set... get some cool samples and enjoy. I did not have many samples in my PC so I went to NIN Remix webpage and downloaded the samples for "The Hand that Feeds You". I enjoyed it a lot and made me even more anxious to get my arduinome project started.

I am feeling better today, just ready to go to work tomorrow.... ?@#$%&"