Axis-49 to Jammer MIDI Mapper

September 28th, 2019
jammer, music
One of the risks with new instruments is that you might put a lot of work learning how to play something that then is discontinued. In the case of the jammer, things are worse because it was discontinued five years before I even got into the instrument. As I see used Axis-49s come up on resale sites I've been making lowball offers, as politely as I can, trying to collect a few spares, and at this point I have three and a half. [1] While my main goal with these is insurance against a future where mine breaks and I can't fix it, they don't need to stay on my shelf: I've been lending them out to people who want to play with the layout.

You can't use it without a MIDI mapper, though, because while I've rearranged the physical keys, that doesn't make it send different MIDI signals. I was trying to help someone get set up with one, and it turns out that the state of MIDI mappers for non-programmers isn't that great. Plus, with 98 keys, that's a lot of data entry. So I've made a stand-alone version for Mac: source code, executable program.

It's a quick cut-down version of the code behind my rhythm stage setup that looks for an Axis-49 and presents a virtual MIDI device (jammer) that produces the mapped notes. There are two binaries, one for holding the device with (non-functional) transpose keys up, the other with transpose keys down.

If you sometimes play with sharp-key instruments and other times play with flat key ones, you can turn the device over and use the other binary, with a transposition MIDI mapper. This lets you have a range from F to B (F, C, G, D, A, E, B) in one orientation, centered on the key of D, and Db to G (Db, Ab, Eb, Bb, F, C, G) in the other, centered on the key of Bb, in the other.


[1] Three good ones, and one that's too old to go into "selfless" mode and so is effectively only half a keyboard.

Comment via: facebook, lesswrong, substack

Recent posts on blogs I like:

Linkpost for September

Regular announcements: did you know you can hire me for life coaching and general consulting? You can also buy my novella Her Voice Is A Backwards Record wherever fine books are sold (except Google Books).

via Thing of Things September 8, 2025

Against the Teapot Hold in Contra Dancing

The teapot hold is the most dangerous common contra dancing figure, so I’ve been avoiding it. The teapot hold, sometimes called a "courtesy turn hold,” requires one dancer to connect with their hand behind their back. When I realized I could avoid put…

via Emma Azelborn August 25, 2025

Little Puppy

She's very little and she likes to do stuff with me. She also likes to bark around and run around and jump around. She also likes to go to places with me and that's all I have.

via Nora Wise's Blog Posts August 23, 2025

more     (via openring)