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.
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.