This made me think of a question I've had for a bit now.
What is the cheapest way to get a grid of buttons that wires into a laptop (mac if it matters) to play sound effects? My wife is a teacher and would really enjoy hitting a button and getting some dumb sound effect to play. But it's just a lark, so it's not worth too much $ invested.
I had assumed a cheap drum pad + midi, but not 100% sure that makes sense.
Not necessarily the cheapest possible options, but cheap enough and fairly quick to get going:
If you want a MIDI pad controller, the Korg nanoPAD 2 [1] is $65 new (and often pops up used) and powered entirely off USB. You can then set up Sitala [2] to listen for notes from the pad and drag-and-drop samples onto each note.
If you want keyboard-style keys, the Pimoroni Keybow kit [2] is $57 - there is a bit of assembly, but no soldering.
I've seen nanopads (1 and 2) go for $20 fairly often; the kind of thing that's so cheap I'm always tempted to get it with minimal actual use cases for it.
Search for "effects pad" on your online marketer of choice. Show a few to your wife in the affordable range (whatever that means to you), get the one she likes. Personally I would make sure the screenshots do not include the price tag, but that's me.
What is the cheapest way to get a grid of buttons that wires into a laptop (mac if it matters) to play sound effects? My wife is a teacher and would really enjoy hitting a button and getting some dumb sound effect to play. But it's just a lark, so it's not worth too much $ invested.
I had assumed a cheap drum pad + midi, but not 100% sure that makes sense.