MIDI CONTROLLER SETUP GUIDE
Check our MIDI video guide below, and if you're still having issues, follow the rest of this page.
If you have a non-touch jog wheel, check the FAQ at the bottom of this page to understand why it may not be fully supported.
1. Verify controller connection
Here is how to verify that your MIDI controller is correctly plugged in.
MacOS
1. It should just work.
WINDOWS
1. Plug in the controller
2. Identify with the manufacturer if drivers are required for your device
3. Open Windows Device Manager
4. Scroll down to 'Software Devices'
5. Expand 'Software Devices' and identify your MIDI device
6. If your device does not show up
a. Check cable connection
b. Check external power or battery requirements
c. Verify the MIDI device is powering on
MacOS
a. Check cable connection
b. Check external power or battery requirements
c. Verify the MIDI device is powering on
2. Configuring a MIDI device for Spin Rhythm XD
1. Open Spin Rhythm XD
2. Plug in the MIDI device if it is not already connected
3. Navigate to 'OPTIONS' on the main screen, select 'SETTINGS' and then 'INPUT'
4. Your MIDI device should show up automatically in the input device list.
5. Configure the controls by pressing the '+' button for each desired input.
6. For spinning the wheel using a jog as an input, follow the guide that appears on the screen.
WARNING: Some MIDI controllers have two values for spinning the jog, one for when the wheel is held, and one for while it is released. You will need to bind both of them.
Other inputs you will want to bind are below.
a. Spin Wheel - this is used to spin the wheel
b. Grab / Tap Wheel - This tells the game the wheel is being 'grabbed' - used for tap notes and stopping the wheel after a spin.
c. Alt-Tap Wheel - Useful if you want to hit tap notes with your off hand instead of tapping the jog.
d. Beat - For hitting 'Beat' notes (the green bars) - these appear on Hard, Expert, XD and RemiXD difficulties only.
e. Others - You can bind menu navigation controls and more lower down the input list.
3. Troubleshooting / faq
Q: Why doesn't this game properly support my non-touch MIDI wheel?
A: The reason we need a "grab wheel" bind (usually bound to the wheel tap) is that many wheels have quite a bit of physical inertia. If you spin the wheel strongly for a shorter spin region, it’s likely that the wheel will still have quite a bit of momentum. The issue here is that when the spin is over, there’s no way for the game to know if the player’s intention is to have the wheel keep spinning or not.
Currently with spin notes on MIDI we don’t use any of the rotation reported from device after a spin until we detect that the player has touched the jog again. Because of this it’s also very tricky to detect consecutive spins in the same direction (a mechanic that shows up in all difficulties).
If the wheel has a consistent torque and we don’t know when it was grabbed then it’s hard to know when a spin should have occurred, unless we can "reset" the momentum with a grab function that ignores subsequent inertia. Some jogs are very stiff and so this might not even be an issue for them, but many others will experience problems.
Q: I configured the MIDI wheel, but it does not move the wheel in the game
A: You may need to register a button to “Grab Wheel” to activate the wheel movement in game.
Q: When I move the wheel it spins wildly.
A: Check the sensitivity slider in the previous menu. This is a global wheel sensitivity that affects all control methods. Also some wheels just spit out incredibly strange movement data on their movement axes, check Discord for which wheels are recommended for Spin. This often has nothing to do with their price, there are just strange anomalies with certain hardware as they were not designed for gaming.
Q: When I spin the wheel it moves backwards in game.
A: Check the sensitivity. If it is negative, make it positive. If it’s positive, make it negative by adding a ' - ' in front of the number eg '-1.5'
Q: My Native Instruments (Traktor S2 and others) wheel doesn't let me bind anything in game.
A: This seems to be a clash with NI wheels only, make sure your wheel is set to MIDI mode (follow page 21 in the NI instruction manual). On Windows you ou may also need to download the appropriate Controller Editor software from the NI website.
Q: Pioneer DDJ (CDJ etc) is acting a little odd
A: The jog wheels on the more premium Pioneer decks are pressure-sensitive, with note 33 registering a light touch/spin and 34 a heavy touch/spin, and tapping the wheel registering as note 54. Be careful about this when configuring.
Add both 33 and 34 (heavy and light touch) to the Spin Wheel setting so that the game isn't affected by how much pressure is used. Make sure that tap registers as note 54 (and not 33 or 34) otherwise the tap and hold sections will fail (use the easy tutorial to test).
Sensitivity in the range -2 to +2 seems to work well.
Q: I need more help!
If you are still having trouble with your MIDI device, check this resource https://github.com/keijiro/MidiJack/wiki/Troubleshooting.
For more tech support reach out in our Discord https://discord.gg/spinrhythmxd
Reach out to us via email support@superspin.digital.