The jammer expanded - working fully with your computer

Here's one step, a crucial one, to making an truly useful instrument from the new button-array keyboards: your midi controller needs a properly configured netbook/laptop. First, you need a loop-back engine, otherwise you computer can only do one thing to your midi input, and you need it do more.

Midi Basics - loopback

Per the diagram to the traditional intent of midi processing on the computer is to do just one thing: change the input to a different midi signal, or convert it to a neat sound, or perhaps teach a music lesson, but not more.

This is basically due to the ancient (in computer terms), simple original design of midi: the computer was thought of as just another instrument or musical gadget: input one thing, fix it up, and spit if out.

Midi Basics - loopback2

To fix this on, this you need a missing component, a virtual MIDI device for transferring MIDI data between midi layers/computer programs, called a midi loopback. Basically this is an "invisible cable" to connect a MIDI out-port of an application to any other application's MIDI in-port.

All MIDI data sent to the program's output is channeled to the receiving applications in real-time.

I recommend loopbe1, from some guys in Germany. It is very simple, installs cleanly, and detects feed back. 

It's only quirk: if you do get a feedback going, it will mute itself, and you will have to remember open the control and un-mute it. It may take a while for the light to dawn.