MIDItarHero
Miditar hero is a program made in Max/MSP to allow a Guitar controller to be used as a midi controller. Miditar hero is compatible with Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X.[1]
Controller Compatibility
Miditar hero "supports nearly all Rock Band and Guitar Hero controllers (Guitar or Drums) for almost every gaming system (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2)". If your guitar/drum controller is not compatible, then you can make a preset for it right within Miditar hero that can be loaded the next time you boot the program.
Modes
Miditar hero consists of four different modes; Normal, Easy, Drum, and Sample.
Normal mode
In Normal mode, you can play 32 notes using the 5 fret buttons. By default the notes are E1 to B3, but you can change it if you want to. It uses a binary pattern, so going up the scales is fairly simple.
Easy mode
In Easy mode, you play the Chord progressions 1-8 with the first 3 buttons (green, red, yellow). Holding the blue button allows you to play power chords, and the orange button can change the key to major, minor, or diminished depending on what scale you have chosen. The choices for scales are Major, Harm. Minor, Nat. Minor, Blues, and Thrash. There is a choice for what key you want to play in.
Drum mode
In Drum mode, you can assign each drum pad to a sound, and you can even add a high-hat pedal.
Sample mode
In sample mode, you can make each button play a pre-designated sound sample