I used to use a game controller to control Ardour. This 'should' work with any DAW or application that has keyboard shortcuts.
This was really handy when I was sitting with acoustic guitar in lap, in front of the mic, and clammed on a take. No more getting out of position, sitting the guitar down, walking across the room to reset. And I could hit record when I was ready...
Basically, install xboxdrv and then you setup the game controller to execute keyboard shortcuts like arm, record, stop, rewind, forward, undo, etc. You can even page_up and page_down to scroll between tracks.
the xboxdrv.ini for Ardour looked like this...
[xboxdrv]
evdev=/dev/input/event6
silent=true[evdev-absmap]
ABS_X=x1
ABS_Y=y1
ABS_HAT0X=x2
ABS_HAT0Y=y2[ui-axismap]
x1=REL_X:0
y1=REL_Y:-0
x2=KEY_LEFT:KEY_RIGHT
y2=KEY_DOWN:KEY_UP[evdev-keymap]
BTN_TRIGGER=x
BTN_TOP=y
BTN_THUMB=a
BTN_THUMB2=b
BTN_PINKIE=rt
BTN_BASE2=rb
BTN_TOP2=lt
BTN_BASE=lb
BTN_BASE3=back
BTN_BASE4=start[ui-buttonmap]
x=KEY_LEFTCTRL+KEY_LEFTALT+KEY_SPACE
y=KEY_LEFTCTRL+KEY_Z
a=KEY_LEFTCTRL+KEY_R
b=KEY_LEFTSHIFT+KEY_SPACE
rt=KEY_PAGEUP
rb=KEY_PAGEDOWN
lt=KEY_LEFTSHIFT+KEY_B
lb=KEY_LEFTALT+KEY_S
back=KEY_LEFTSHIFT
start=KEY_LEFTALT+KEY_M