Using USB Controllers for MIDI

I was wondering if its practical to use any sort of USB controller (Say an old joystick for fighter pilot sims) to control my soft synths? I already have a keyboard and a midi to usb cable, but i wanted to branch out when it comes to different forms of modulation. (There is only so much you can do with a yamaha psr 170 :-\ ) Is there any sort of software or maybe a patch i can download? Or are my dreams just pipedreams. :-o

Thanks guys

I don't know about practical, but it's not a really common practice. I'm sure there's something out there that will let you convert from your hardware signal to MIDI, but it'd have to be fairly specific to your device or family of devices (i.e. there's probably something that will convert from a joystick axis to a MIDI CC or pitch bend; it wouldn't have to know which exact brand of joystick you owned).

This isn't really practical though; I can't think of many types of controllers that aren't part of most standard keyboards (besides a ribbon, which is less common on keyboards) that are also useful musically.

Thanks for the info