Playbox: DIY Multi-touch UI for Ableton Live (video)

[tokyojoe]

http://en.vstlife.com/?p=424

Marco Kuhn demonstrates his DIY 22 inch multi-touch user interface for Ableton Live which allows control of 32 tracks and 127 scenes, track controls, mute, solo, record, sends, pan, level, etc.

[#1thelark]

Funny.. I just watched it a few seconds before this posting. Looks nice... they should have a look at the apple-apis so they can support the ipad.

[Angstrom]

It looks good, but I feel it will seem very dated in about 9 months time

[tokyojoe]

Angstrom, that is a really good point. If someone can turn the iPad into a poor man`s Lemur, I would buy it just for that! Still, Marco said he developed a bunch of his own MIDI libraries. Maybe he can port his work to the iPhone OS. Is Python supported?

[davepermen]

It looks good, but I feel it will seem very dated in about 9 months time

indeed, as a 10" screen is so much more useful than a 22" one.

i agree about the box, though.. hope lemur gets one of it's own that big..

[Angstrom]

Angstrom, that is a really good point. If someone can turn the iPad into a poor man`s Lemur, I would buy it just for that! Still, Marco said he developed a bunch of his own MIDI libraries. Maybe he can port his work to the iPhone OS. Is Python supported?

I doubt it. This is an Apple product and they hate people making things!

The most likely method of creating a connection between an iPad and Ableton would be using something like touchOSC.
http://hexler.net/software/touchosc

TouchOSC to M4L would allow users to get the API stuff without Python. I assume the TouchOSC guy will be creating a version for iPad pretty swiftly.

indeed, as a 10" screen is so much more useful than a 22" one.

There seems to be a willful reality avoidance in relation to this iPad thing. It's like everyone has their lip out about it , I just can't fathom it.

For years musicians have wanted a relatively cheap and flexible multi-touch controller. They never said "it must run Linux", or "I demand it has a camera". Just that it displays plugin parameters on a paged GUI, and provides multi-touch .. that was the future of software interaction only , um a few weeks ago.

So now one comes along and everyone is throwing their dummies out of the pram, I just don't get it.
How is a Novation SL45 at £369 ($588 U.S dollars) a passable control-surface
but an iPad at £499 (I assume) , that is something to rage about?

I just don't get where the rage comes from.
In a years time a used 1st gen iPod with touchOSC seems like a perfectly viable and attractive proposition to me.

[davepermen]

there's no rage coming from me. i just don't consider a 10" touchscreen any comparison to a big one like this, in terms of usability. i have a lemur (finally) and think even it's what? 12" quite limiting.

but two ipads, maybe, could be fun

[EddieJ]

If Ableton would just allow some setting in Session mode that made the whole area of the clip box act as the the play and stop button, and made it compatible with multi-touch, then we could just run Ableton Live on a multi-touch monitor and have all of the same possibilities. I would settle for anything that made it more useful under a touch screen, even mono touch. I used to use Ableton Live with a touchscreen, but the small size of the clip launch buttons made fat-fingering the screen a big problem. I like my APC 40, but I have always desired to just use Ableton Live itself as a control surface.

[ze2be]

http://en.vstlife.com/?p=424

Very very cool! I hope he supports iPad in the future.

[julienb]

it isn't great enough for me

[ze2be]

it isn't great enough for me

Build one yourself then!

[julienb]

I did man, you know that
but I'm probably old skool too much
forget about it

[Kodama]

3 8gb iPads + touch osc =

<$1600

>27"

rechargeable Battery powered.

[julienb]

if I'm okay with DAW + virtual instruments, I need a big heavy metal box with circuit powered knobs and buttons.
but touch OSC on my iphone is cool too you're right!