Lemur Controller Feedback Please

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:03 am

Ok, I supose I am giving away some of my research here - but what the hell

anyone checked out eyesweb?
now that's taking the computer out of the way of performer and audience

http://www.infomus.dist.unige.it/eywindex.html

you will of course look like a mad person fending off bats as you perform your brreakbeat symphony.

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:38 am

Guys are you talking about this?
The AudioPad?

nope. look here www.jazzmutant.com

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch/index.html

this looks interesting angstrom, i didn't realise this was using a projector though. i thought the whole concept involved touch interfering with refraction on an led screen when i first came across it. but looking at the pics again he is using a projector. you could probably adapt that as an overlay for an existing screen maybe?
are you really gonna try out eyesweb?!? would that make interpretive dance IDM?

So as not to offend, I take back "In every other respect..." from my previous post.

none taken mate. i guess i'm just hoping this thing IS the bizness!

i've spent so long trying to figure out what the 'best' controller would be....

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:44 am

I am planning on trying out eyesweb for a project, it was destined for something quite large and stupid rather than traditional performing of dance music. I didn't think it would cope with strobes and smoke.
But a friend recently pointed me in the direction of tiny cheap infra-red security cameras that dont pay attention to visible light. So it might be appropriate for clubs after all, possibly.

no experiments of my own yet - but friends have used it with success.

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:59 am

thats sound pretty cool!! myself and a friend have been thinking about getting some 'door buzzer' light sensor arrangements for installations as he's got a roland box that takes that type of input and converts it to midi. eyesweb possibly has some potential for that type of thing as well. does it respond to set gestures or more general forms of movement? on the site it talks about responding to fast 'nervous' movement that makes me think it leans towards the latter type, but i'm not too sure.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:27 am

my friends are using the gestural stuff, but they are a combo of dancers and damn clever C++ types (nice combo eh?)

so, yes - eyesweb specialises in interpreting repeated gestures and mapping them into music files / midi output / visual processing.

at its base though is the ability to segment the body into mapable blocks and assign parameters to - position, velocity of movement, asymetry of the body .. etc.
So, you could just map your arm to midi volume for example .. at the most simple level.

More complex : set up a patch where punching the air 3 times then pointing at the crowd activates the Live clip containing a cheesy snare drum rise in the 1992 house style.

almost all of this is stuff I haven't done yet though

smartabletonuser · Post by **smartabletonuser** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:28 am

I have done that with the door buzzers.

take the casing off and you have a velocity sensitive touch pad (for $.33). I used to use them with my alesis DM4 drum module. It would take the note, and then I could trigger a multiple patches from Kontakt (modulating pitch from velocity)

oh man, those were the days. now i just hit keys.....

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 2:30 am

punching the air 3 times then pointing at the crowd activates the Live clip containing a cheesy snare drum rise in the 1992 house style.

Wink

almost all of this is stuff I haven't done yet though

oh come on! i do this type of gesture on a daily basis!

does sound Really interesting though....

robtronik · Post by **robtronik** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 7:51 pm

so, I got off the phone with Cycllng74 technical support to dig a bit about this device. I was one click away from placing my order yesterday, but decided to do more due diligence to ensure that my questions were answered...

In short, the unit's MIDI capability is fully beta right now, not really a final release. The guys at Cycling74 are now going through the set ups for Live and Logic to see how it works (according to Jazzmutant, it all works well, but they want to verify). They will be posting more information about the Lemur on the Cycling74 website with examples and set ups once they confirm that it works. The bottom line is that you can buy one now, but you will be helping the beta test of the MIDI capability. Apparently, and rightly so, the OSC implementation works as advertised, but the MIDI spec and development showed up last week on the Jazzmutant web site....

Some other cool bits of info:

1) Cycling74 said the Jazzmutant guys are great to work with. This is good to hear from a distribution and developer relationship standpoint.
2) Cycling74 has been pressuring Ableton and Apple to include OSC in their respective products. This is good too.
3) The JazzEditor mirrors the activity on the unit itself in almost real time. Some enterprising performers would be able to project the editor on a screen to show people what you were doing while performing. Jazzmutant guys just added the capability to have the balls follow your fingers now too in the editor. I think this has legs, especially if they implement a full screen mode.

We talked a bit about how it would be great to minimize the laptop from the performance, but agreed that unfortunately you cannot do that yet with Live because not everything is mappable and there are serious roadblocks with Clip activate vs. Launch vs. viewing that would need sorting out.

Hopefully Ableton will take the stance that the interface can be played independently of viewing the software one day. That would be, so to speak, KEEN.

Cycling74 said to wait a week and see what is posted. They like the device and they want it to work (and not have any returns - so they are urging individual buyers to be catious and realistic about the device as it currently stands. I loved the honesty and I have respect for the way the information was conveyed to me. Class act, IMO.).

Also: Aside from institutions who might have the unit for testing, only 4 have been sold to actual individuals. We both agreed that once they post affirmation and set up templates for MIDI based apps, that the orders would explode for serious, cutting edge users of interfaces like that.

FYI.

rob.

robtronik · Post by **robtronik** » Tue Aug 23, 2005 7:56 pm

here is the email I sent with my main questions about the set up, for further context. I think its pretty cool, but they need to update the documentation so we can see how this is done. I suspect that editing of the XML file it generates would be the easiest at this point, but as the Cycling74 guy pointed out, you want to make sure that what you've updated in the XML file and then transmitted into the Lemur will be workable with the firmware in the device itself. .02.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Hi there,

I was one click away from ordering a lemur today, but then
some slight reservations came over me which delayed my
purchase. Namely, I had a couple of questions regarding the
set up of the device that I would like answered before I
purchase.

(BTW, I subscribed to the JazzMutant list, but it appears
to be entirely inactive - or I have subscribed incorrectly
- and there is no digest where I can peruse the history to
see if my answsers were there.)

1) Because I use Ableton Live to perform, I was happy to
see that MIDI was included in the final release. However,
after setting up my preferred interface windows in the
JazzEditor application, I still do not understand how to:
a) create additional MIDI assignments beyond the 39 or so
that are already listed in the application. Looking at the
Traktor example it is clear that additional MIDI
assignments were created to facilitate the extra controls.
Was this done in the Variable area? And if so...
b) how do you assign the MIDI assignment to a particular
object? Do you use the name of the object as a variable
parameter and then the software links the two?

2) Don't know if you can answer this one, because it is
application specific, but my guess is that you can use the
MIDI learn command found in many applications like Live,
Reason, or Traktor to latch a particular object to a
function in the host application. Is this how it is done?

Any additional help with these questions would be
completely appreciated. I like the configuration
possibilities the Lemur has to offer (and it would satiate
the need I have for finding that "perfect" controller that
doesn't exist

) and would love to get additional insight
before I spend $3k on it.

-----------------------------------------------------------

that's the whole enchilada. I'm going to get one of these.

rob.

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 12:41 am

thanks for the info robtronik! all very interesting.
for what it's worth i sat down and had a good hard look at the traktor example yesterday and figured out how to specify midi to send from controls. it's not really simple, but it seems pretty powerful. as far as i can tell you could set up multiple controls for each onscreen control pretty easily, as well as using mathematical stuff like log curves etc. for controls as well (i think anyway... it's difficult without having the unit in front of me).

theres an interesting example in the manual too for programming the unit to operate as a 4 track 16 step sequencer which i like the sound of

theres plenty of scope available in having it be more programming style like it is, but it means it probably won't be the most straight forward machine to set up.

Living_Fiction · Post by **Living_Fiction** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:04 am

OSC controller support should be there, but I don't think an extra add on should be the solution, neither...I think "Mutli Touch" screen support would smoke it all away. It would let you have total control, and wouldn't be limited to configuration set ups, like with every controller out there. Besides, why buy an extra add on your monitor could do that??? If they really want to get hardware purists to switch they need to offer something completely out of the box. Hardware does this, but software doesn't...

robtronik · Post by **robtronik** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 1:59 am

I think OSC should be natively supported in Live. It will cause a rennaissance in external controllers, IMO. I put a suggested feature thread on this subject recently.

rob.

Clearscreen · Post by **Clearscreen** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 2:09 am

is there any other OSC capable controllers around? they'll have to support it eventually i guess, but is there that much of a market at the moment?

robtronik, is there another use for OSC that i'm missing at the moment?
do you use it now, and if so, how?

robtronik · Post by **robtronik** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 3:12 am

not that I am aware of, but I know that Traktor DJ Studio and key products in the Native Instruments product line up uses OSC.

The advantages are pretty big over MIDI and I would assume that OSC would be something that the Ableton's would be interested in given that they are pushing Live performance boundries via software like no one else is.

Seems like it would be a good thing for the controller industry too as the controller options are clearly being driven by software like Live and traktor (and even Reason) which have distinct opportunities that are different from the controller market of a few years that required, and only supported, MIDI compatability.

.02,

rob.

robtronik · Post by **robtronik** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 3:23 am

forgot to add another interesting application that the Cycling74 guys did with the Lemur. They hooked it up to a wireless network and were able to control the laptop software wirelessly (no cables between the Lemur and laptop).

That's pretty interesting as well for creative minded folks. Its possible, under this arrangment to completely hide the computer and make it look like, to the audience, that you are really just playing the Lemur as the instrument.

rob.