It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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theextravaganttraveller
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It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by theextravaganttraveller » Sat May 09, 2015 11:50 pm

Anyone have any luck running Live on touchscreens? My RSI's really starting to kill my hands. I've done what I can assigning key and mouse macros in ControllerMate, plus designing Lemur templates for most used plug-ins. I'm also alternating between every input device under the sun - trackball, pen tablet, vertical mouse, left handed mouse. But it just isn't proving to be enough to alleviate the constant pain.

.. But enough complaining - anyone have any experience controlling Live via touchscreen? How is it? Specific products that work / don't work? Any feedback much appreciated. My hands thank you.

BTW, I'm running OSX 10.6.8.

mekanism1200
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by mekanism1200 » Fri May 29, 2015 6:00 pm

I have been researching a way to have Ableton on the go and it looks like the Surface 3 will run Ableton ok as long as you dont try and run a bunch of plugins and tracks. Coupled with the Pen that MS has it seems to work fairly well. Also, there is a program called Emulator Pro that will sit on top of Ableton that is a fully customizable midi interface. It even has a way to cut a window through it so you can see Ableton underneath it. I think now that a Surface 3 is the same price as an Ipad it is much more appealing since it will run Ableton, although not with larger projects. I think for sound design it would work nicely, especially if you stay away from third party plugins.

There is a great review comparing the Surface Pro 3 to the Surface 3 here-
https://youtu.be/uNkNEFlUtEk

Emulator Pro-
https://youtu.be/49S--0JZMwI

For all in one touch screen usage-
https://youtu.be/6PlzCYF66G0

patchbayarea
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by patchbayarea » Fri Jun 05, 2015 4:20 pm

I use it on a daily basis on a 27" touchscreen (viewsonic) with Windows 8.1.

Because that screen has a low DPI:
- Most Ableton pluggs work well (e.g. E.Q eight)
- Most pluggins in gerneral work in an awesome way without automap or midi mapping etc.
- Smithson Martin Emulator Pro rocks

BUT because Ableton has un appropriate scripts:
- Faders/Levels/Sends etc. do NOT work (0/1 value)
- Many touch zones are too narrow as opposed to many other daws
- So you rely on a third party touchscreen/midi mapping solution like emulator pro

+ No limitation as opposed to surface 3, since its plugged on a proper PC setup.
+ Take a flat, horizontal or <30° screen, like any mixing console - or from an ergonomy stand point you'll be tired after 4 minutes.

My 2 cents

yur2die4
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by yur2die4 » Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:05 pm

To make faders work, do a search for Ableton and absoluteMouseMode

It is an options.txt setting. After that, those things work smoothly ;). Just can't do Multi touch.

Also, I suggest turning off the Context Menu on long-press in Windows Control Panel touch settings.

sopwith
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by sopwith » Sat Jun 06, 2015 10:48 am

Surface Pro / Smithson Martin Emulator / Live 9 user here - works brilliantly. I have a six page layout which controls everything from faders and clip launch to VST instruments and my midi enabled guitar pedals. Its pretty incredible.

granted
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by granted » Sun Jun 07, 2015 1:13 am

Does the Smithson Martin Emulator come with templates for Live? Or do you have to build your own?

sopwith
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by sopwith » Mon Jun 08, 2015 2:40 am

granted wrote:Does the Smithson Martin Emulator come with templates for Live? Or do you have to build your own?
Yep they have an ableton template, but the whole point is that it's a tool to create your own custom layout. Most of the functionality of the program is related to creating different types of sliders, buttons, and xy pads and then assigning various midi functions to them. It takes a while to make the templates, but once you put the time in, it's incredible.

yur2die4
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by yur2die4 » Mon Jun 08, 2015 3:14 am

I'm not really interested in Emulator unless they can make a template that actually updates with data received from Live for options, instead of forcing a user to be limited to parameter-for-parameter midi mapping.

Also a step sequencer would be nice.

Until then, it seems like a partial solution, and better than any other options. But a new option could easily be more interesting than Emulator at this point.

Plus I have not really seen Any impressive or interesting Live usage vids. Even their presentations do not really reveal it in use.

sopwith
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by sopwith » Mon Jun 08, 2015 6:01 am

Think of Emulator Pro as a totally customizable control surface - it can get data back from live to change the colors of its clip launch buttons depending on the play state of the clip, but otherwise it's like a controller that you design. If you want to interact with Ableton itself, you can cut holes in the Emulator surface. Yea, making a complicated layout is a lot of midi mapping. But when I can control all my clips, AND control U-He Diva with nice big knobs and sliders while I'm playing, it's totally worth it.

sashazane
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Re: It's 2015... any luck with Live on touchscreens?

Post by sashazane » Mon Jun 08, 2015 7:23 am

theextravaganttraveller wrote:Anyone have any luck running Live on touchscreens? My RSI's really starting to kill my hands. I've done what I can assigning key and mouse macros in ControllerMate, plus designing Lemur templates for most used plug-ins. I'm also alternating between every input device under the sun - trackball, pen tablet, vertical mouse, left handed mouse. But it just isn't proving to be enough to alleviate the constant pain.

.. But enough complaining - anyone have any experience controlling Live via touchscreen? How is it? Specific products that work / don't work? Any feedback much appreciated. My hands thank you.

BTW, I'm running OSX 10.6.8.
i was in that position, I've spent 3 weeks working out a mouse free environment, keyque is a good for a quick hud of shortcuts (it includes ableton when you are running it) i also have gone the iPad as second display and installed duet, a usb tethered second display for iPad, it makes the second window, although small, touchable.. which brings up touchable- if you have ANY idevice it's worth installing it will work with duet also running giving you another touch display, GET mobile mouse pro, it turns another idevice ( iPod touch included) into a mouse that you can hold in your hand, it has many options including app switch, keyboard etc.
a brilliant new direction that mac has enabled in yosemite is midi and audio over usb so you can turn your iPad into another virtual controller, yet way more versatile than a hardware controller) I've settled with audio bus and MusicIO, an alternative to musicIO is audio/midi mux. in the end MusicIO is simple and works fast, but people love audiomux..
Im just telling all the improvements iv'e found while obssesively looking in order to quicken workflow and save my body from FAST deterioration.
I think you need 10.10 for the leaps forward in iPad laptop compatibility.
I just had my entire music world wiped including backups , many hundreds of hours of projects gone..
It's actually insane if i think about it, so now I'm back to mavericks 10.9.5, and i hate Yosemite.. yet I'm pretty sure I'll need the upgrade to run MusicIO. I haven't even played a note since the 2 days of hell post sys crash..

BTW I attribute the beginning of my quest to MacAbleton (discontinued yet really helpful blog) here is a page from his site that helps you find the answers you need http://tinyurl.com/phowzxa this guy uses 1 finger commands for nearly every aspect of ableton! watch some of his vids.
cheers, good luck saving the hand.

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