Ideas for your ideal Live controller

DJADD · Post by **DJADD** » Wed Feb 25, 2004 8:28 am

Build the main playing area using video game buttons, like a MAME controller, but for Live... an array of velocity sensitive buttons laid out in, for example, a 10 x 10 grid (or whatever), and then have the crossfader, faders, mute buttons, A+B buttons, etc, mounted near the bottom, along with a Centipede type trackball. It would be a huge square with a mount for a stand on the backside, so it could be mounted and angled whichever way necessary. Midi IN/OUT/THRU, and this one device could handle all the Midi in that Live would need... have a Midi clock in it too, with another MAME controller knob, a spinner, like on a Tempest game, so you can just spin yourself up and down the tempo willy-nilly... and then stick a Theremin in it, just as a little bonus.

I would buy one!

dirtystudios · Post by **dirtystudios** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 7:53 am

dirtystudios wrote: so my ideal live (and just about any other program for that matter) controller proposal, is a touchscreen interface. not just live displaying on a touchscreen, live's interface is superduper but this could be used for anything and would provide much more flexibilty. more of a completley configurable screen upon which one could render faders, x/y controllers, buttons and whatever else one wanted that could be mapped out to the program...this way people could have every controller they needed, when they needed it, where they needed it and everything could be easily labeled. the software could be open sourced, or based on max/msp and use a object oriented structure so that people could write new modules in to suit their needs. it would seriously kick ass if it was teamed up with max/msp. think of it, completely user designed software hooked up to a controller that was designed specificaly for it and the user.

Lemur, bitches! What? Two years ago?

Damn they're spooky... these powers.

k

P.S. Yes, I do go back and read my old posts every now and again, and yes, it is sad.

pepezabala · Post by **pepezabala** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 9:33 am

ryansupak wrote:hi, this subject has been of great interest to me for some time.

1) less could be more

to that end, i always thought that two simultaneous mice with two simultaneous and distinct cursors would be ideal for most "tweaking" tasks. the mouse interface is already quite familiar to computer users, and there is not an additional degree of aliasing involved. (this is as opposed to the average hardware knob box, where you assign knob 7 to control track 4 volume, and knob 13 to control cutoff frequency.) in contrast, the cursor activates whatever button or fader that it hovers over, and there is never an additional degree of separation.

That's exactly what I want since a long time!!!! Why can't I have two or three or four mouses, for tweaking live together with my friends. This would be so much fun. The cursor activates each functionality when touching the knob/fader/value-box, and the scroll-whell should act as a knob.

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 12:46 pm

I havent read thru all the posts..so when i double what others allready said...i am sorry ...
Anyway...
A decent controler...good idea...And there is one that follows all needs..because the program has a structure and a workflow that is implemented in itself, and there is the task of live presented electronic music that hasnt changed much since the times people have put tons of sequencers, synths,fx racks and a complete mixing desk on stage and improvised with that...
A process also known as dub mixing..
And the keyword is improvisation here.
When its preprogrammed the tiny faderbox serves well allready.

Building a decent controler have to allow improvisation... sensfull adjustment...overview...spontanius actions...your hands have to be allowed to do things you havent them ordered to do...

Problem: It seems that exept maybe the lemur people with theire tablet nobody in the hardware companies trys to develop an instrument...
And it has to be an instrument...Live+dedicated hardware controler=instrument

The problem is that there are not many e-musicans theese days that really play...and live itself was forcing that... in the last gigs i played people said that the music was great but that i had some mixing mistakes...

..
mixing mistakes?..i was "composing" live... what the fuck... theese people are so used to preprogrammed acts and dj´s... However i realised that i got more attention and reaktion by beeing 100% live than the usual laptop act..
especially in relation to the very poor base materials i had ... On stage it got much better than the material made me believe that it coud be...
And thats the special magic in playing live... some mistakes..and some brilliant moments you never expected before getting on stage...
Turning the liveset into a unique point in time.
The past and the future of music is human interaction...wether with machines or other human beeings dont matters...we need control !

Maybe i am to oldschool..but my vision is that the future will be more improvised again... It´s just too boring when the Dj´s appear more live than the liveacts.

So a decend controler for Ableton Live is defently the wright direction to go IMO.

Its not easy to develop such a thing for a complex program like Live, that well can simulate a complete studio...And can be almost perfectly remote controled...see Kid Beyond...
He managed to turn live into a live multitrack looper... great... functions like this should be implemented in a more accessible form into live...but its great that its possible with supporting software...
Similar things need to happen with the clip selections...

here Live is pretty much like logic that leaves the design for a controlable surface to the user instead developing a logical grid that allows the user to learn the instrument "ableton Live"... therfore the cheapo hardware controler companys cant come up with something that is more than just a few asigneable knobs and buttons...

Conclusion...The hardware companys need people that know the real thing "the big setup and the improvisation..the dub mixing" to develop the wright ergonomics...

And Ableton needs to give certain aspects in the program more structure towards the same goal.

Threre is a reason that in 3 years we havent seen anything more than the good ol faderbox with some more knobs... thats not really development...
Maybe engage some musicans than allways looking for fresh "talent" with engineer degrees fresh from the university...

However..a practical example...

I once made myself a little scene selector for Live with the Nord modular G2...

one knob was selecting 8 scenes...another 8 groups of scenes..
selecting a new group of scenes automatical selected the first scene of that group...
simple..nothing special... but more practical than having 64 dedicated buttons on a big box...

Only problem... Live is not prepared for this kind of scene selection tactics because each new scene inserted/created would force me to reassign all scenes that follow, to make the new inserted scene availible from my controler...

So the freedom that you can adress everything yourself in live (like in logic) turns against you when some sort of standard selection procedure needs to be applied... than every move forces you to readress everything because ther is no standard...like scene one is selected with note 1..and scene 11 is selected with note 11...regardless how many scenes you might insert or not...

Ableton needs to develop a standard assignement for the main functions first. Than a decend hardware controler that concentrates on playbility instead of universality can happen...

This all over universality kills creativity..Or at least hides the possibilitys...
Too much options..no use to learn some moves that dont apply anymore the other day with the other configuration...

In the end you companys leave that important step of development to the user...

See again Emagic... they needed years to implement the protools keystroke set into theire software...
Digidesign spend theire development time for decend keycommands, emagic just offered to adress any key yourself...
Resulting in a situation where you wasnt even able to jump to the start of a selection within an audiofile without having adressed that keycommand before yourself...
resulting in a situation where you wasnt able to work in another studio with logic without your own set of key commands...
i really hated that...

Live needs a factory layout...and some clever extras regarding scene/clip selection and record/play selction (kid beyond)...

Assigning knobs to the inserted vst fx can be left to the user...

As soon that happens we will see some fancy controlers..it needs to be layed out in the software first...

my 200.-€..

regards
Sven

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:11 pm

There's no single controller that suits everyone's style.

Modular is the only way to go.

interceptor · Post by **interceptor** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:43 pm

most importantly it should have visual feedback

haven't read the previous posts...

3phase · Post by **3phase** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 3:48 pm

hambone1 wrote:There's no single controller that suits everyone's style.

Modular is the only way to go.

Thats not true as the evolution of acustic and electronic music instruments showed us in the past and will show us in the future.

Modular solutions are allways the specialists/miniority choice.

Whats needed here is a strong concept that leads to a controller that will make the people want to adapt to it... with benefit !

And about style...might be that you have a own one...
But...
I really rarly hear a record or see a liveset where i consider the "artist" having a unique own style and not just doing something i havent heard hundred of times from others in slight variations...
Nothing bad about it...This way genres are build...But there are not that many unique styles out there..and most of them share pretty much the same needs when it comes to the technical aspects.
Its a computer..sequencer.. loop...mixing desk...fx...
And you need to talk to them via your hands...

or foot...(as long thelepathie dont works)

håkan bråkan · Post by **håkan bråkan** » Fri Apr 14, 2006 4:37 pm

I asked a engineer at magictouch about multi touch screens, here is the answer:

Please let me know what the minimum touch resolution is that you need on your touch-screen.

For multiple touch, we would have to use matrix-type.

The matrix type is just rows and columns of simple switches.

Its resolution (detail) is not as good as the analog type. The analog type, however, can only interpret one input at any given time.

If you would like us to make a matrix-type touch-screen, you should know that it might be more costly than you expect.

The screen we can make for your laptop will not have a frame and you would need to attach it yourself. The higher its resolution, the more wires it will have:

For a screen 600x400 in touch resolution, the number of wires will be 1000.

You will also need to design and build your own controller (with the electronics) to interface with your computer.

So, are there anyone interested in starting to build a dedicated ableton touch screen? For example you could have a hotkey within ableton for switching to touch screen as F11 for fullscreen interface.

8O · Post by 8O » Thu Apr 10, 2008 9:31 am

Resurrection!

Pitch Black · Post by **Pitch Black** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:00 am

I'd like to see a standard 16ch audio mixer layout, done as MIDI controls.

Something with this many knobs and faders - but MIDI.

Alsamarkan · Post by **Alsamarkan** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:29 am

keep it simple. would be the best and most intuitive controller within a few more knobs!

http://aes-ssg.toningenieur.info/content/view/61/51/

Bokonon · Post by **Bokonon** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:30 am

Pitch Black wrote:I'd like to see a standard 16ch audio mixer layout, done as MIDI controls.

Something with this many knobs and faders - but MIDI.

The problem is that's around 180 controls, it will be out of most people's price range and the complexity of set up will be too much for the majority of people, they're happy with a smaller more manageable surface, and therefore in terms of viability as a business, something like that is not really worth it - you could build one, it could be done easily, in fact, if you've got an old 16 channel mixer that you could butcher some of the work is already done for you (case at the absolute minimum!) the pots/faders would need changing for linear ones, but building a case is (for me personally) the hardest part.

Tuur · Post by **Tuur** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:32 am

Not sure if somebody already brought this up, but for triggering clips you could also use POS keyboards like this one.

They're available for ~100 euros.

Alsamarkan · Post by **Alsamarkan** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:41 am

keep it simple!

Beta Two Agonist · Post by **Beta Two Agonist** » Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:44 am

Don't forget the MONOME...

Ideas for your ideal Live controller

Ableton Live Controller DeLuxe