Ableton Forum

forget Lemur, keyboard, mouse etc..

http://ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer. ... hEnabled=1

Excellent stuff. Imagine the uses with Live?

I like the idea that it will be 'cheap'. Though it looks like ity ought to cost a heap.

genius, ableton get on to this right now and you will be the ultimate audio app, pleasee please get on to this and apply it to some synths toooo pleaseee

That's really nice, but when will people be able to affordably buy and use it?

Also, don't people tend to hate non-tactile keyboards?

I don't even know how much one of those desks would be, I'm guessing $4000+ ?

I also don't like how he"cringes" at the $100 laptop initiative because people will be learning the current interface standard.

Why would we make all of the people in the world who don't have access to computers at all wait until we have a perfect utopian hardware/interface/os/application combo that costs $100 and has features to suit poor people in rural areas - weather resistant, hand crank powered, etc.....

The demo is very cool, and has been discussed a lot on these boards already (search for FTIR)
The main issues with this system :
- it's not at all integrated/portable (requires an infra-red camera, a dedicated computer that does the motion tracking, a rear-projection system)
- it doesn't work in normal light conditions, only in the dark

thumbs down

don't get me wrong I like it, i'm just not sure it's the right direction to go i for music in mho

I agree...

Keep in mind, as cool as it is, it's still another screen to stare at just like a laptop screen or a lemur. You know how some people are trying to put their laptop out of view or off to the side, or add hardware synths to minimize it's importance in at a live gig...With a lemur or this thing, now you have TWO screens to have your eyes glued to, not just one. And perhaps spend just as much time programming them with Max or whatever as making music. Then there's the "being hypnotized by the cool globs on the screen" effect which could divert your attention away from the music and onto the globs which the crowd will not see or care about anyway...That's why I decided to go with the faderfox.

There's something about good 'ol faders, pads, keys, and knobs to grab, twist & bang on. You don't have to concentrate excessively, stare or squint at them to get good use out of them on a gig.

No matter how techie & cool, there's something about the touchscreen that makes it kind of like a glorified computer keyboard.

that's pretty sweet!

you could see thorugh to the other siide of the screen right? so imagine running ableton, or something like it, on a screen like that that's upright in front of a crowd so they can kind of see what you're doing (albeit backwards). aplications could even be visually taylored to being more visualy interesting for people to watch so that when you, say, use a slider to turn up the volume, there's a lot of extra visual indication of the added amplitude so you almost automatically are vjing as well as djing.

i think there's a LOT of great possibility with this.

benjaminFlack wrote:you could see thorugh to the other siide of the screen right? so imagine running ableton, or something like it, on a screen like that that's upright in front of a crowd so they can kind of see what you're doing

well, it's just a projection output, so it can easily be cloned for projection on a wall, for instance. That's what they were doing in that video as well.

icedsushi wrote:I agree...

Keep in mind, as cool as it is, it's still another screen to stare at just like a laptop screen or a lemur. You know how some people are trying to put their laptop out of view or off to the side, or add hardware synths to minimize it's importance in at a live gig...With a lemur or this thing, now you have TWO screens to have your eyes glued to, not just one. And perhaps spend just as much time programming them with Max or whatever as making music. Then there's the "being hypnotized by the cool globs on the screen" effect which could divert your attention away from the music and onto the globs which the crowd will not see or care about anyway...That's why I decided to go with the faderfox.

There's something about good 'ol faders, pads, keys, and knobs to grab, twist & bang on. You don't have to concentrate excessively, stare or squint at them to get good use out of them on a gig.

No matter how techie & cool, there's something about the touchscreen that makes it kind of like a glorified computer keyboard.

euh... isnt it a bit too early to make such assumptions? i mean, i dont think that touch screens have been implemented enough to really be able to feel the crowd's reaction on them... but personaly, i think the crowd will find it equally boring to see someone twist a knob on a tiny fadoerfox or move a vitual fader on a lemur.
the smile on your face is what matters.

He's definitely not suggesting bringing this to the real world all that soon. As much as he has a few really cool ideas on display that get the mind thinking what next? what next? the pipeline for this is still long - might as well be infinite for consumers.

You've got to get cheap hardware and rewrites of core code from he operating system up. Then app developers need to get their heads around the ideas available.

Can you be zooming in on a clip at the same time as triggering and setting levels? How close can you keep controls on the screen together without the system becoming a nightmare to use? How are fingers going to change the tiny rectangular sliders in a clip view? There'll have to be complete UI redesigns - then, it's a new, separate product on a separate platform.

Maybe this can be a MIDI controller, but then you're looking at 2 machines or basically a super-Lemur.

Nice experiments, no doubt. Practical in the next 3 years? The next 5?

Benshik wrote: euh... isnt it a bit too early to make such assumptions? i mean, i dont think that touch screens have been implemented enough to really be able to feel the crowd's reaction on them... but personaly, i think the crowd will find it equally boring to see someone twist a knob on a tiny fadoerfox or move a vitual fader on a lemur.
the smile on your face is what matters.

Yeah good point. It's not any more interesting to look at, but I wasn't referring to the crowd's excitement of the instrument as much as the performer having to concentrate staring at a screen = more serious/tense frame of mind = crowd more detached from performer. So yes, my point is identical to yours. It's about the smile on your face.

But with knobs & faders, once you grab them, your fingers are anchored & you can look up again, grab something with your other hand and there's still a reference point (physical raised object) you can move without any need to stare at it constantly. With a screen, you have to look at it every time you make a movement in order to know what you are doing. The whole surface of a screen feels the same, so your eyes are tethered to it.

I'm just saying that the inherent nature of a screen makes you more dependant upon looking at it constantly.

Anyway, it looks like a cool idea. I just question because of the complexity, will the automatic tendency of the user will be to act more serious while using it? And is that a good or bad thing. Depends on the venue perhaps or maybe noone cares if you're smiling/serious or not if they're there to drink & dance. Something to think about at least.

i'm just gonna come right out and say it... albeit with no dis-respect to others opinions but I don't want to make music like that, that shit looks creepy and benjaminFlack post about the crowd watching the screen and visuals when faders/volume moves are made kind of creeps me out too. it's like some kind of sci-fi movie about a future where humans just don't get what 'human' is.
I could imagine some guy with a guitar being chased by the secret police of the lemur society with that guy jeff han being their leader. the guy gets captured and then jeff starts using that thing to see what's in his brain. stop laughing i'm not playing...