Windows 8 Touch Screen Tablets/Laptops - music possibilities

[ganus]

 

ok, so i tried the X-Y controllers, doesn't let you do 2 at once. Using one runs quite smoothly though. How in the hell do you assign the x-y to parameters?

 

when you say clips on the playlist, do you mean the automation curves ie: velocity values when you actually go into the clip itself? I'm not seeing any editable automation on the playlist window itself

 

If you're using a FL generator, right click (or whatever the touchscreen equivalent is) a knob, and select link to controller, and then in the dropdown menu you can select one of the two outputs of the x-y controller. With a vst, you go to the little arrow in the top left corner next to the gear icon, select browse perameters. right click the parameter you want to control from the list on the left, and do the same step from earlier with link to controller.

 

To make automation clips in the playlist (which is much smoother sounding than automation within the patterns) you go through the same process, until you right click the perameter, and you select "Create automation clip" instead.

[awepittance]

 

To make automation clips in the playlist (which is much smoother sounding than automation within the patterns) you go through the same process, until you right click the perameter, and you select "Create automation clip" instead.

 

 

ok have fruity open right now and i'm still not sure what you mean, do you mean like on a virtual synth or instrument i right click a knob and it should show me this option?

[ganus]

 

 

To make automation clips in the playlist (which is much smoother sounding than automation within the patterns) you go through the same process, until you right click the perameter, and you select "Create automation clip" instead.

 

 

ok have fruity open right now and i'm still not sure what you mean, do you mean like on a virtual synth or instrument i right click a knob and it should show me this option?

 

Sorry, I wasn't very clear-

If the instrument is an Image Line product, it should show the option on any knob you right click.

If it's 3rd party, then you have to do the following;

=

[awepittance]

got it, i'll try that out tonight. Im suspecting that it will indeed work, since the velocity curves on the piano roll as well as the pan/velocity/etc curves on the step sequencer work flawlessly with touch

oi guys..

 

 

hey, i noticed you are active over at the Usine forums and possibly have something to do with the development of the program. Any chance i can get a full copy of the program for testing purposes using this laptop i have until i return it to the store? I have about 50 more days to keep it.

[iococoi]

hey, i noticed you are active over at the Usine forums and possibly have something to do with the development of the program. Any chance i can get a full copy of the program for testing purposes using this laptop i have until i return it to the store? I have about 50 more days to keep it.

 

sorry, i'm just an "ordinary" user...free version got no patching capabilities, i know...but they have a beta thing coming up in january...i would contact them directly via email, maybe there is something like a time-limited pro version to play with.

 

cheers,

io

[Guest mbenigni]

Hi all, new to the forum and this is my first post. I'm so happy to have stumbled on this thread as I've been struggling with making a Surface Pro useful for music creation for a couple of months now. Is this conversation still of interest to the rest of you? John, how are you getting on with the touchscreen laptop you picked up? Did you keep it or return it?

 

I'm primarily a Windows and Ableton Live user, but for a couple of years I was getting good mileage out of TouchOSC controlling a Roland GR55. I would really like to get to a place where one Windows tablet meets all of my needs, but I'm having a hard time getting the pieces to fit together. Live has terrible touch support - even in v9 which IMO should have stepped up to the task given it's timing (i.e. essentially concurrent with Windows 8 and so many touch-enabled devices.) Some of its UI elements almost seem intentionally anti-touch, e.g. the tiny fader widgets.

 

I just saw an announcement for a new iOS Lemur interface for Live and thought, OMG, if there were a Win8 version of Lemur, so that I could run that control layer and Live itself on one device (Surface Pro), that might be a home run! But as far as I can tell, there is no such animal. Usine is the closest thing I've found (prior to stumbling on this thread) but it's not an easy learning curve - it's own UI is a bit obtuse, and it seems to be a vast superset of what I actually need.

 

I have read elsewhere that FL is good for touchscreens, although I wasn't blown away when I downloaded the demo. (One issue is simply size, as touch-support is there but pinch zooming is not. Curious, what size screens are you all running?) Cakewalk is also, alledgedly, making some progress here, but the touch support download won't install on the demo version of Sonar, which kind of defeats the purpose for me. :/

 

TouchOSC running on Windows 8 (as opposed to just the editor running on Win8) or something similar, would also be very helpful. I've thought about trying to build a browser-based application that can transmit MIDI/OSC according to touch input, because IE is one of the few places in Windows where you have pinch-zoom and drag-pan at your disposal. I've been on and on about this on various forums, but I think MS really missed the boat by not making pinch-zoom live (at least optionally) on the classic desktop at all times. This is about the only way they could have made legacy apps useful on a small touchscreen like the Surface Pro's. As it stands, classic x86 apps have major useability issues, and Modern UI apps aren't sufficiently powerful or "unlocked".

 

Well, I'm rambling I guess. I'd just like to get this discussion going again. I'm very interested, having come pretty close to giving up on the Surface Pro a couple of times already. (Yes, I've even thought about buying another iPad... desperation.) Thanks for the information posted thus far; I'm off to read about GestureSpark, Tangiblex, et al.

[awepittance]

hello new forum member, welcome! Yes I am still very interested in this subject, however I did get rid of my Windows 8 laptop because of the lack of multi touch support on most applications. It may seem OCD but i really want and demand that I am able to put my hands directly on the programs I want to use like Live or Reaktor. Fruity is still the only music app with across the board full touch support, and since I rarely use it, it's not much use to me.

It sounds like your ideal setup can easily be accomplished, not with touch OSC or lemur but with this program discussed earlier on the thread called 'Usine' . From my brief experiments with it, it's basically a lemur style application with additional sound processing/music making tools inside of it. If all you aimed to do was use multi touch on one tablet (ie a windows 8 laptop) but have it control Live running on the same laptop, you can do it all from this program Usine much the way you would do it with an Ipad (lemur) + a laptop. With this idea you only need one device, no doubling up unnecessary jazz (which frankly still seems highly inconvenient to me, im not sure how or why this having 2 device thing became more popularly supported than a single 1 tablet setup running windows 8).

Since you sound like you already have some experience running touch osc to control parameters on computer software, I think you will find Usine very intuitive. Since my goal is to have direct (no layers or front ends) touch on the programs like Live and Reaktor this solution wont work for me personally, but it sounds like it would work for you. And you're right about Live's gui, even if they implemented touch eventually, the whole interface would need to be redone, perhaps 'touch macros' or something to that effect could work as a work around.
Reaktor could work out of the box if they just implemented the capability, since you can resize and configure knobs and sliders to be the appropriate size.

[soundwave]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlvzxgT-owM

[awepittance]

wow, that's awesome. Glad to see other programs doing this, but it seriously pains me that none of the mainstream DAWs have done this. Like what the fuck are they waiting for?

I'll have to check out this new Sonar update. I wonder if VSTs can be multi touchable while loaded into the program? Im guessing no, would be worth a try though. If its possible then Reaktor can be used as a vst inside of it

[soundwave]

wow, that's awesome. Glad to see other programs doing this, but it seriously pains me that none of the mainstream DAWs have done this. Like what the fuck are they waiting for?

 

I'll have to check out this new Sonar update. I wonder if VSTs can be multi touchable while loaded into the program? Im guessing no, would be worth a try though. If its possible then Reaktor can be used as a vst inside of it

 

I've seen a demo of someone using some touch friendly version of z3ta but unfortunately I can't seem to find it.

 

I think Apple are dragging their feet in this area and seem to be busy trying to resell us the same old technology these days.

 

I've also read that Win7/8 is a lot more stable for music making but I've not put this to the test.

[awepittance]

more stable for music making vs what? Apple are moving more in the direction of a closed system and further idiot proofing their devices to the point where they will put an 80 year old lady consumer over the priorities of a professional media developer.

I think the only reason more music software programmers aren't doing Windows 8 is because it has an unfairly very bad reputation, which imo it's a lot less embarrassing than Lion was when it came out. And Apple has successfully marketed and gained a stranglehold on the music making profession. When they bought Emagic and canceled Logic for Windows musicians everywhere threatened to boycott apple, but obviously it never happened and they now have most of these people in their pocket more than ever.

Windows 8 with touch is a far superior product to the Ipad for the simple fact that it's a *real* computer, not a bullshit iOS appstore collector. I really hope someone besides Imagline and Cakewalk is smart enough to capitalize on an extremely under exploited method of creating music.

[datastream]

This looks pretty interesting

 

Been debating getting an XPS 18 and running this or usine, or starting a eurocrack collection

[soundwave]

more stable for music making vs what? Apple are moving more in the direction of a closed system and further idiot proofing their devices to the point where they will put an 80 year old lady consumer over the priorities of a professional media developer.

 

I think the only reason more music software programmers aren't doing Windows 8 is because it has an unfairly very bad reputation, which imo it's a lot less embarrassing than Lion was when it came out. And Apple has successfully marketed and gained a stranglehold on the music making profession. When they bought Emagic and canceled Logic for Windows musicians everywhere threatened to boycott apple, but obviously it never happened and they now have most of these people in their pocket more than ever.

 

Windows 8 with touch is a far superior product to the Ipad for the simple fact that it's a *real* computer, not a bullshit iOS appstore collector. I really hope someone besides Imagline and Cakewalk is smart enough to capitalize on an extremely under exploited method of creating music.

 

 

I meant before that Win7/8 is apparently a lot more stable than XP for music making which is the reason a lot of folk moved to Apple in the first place and I've read about folk moving back to Windows from an Apple based DAW because of this. I know Win7 was a lot better with drivers and finding drivers which is where a lot of the problems lie however this still doesn't get away from simple incompatibility from many different third party drivers all thrown in the same pot although like I said it's something I haven't tested or read anything concise about yet.

 

A full i7 quad core touch screen tablet is well within the power of Apple to produce now but they'd rather sell us their older stuff rebadged with the next number every 12 months and have you buy another one after they stop supporting it in another three years.

[Guest]

you gotta admit.. on the audio and midi front apple have been absolutely the good guys. the others are massively screwing this up.

both the midi and audio frameworks on ios are ported over from osx, they're solid. the UI frameworks are solid. these are very very good reasons why you see lots of music apps being developed for this platform, and more or less none for other platforms.

 

also, porting over a desktop DAW to *really* work by poking your fingers at it, i think it requires a complete redesign / rewrite of the UI. everything else would be something inbetween sad and hilarious. too much risk for the daw companies if it's not even clear whether this will catch on. it might happen eventually but don't hold your breath guys.

 

e.g. look at what ableton does... push is much better than grabbing at a glass pane, this stuff actually works.

 

imo.

[awepittance]

i'm sure the developing framework (as well as the profit potential) is higher for making ios apps. It's just ultimately not as useful or productive as having the same technology and user interface on a fully functioning laptop computer. Apple isn't going to release a touch screen laptop ever, if they do it will be a crippled half-computer probably a souped up ios device.
I know right now there is a huge amount of indie ground swell for things like touchosc and lemur app, but honestly i think that's only because of Apple's marketing power and not because it is in any way more useful than something like Usine running on a Windows 8 touch screen device without the need for an additional device like an Ipad. I have tested both extensively, and Usine running on Windows 8 works just as well as Lemur/touchosc running on an Ipad, and eliminates the need to have an additional $500 device to use as a controller.

I'm going to keep holding my breath because companies like Imagineline have seen the light, i suspect other companies will eventually. Most computer users are still on Windows, and i don't think this will change any time soon.

[Guest]

agreed, definitely too early to make these predictions..

 

iOS / iPad is getting stronger and stronger though, at some point the advantages you get with it may outweigh the raw CPU power of desktops / laptops, for many studio applications. It probably will never replace a powerful workstation, but heck, the amounts of "easy" you get with it are attractive, aren't they.

 

speaking of profit margins, iOS / App Store has its own problems of course, the most significant imo is a spiraling price deflation for apps, this seriously sucks. There's also not a good model for paid upgrades. So it's understandable that e.g. Ableton, as an example of a bigger company, is reluctant to produce a version of Live for iOS (and also Android obviously)... too much risk. The product would fail so hard if they charged several hundreds of $$$. I think.

 

Still, I think it's much more likely that there will be "serious" production tools on the iPad sooner or later than there will be DAWs with great (read: it will be used with pleasure by the majority of users) touch support on Windows..

 

blabla xbox vs. playstation lol sorry

[awepittance]

i hope your prediction in the last paragraph isn't true. It would be a crying shame imo. Because no matter how good the Ios platform is, a DAW on it will not be able to compete with the processing power of a computer. How many decently powerful VST instrument synths can you run at once on a powerful Ipad? Maybe i'm not understanding the technical capabilities of it, but can it actually compete power-wise with that $500 Asus laptop I posted at the beginning of the thread? I don't believe that it would but I could be blatantly wrong about this.

[digit]

i really don't think i would want to use a full DAW on a touchscreen. too fiddly and requires too much fine grained control.

 

performance based apps... this is where touchscreens shine. much more expressive to interact with. synths, sample manglers, etc.

 

i like iOS apps. they remind me of software from the early-mid 90's. not as powerful as modern stuff, much more limited but more creative as a result.

 

i don't expect raw power from a tablet. i'd rather have simplicity, expressiveness, and immediacy.

[Guest RadarJammer]

http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/06/windows-touch-and-music-demonstrated-with-surface-and-reaktor/

[awepittance]

i really don't think i would want to use a full DAW on a touchscreen. too fiddly and requires too much fine grained control.

 

performance based apps... this is where touchscreens shine. much more expressive to interact with. synths, sample manglers, etc.

 

i like iOS apps. they remind me of software from the early-mid 90's. not as powerful as modern stuff, much more limited but more creative as a result.

 

i don't expect raw power from a tablet. i'd rather have simplicity, expressiveness, and immediacy.

strange, well I guess your loss. With things like Fruity 11 and Usine on the horizon you basically have both the power of a full computer plus the ease and immediacy of Ios apps, and also stuff in between.

 

nice link Radar, seems like i'm not the only one who feels it's absolutely ridiculous to use an Ipad to 'control' another computer via MIDI. I really have to wonder, and I'm trying not to be a dick to be thinking this, but how is it that professional musicians have accepted an inferior format when something exists that is far more powerful and does exactly what Lemur on an ipad does + more? Could it be just that Apple's branding/marketing is that powerful that even pros are willing to sacrifice convenience for aesthetics? There is so little interest in Windows 8 as a touch interface for music that it actually makes me speculate that apple has succeeded in brainwashing a significant portion of the music making populace.

 

 

 

Using Reaktor is great. I personally hate having to use midi controllers whose interface bears no resemblance to the patch Im using, and touch OSC on an ipad can be buggy and you have to create templates for every patch you use and end up constantly changing your template if you change anything in your patch. I also dont want to have to take 2 computers to a show, I want a tablet up there with me and thats all. Surface does this. Reaktor is really responsive and expressive – but it doesnt support multitouch yet. I thought this would make it pointless to use on a touchscreen, but I barely notice it. There are times it would be great to use multitouch, and things could definitely get more interesting with multitouch, but even just touching one thing at a time completely blows away using a mouse/midicontroller/touchOSC.

[iococoi]

i really don't think i would want to use a full DAW on a touchscreen. too fiddly and requires too much fine grained control.

 

performance based apps... this is where touchscreens shine. much more expressive to interact with. synths, sample manglers, etc.

 

i like iOS apps. they remind me of software from the early-mid 90's. not as powerful as modern stuff, much more limited but more creative as a result.

 

i don't expect raw power from a tablet. i'd rather have simplicity, expressiveness, and immediacy.

 

exactly!

 

i don't own an i-thingy, but some of those apps look quite intriguing UX-wise.

 

http://apps4idevices.com/

 

..most of the recent touch-UI attempts by the big DAWs on the other hand, feel a bit like

 

[Guest]

I really have to wonder, and I'm trying not to be a dick to be thinking this, but how is it that professional musicians have accepted an inferior format when something exists that is far more powerful and does exactly what Lemur on an ipad does + more?

 

it does fewer things, but the things it does, it does much better. I think it's called design.

[awepittance]

have you tried both though? Again not being a dick but I have and it is not better. I think Usine is a far better and more powerful program than Lemur, and it also has a better design.

[Guest]

admittedly no, though both the Sonar video and also the one with the sleepy guy via CDM make it look a bit forced. You can clearly see that the software isn't made for it.

 

I mean it's really not a hardware issue, I would love to have something like a 20" screen laying flat, basically what the original Lemur was (and yes, I do think it needs to be table-style.. vertical + touch = wrong). But without software which is designed explicitly around that, it's not much use... Touch software simply needs to have a proper good UI, otherwise you're in cash-machine land.

 

I am working on a sophisticated MIDI controller app for iPad right now, the toughest part about it is making the UI good. The app is made so it can also run on a Mac for debugging purposes, but I had to abandon mouse/keyboard control because I realized it was bad for the quality of the touch UI.

[Guest]

Usine looks promising though.