I had great luck winning touchAble in ObediaTutor's Twitter competition, which partially sealed my iPad purchase. For those who don't yet know, touchAble is based on TouchOSC, giving a ready made template which you can change around (mixer view, clip view, etc.)
I was bold enough to sell away one of my Launchpads, leaving me with one Launchpad, Nocturn, and the iPad. With the Launchpad I have the nativeKontrol script, which I left unused for the most part. I use Guille's nifty script for the Nocturn, which came handy. You don't really want to use absolute knobs since they are quickly pointing in whichever direction when using relative knobs and faders with it.
As for layout for channels, I used a 4-band EQ, couple filter fx and beat repeat in the first "quick access" rack (for Nocturn that is - changing the rack in touchAble IS quick, although the return button is a bit small to my taste). Each channel also had a whole another rack for fx and delay and reverb in the sends.
For the convenience of it I set the touchAble to work through the router, which left me with a working internet connection, but with a cost of lag in the connection. For live use ad-hoc connection is definitely recommended, although I had a usable experience.
Some points I noticed while playing:
- There's no crossfader, at least not yet. Doesn't really bother me since with five channels it would be kinda difficult to figure out a working system. I've tried...
- At least currently there's no build-your-own customisable page where you could for example set all the EQs for easy access.
- Touchscreen is very usable, but doesn't beat the physical experience.
- There is an excellent snap mode for faders, which returns the faders to beginning point after release. I ended up using Nocturn for EQ and volume, as the initial touching point on the TouchAble felt uncertain, and leaps in the volume aren't welcome. I pretty much had the fx rack open on the bottom of the screen the whole time.
- I ended up using Launchpad for sends since they were quicker to access, and also for launching clips, although I used iPad for checking the clip names and their progress. Only times I needed to check the laptop screen was to see the waveforms, and the clip progression when there was too much of a lag.
Even though I'm pointing out mainly things I had issues with, I can highly recommend touchAble, especially if you have a complementing controller such as APC40. Mainly something for some physical faders and knobs. After playing with the program for good couple of hours, I'm less likely to check the competitors, as I planned to do before. I ended up using more creative fx in my mix due to the snap mode and the sheer ease of it compared to my earlier setup (3 physical faders are harder than using touchscreen), and managed to have all the controls needed available at all times. I didn't even utilize the xy control, pads or keyboard so comments on those are for later.
The next update for touchAble is on it's way, and here's an excerpt on what's coming in 1.3:
Clips:
- added Loop menu to clip module. Do loops on the fly - on whole tracks or on already prepared loops. think Traktor looping - Keep loops that you like.
- Added beatjump/loopjump menu to clip module. Do beatjumps / loopjumps of a set size in the currently playing clip of a track.
- track buttons in the clip module now function as 'jump to active clip' buttons. For group-tracks they allow to fold and unfold the tracks.
Mixer: Completely rebuilt mixer:
- added crossfader to mixer
- added A/B control to mixer
- added support for as many sends as you like
- added possibility to show as many faders at once as you like - and you can decide which!.
- added the possibility to control return tracks the same way you can control normal tracks
- added "+" mode to fullscreen for double length faders for precision tasks
- added snapmode to mixer
Drums:
- added velocity sensitivity to drum pads (as a third option, as we see it more as a gimmick)
XYPad:
- snapshots will be saved with saved templates of XY pad now
- after morphing / playing / stopping snapshots the dots will not be affected by gravity till touched
General:
- Added support for 4 iPads
- Finally touchable will connect via bonjour - tests show that almost no setup is needed to connect (forget the stupid guides
Opinion: Highly recommended. Plus, the iPad is nicer than I hoped for. I barely touch my computer anymore...
Also, if you want to check what I managed to do, check out the Booming mix on the left, or at the Mixcloud site.
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