You know your country tops the PISA tests, when...

...the tags are like these...

My Lemur, TouchOSC & touchAble Experiences

Having tested the iPad controller options, here are my opinions on each of them. Keep in mind that I'm an Ableton user which puts the apps on different footing. I've been using each app without reading the manuals, just as a regular user. I'll get to it, someday! [/end sarcasm]

Creating controls in Lemur and TouchOSC is pretty straightforward with their editor softwares. TouchAble doesn't provide this option, and you are pretty limited on what you can change with it. The update timetable has been pretty good, though, and the new features have been quite significant, providing more than Ableton can achieve with regular midi controllers.

Lemur is basically TouchOSC on steroids. You get more eye-candy, scripts, and stuff like multiball controls. On the other hand, you should expect this with the huge price difference.* Some things seem to be lacking with the Lemur, though. It caters to creation of pretty complicated stuff, but seems to forget that some ideas, such as centralized faders* (which you can choose by simply ticking a box on TouchOSC), should be easily available. Something ultimately cool in Lemur is the possibility of creating containers. You can create a box and make it tabbed to easily switch between different control sets such as cues, mutes etc.

 * You can't create centralized faders, but you can, in fact, create bipolar multisliders which is pretty much the same thing. Thanks to Axel for pointing this out.

Something I can't understand with touchscreen controls is knobs. They are, IMHO, the worst option for controlling anything critical, such as EQ when playing live. I guess it is a nice option to have just for the sake of having them in feature list, but the error rate is way too high to actually use them.

Lemur and TouchOSC could benefit from ready-made templates for different programs. There are some available, but touchAble's out-of-the-box features like fader lock (where the fader returns to starting point when released), and clip names make it a winner in my books. I don't want to spend days (basic template creation is done in an hour) creating controls for the software, especially when I like to switch things around every once and awhile.

It is obvious that if you want to control any other program via midi or OSC, touchAble isn't an option there. If you really are broke, TouchOSC caters well enough, but if you have money (you just spent few hundred euros/dollars on the iPad and can't afford some more on serious app!) then the money in Lemur is well spent. The fact that both work on similar footing, and are software, means that you should be able to see the improvements in one soon in the other one as well.

*I've noticed that for me, 3.99 sounds expensive for an iPad app. Just consider that Lemur itself is cheaper than any proper midi controller.

AbletonDJ101: Selecting Songs

There is one tip I would give to every aspiring DJ, especially those who want to start DJing with Ableton. Since songs take a longer time to prepare for live action, you really need to select the songs. Your style and your tracks are all your choices, and you shouldn't take too many advices there. Before torrenting "100.000.000 club hits" from PirateBay, think what you want to play. Audition every song, and be merciless. Keep only the great and good tracks. Delete the pretty good ones, ask yourself if are REALLY ever seeing yourself playing them. There are hundreds and hundreds of great tracks that you'll love, so don't be hasty in deleting those 1000+ tracks to find that one you really want in your collection.

I personally went the wrong way, and it took me two years to sort out tracks, figuring out finally my personal preference of disco-y but not too disco-y gut thumping house. It's obviously cheaper to stay legal as well and takes less time to do the Ableton magic with them.

DigitalDJTips covered the area with these articles:

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/07/why-i-just-threw-away-nearly-all-of-my-music/ 

http://www.digitaldjtips.com/2011/09/confessions-of-a-music-junkie-dj-mp3s/

DJing with touchAble, pt.2

As my previous post on touchAble was based on only couple hours of play, I left covering lot of the main points for later.

I played with the program today as I wanted to test if I can assign all the settings of a drum machine vst (roughly 40 knobs) to touchAble (which I can!), I ended up DJing with touchAble alone. It definitely seems to be equivalent to my previous setup (of two Launchpads & Nocturn if you haven't read the first part). I also played with the keyboard, which has a velocity sensitivity. It's not a professional substitute, but works. Also, I noticed when I was playing with my Wobblerator (my dubstep operator patch, which is available free by request), that if you press a key and switch to another mode like clips, the note will be left playing until you return to the keyboard and press another note.

I was able to switch between different tracks, racks and modes easily - touchAble is quick to use when you've had practice with the constantly changing layout. I originally tried to keep the top part for clips to see the names and progress, but then finally I was able to give up to the chaos, and got much more out. I had one or two mis-presses with the clips, but only because I didn't zoom in, which you can easily do while mixing.

Since you can't have button on/off effects with buttons, the snap mode works really well for those (as it does for any kind of riser effects). It would be great to be able to preassign some effects to always work in that mode, but the fact that the setting now toggles the selected rack, it could be a source of confusion. There is only a small setup menu as it is, and that's usually preferable.

DJs are probably interested by the fact that you can set to show two racks to EQ them at the same time, flip to adjust the volumes on the mixer site, and return back to the previous layout by pressing the then lighted device button. A very handy feature. The send effects seem to be a little further away, being under the mixer page which I usually have set for track volumes. Nothing too bad, but you might have to rethink your layout and settings a bit.

So even though I could do a DJ set with just the touchAble, I still like to keep at least something for knobs, or preferably my current setup with me. The program itself is very "Mac-like", without really requiring any manual as it is. My wife was also quick to pick up the basics when I showed her the program.

DJing with touchAble

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.

Moog goodies to drool for - or to drool on!

Moog just came out with newest additions to their product range. I'm definitely a fan!

Again, it seems to be very Moogish. Cool but too expensive to justify it...

Shady Marketing

This is totally unrelated to music, but I was reading the instructions on the car seat we have, and the front page is either mistake in marketing, or there's just something really wrong with me...

P.S. As labels I put totally unrelated search words, same that someone google-searched and arrived to my page. Go figure...