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Index › Discussion › General Discussion,  Status › Make our own multitouch music controller
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Make our own multitouch music controller? (Read 4906 times)
Dan_Olner
Make our own multitouch music controller?
Jan 22nd, 2009, 1:18pm  
Hi all

I've just been looking at the JazzMutant Lemur:

http://www.jazzmutant.com/lemur_overview.php

which is a very nice, but horrendously expensive, multi-touch music software controller.

It occurred to me: one could program a multitouch device using Processing to communicate with any software (I use Ableton), creating your own interaction devices entirely from scratch. (Not to mention giving the user visual feedback to the sound being created.)

I note that people have done experiments with multitouch and Processing e.g.

http://bricktable.wordpress.com/about/what-is-roots/

... but I was wondering: has anyone had any experience of other multitouch devices? Any recommendations for something that might work for this kind of bespoke device? (Even if I bought an entirely new laptop with a touch sensitive screen it'd probably be cheaper than the JazzMutant...)

I can't find any obvious candidates for such a device online: any suggestions? Any thoughts on the above project? I'm a little over-excited at the prospect currently: people could donate their interaction 'devices' online.

The only current drawback is that the existing Processing midi-controlling library, proMidi, seems to drop out of midi communication occasionally - wouldn't be ideal in a live playing situation! I haven't tried midibus yet, mind...

So yes: thoughts on potential devices / any other ideas gratefully received!
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Dan_Olner
Re: Make our own multitouch music controller?
Reply #1 - Jan 22nd, 2009, 1:44pm  
Actually, now I think of it, it might be useful to test proof of concept with a mouse and a graphics tablet. Ableton can, of course, be manipulated with both of these in the normal way: the thing that's needed - and that the JazzMutant addresses - is fitting the interaction device with the precise needs of any particular piece of music or visualisation.

Ultimately, of course, we should be playing gigs through transparent interactive screens a la Zion in the matrix!

http://cm.brainsfactory.org/images/obj/zion_control_interface.jpg
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Classiclll
Re: Make our own multitouch music controller?
Reply #2 - Jan 22nd, 2009, 2:03pm  
although a single-touch sample sketch of my wrj4p5, with a Wiiremote.
http://www.geocities.jp/classiclll_newweb/JonnyLeesBoardEmulator/applet/index.html

this can be extend to handle 4 touches per one remote.
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rasmussen
Re: Make our own multitouch music controller?
Reply #3 - Jan 22nd, 2009, 7:31pm  
If your running Ableton 6 or 7 under windows you can try out a python API someone made for it.  Part of live runs in python and someone figured a way to access controls with it.

http://code.google.com/p/liveapi/

You can control lots of things in Live via OSC messages.  And with oscP5 lib http://www.sojamo.de/libraries/oscP5/ you can use processing to talk to live back and forth.

I've sent midi to live via processing using one of those midi libs I forget which one but it worked well too.  So you could do both.

I wrote some instructions on how to use it because when you dl it doesn't have everything configured right and one missing file. http://rasmussen.page27.com/archives/22

I'm really excited about Live 8, with max/msp support addon should be able to run externals and I think it is possible to run Java inside of max so could run processing in live?! Maybe.  Could at least export more functionality via OSC messages to live or other apps running on the same machine or over a network.

--John
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Dan_Olner
Re: Make our own multitouch music controller?
Reply #4 - Jan 22nd, 2009, 7:56pm  
Rasmussen: thanks a lot for this. I was actually just looking at liveapi as you were writing, after googling 'live osc'.

Hmm... if this Max for Live thing does open up the API to Ableton properly that'll be a great thing. I wonder how much resources it'll take up though? It would be nice just to be able to set up OSC comms directly and manipulate them in Java, without an intermediary - and for the docs for that API to be freely available.

I saw in the original liveapi posting: a signal delay of 60ms? Maybe they fixed it. Did you have any problem with timings?
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rasmussen
Re: Make our own multitouch music controller?
Reply #5 - Jan 23rd, 2009, 3:31am  
I haven't tried testing if there was a delay.  Just got it up and working last weekend.  There shouldn't be any delay at all because its the same as any other control surface.  I'm not sure of a good way to test that.  When I tried it i put my sketch side by side with ableton and clicked the canvas and it happened faster than 60ms.

I just hope in 8 they open it up a bit more so that you can edit notes in clips via osc.



Dan_Olner wrote on Jan 22nd, 2009, 7:56pm:
Rasmussen: thanks a lot for this. I was actually just looking at liveapi as you were writing, after googling 'live osc'.

Hmm... if this Max for Live thing does open up the API to Ableton properly that'll be a great thing. I wonder how much resources it'll take up though It would be nice just to be able to set up OSC comms directly and manipulate them in Java, without an intermediary - and for the docs for that API to be freely available.

I saw in the original liveapi posting: a signal delay of 60ms Maybe they fixed it. Did you have any problem with timings

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sonomute
Re: Make our own multitouch music controller?
Reply #6 - Feb 20th, 2009, 11:43pm  
I'm using Ipod Touch as a multi-touch OSC and MIDI controller, there are couple of applications for it, MRMR(free) and TouchOSC(something like 3$)

Also you can build your own multi touch screen with some veeery cheap tools, like web-cam, cardboard box and computer:) check http://nuigroup.com/ for example...
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subcycle
Re: Make our own multitouch music controller?
Reply #7 - Oct 14th, 2009, 10:23am  
I spent the last few months putting something like this together. Of course I have been working on the Max patch for like ten years or something. I figure the amount of time I put into the multitouch builds I could have bought a few Lemurs but I have something that is more unique and I can build it out in different directions. Not to mention it is more like a 42'' diagonal screen.

My project...

subcycle dot org

Great resources...

nuigroup dot com
reactivision dot sourceforge dot net
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Kamehameha
Re: Make our own multitouch music controller?
Reply #8 - Dec 26th, 2009, 3:50am  
I did a virtual MIDI Controller using Processing with ControlP5 and proMIDI, but as the multitouch capability of ControlP5 isn't ready, my app is single touch only.

But i found ControlP5 is a very nice way to build a MIDI controller, as there are tabs, buttons, sliders, knobs etc.

I think the future will be that Ableton etc. will include a multitouch driver and an alternative flexible UI where you can control instrument/effect parameter directly (via Max for Live) or via OSC messages (also Max for Live).

Some other thoughts?
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