Do You Embrace A Touch Screen With Your DAW?

[THE INTRANCER]

Poll updated: (You can also change your vote).

Just curious as I've recently bought a nippy 14" I7 Thinkpad 480s laptop with 16gigs which has one for just a few hundred pounds. Now for me, using a touchscreen with a DAW is quite a weird experience having forever used a mouse or touchpad. Currently I'm using the laptop as an alternative to my desktop system which is really for gaming on sunny days (solar panels run it).

[pekbro]

My AIO is full touch screen, I have it completely disabled. I did just happen to hook up my old wacom today interestingly...

[THE INTRANCER]

My AIO is full touch screen, I have it completely disabled. I did just happen to hook up my old wacom today interestingly...

What's an AIO?

[machinesworking]

I'm not even on Windows and I use a Slate Raven with Mac OS every day. Since it's MAC OS it's a proprietary tie in to what I would guess is the Mackie Control protocol that allows ten finger touch on faders in the Slate mixer? That and a hook for getting gestures to work in interesting ways, like a 5 finger pinching gesture over the plugin to close it etc. The rest is single touch control of plugins, Slates own macros and elements of the DAW that are large enough to be controlled by touch.

It's all pretty solid, which brings up my point, I don't think it's touch that's the issue on Windows, I think it's hardware developers not spending the money to get it right and applications not developed with touch in mind. There's a Windows version of the Slate Raven, and the latest v4 is late in coming, you see a big interest from a crowd who have access to 10 finger touch built in to the OS, but the experience using a mixer or messing with a plugin must be not so great to get them to want to use an iLok protected proprietary software that only works with Slates monitors.

[pekbro]

My AIO is full touch screen, I have it completely disabled. I did just happen to hook up my old wacom today interestingly...

What's an AIO?

All in one, like an imac...

*Mostly I just can't stand fingerprints on my displays, but I also have no real context to need touch,
beyond something like a wacom tablet pc where you would draw directly on the screen.

[THE INTRANCER]

Well that's mad, only posted this thread 24 hours ago, and over 13,000 viewed it with only 4 posts.

[CrystalWizard]

While my ipad was functioning i used it for Holon.ist and the Orb with Omnisphere. I also had a few apps: Virsyn Tera (fantastic, wish the ios version was ported to Windows, dream on, Stria, Density, and iPulsaret by apeSoft, also excellent. Maybe i miss that stuff enough to get my ipad fixed.

[lfm]

I don't see the benefit with touch unless you have a screen lying down before you.
- ergonomically it's a disaster to lift your hand to an upright screen
- a mouse or touch pad is much more convenient

I looked at MPC X for a while a couple of years ago, and they doubled up with command buttons below screen as well, to use instead.

I do some tutorials on a tablet upright on piano sheet holder, and this is just starting a video and pausing it etc. Not needing the keyboard at all.

To use touch on tablet to do bank arrends and such are fine, since just lying down or holding it.

Everything in a daw, no chance I would look at touch.
- just use a Shuttle Express with a jog wheel a ring and some buttons for left hand
- to assist a bit navigating timeline
- that and mouse and plenty markers to jump between to most common spots

[pseudonym_303]

Despite of having Lenovo with touch screen, I am not using touch screen at all, as it feels wonky to me. And those finger prints.
Only advantage from my pov is an easy zooming, scrolling, but where you need to be precise like selecting, editing mouse is better. Probably for live performers this is not a big deal.
Maybe a tablet with the pen then this setup would work better. After all, I feel better with bigger, clean screens

[Timfonie]

I do. Touchscreens are indispensible to me.

I redesigned my home studio around a touchscreen + Open Stage Control so I can use touch in a very ergonomic way.

It's mainly because of the hundreds of keyboard shortcuts in Cubase. They're far too many for me to remember. MIDI powered remote control is the solution.

[THE INTRANCER]

I find that when I'm in close proximity to the laptops touchscreen that dragging the thumbnail images of instruments and effects across In S1, does seem pretty natural than trying to locate my mouse and them move the mouse pointer with my hand. I can simply move to the keyboard without dealing with another peripheral. Scrolling up and down the browser seems faster too, although selecting samples and patches is a little hit and miss. Maybe some touchscreen tagging block for text based content could be added to favorites as an option. Or even a touch friendly popup browser specifically for that purpose, perhaps that would help those using the show page thing they added in Studio One..

Currently I'm doing a complete redesign of my studio setup where my equipment is mounted on a foldout table that's mounted to my wall (dual purpose kind of thing). So a touchscreen setup would take on a different kind of form.

[Dalle]

I love my iPad, to me it's the best way to design synth patches. A well designed touch interface is so fast to work with. But it's still separate from using a daw.

The closest to a daw experience I've had is Drambo, it's such a deep tool for synthesis and sequencing and the projects load as a plugin on the computer for multitrack recording. Super detailed midi and audio editing is still best a mouse.

I do wish Ableton or Reason had iPad versions or controllers. Logic's iPad version was pretty bad when I tried it and I won't pay for a subscription.

[JoseC.]

Nope. I have an i7 Lenovo laptop with touchscreen, but I do not use it for Ableton at all. Or almost for anything else. If I need to touch something I prefer a good controller with knobs, buttons and such. And a good mouse is better for editing IMO. My studio computer is a desktop with all my hardware attached and ready. A 16 inch touch screen cannot beat it.

By the way, and absolutely off topic. I am starting to get really pissed off with Ableton and its lack of WASAPI support. All the other music software in my laptop runs perfectly with it, but with Live I need to use the piece of shit that is Asio4All if I do not want a separate piece of hardware dangling on the couch.

[jancivil]

No.

A poll having only options for people who _do_ use one is bullshit, bias confirmation rather than wanting to know what the community really thinks.

[machinesworking]

I don't see the benefit with touch unless you have a screen lying down before you.
- ergonomically it's a disaster to lift your hand to an upright screen
- a mouse or touch pad is much more convenient

I looked at MPC X for a while a couple of years ago, and they doubled up with command buttons below screen as well, to use instead.

I do some tutorials on a tablet upright on piano sheet holder, and this is just starting a video and pausing it etc. Not needing the keyboard at all.

To use touch on tablet to do bank arrends and such are fine, since just lying down or holding it.

Everything in a daw, no chance I would look at touch.
- just use a Shuttle Express with a jog wheel a ring and some buttons for left hand
- to assist a bit navigating timeline
- that and mouse and plenty markers to jump between to most common spots

I've had a Slate Raven since 2016. The screen is meant for desktop at 45º angles, and I've never had any issues with it being awkward, you don't want a 90º angle on the thing, and you don't want it up in the air. I have a three screen setup now with the two non touch monitors on a ceiling mount, the 27" Raven on the table. I really like it for any plugin that has a decent GUI for touch, mixing is 100% where it shines though.

I've never been able to understand how universally ignored Windows touch capabilities are. The only thing I can think is application integration must be lacking?

Plus I think most touch screens aren't clear on proper angles for optimum use? Even then Slate threads on their latest Raven MTi Max have at least half the responding people asking about when Windows integration will be finished for the new version. So again it's probably that Slate have made it a more ergonomic experience than the built in touch capability's. For one most tablet gestures are possible right on the screen whihch is much more useful than it sounds since it by default select the window you make the gesture over etc.