runagate's multi-touch control surface pr0n

[runagate]

Archos 5 internet tablet running Android and thus potentially running lots of lovely MIDI and/or OSC GUI control over Bluetooth

This is supposedly going to be announced at 18:00 (what time zone, I don't know) today. Archos has a very bad reputation, but given that it's Android it's probably very hackable.



Packard Bell's Viseo 200T

FINALLY there's been a multi-touch monitor announced, just a monitor without having to buy a damned TX2 or something similar just to get gestural multi-touch as a controller for one's DAW.

Which is something I've been ranting about forever now, and in fact basically have in this year's updates of Sensomusic's Usine... but without the hardware to use it on. see video here. Rumored price: $330, 5 ms response time (double the response specs of a touch monitor and hope it comes out to under 16 ms for playability)




Lenovo introduces multitouch ThinkPad X200 Tablet and T400s laptop

If you're rich, you can always get a nice multi-touch laptop once Windows 7 is released on October 22nd.



Wacom's nextbeat NXT-1000 launch dates are September 18th in Japan for 169,800 ($1,796) and September 25th for Europe, price probably comparable. No word on US release...

If you're really rich you can indulge in Wacom's new DJ-oriented control surface. Note that it's wireless.

As for me... I don't know what I'll end up with, but I'm shopping around.

I will say that I've got a 50+ page dissertation mapping out what should be done with the future of multi-touch, wireless control surfaces, with all the gory details to make sure that nothing idiotic gets grandfathered-in. Hopefully sometime in the next 25 years my little team will have a working prototype.

[dysfunctionz]

Archos is crap IMO, but I don't know where you get that they have a bad reputation... reviewers tend to like them, at least they did when I got my 20GB mp3 player ~4 years ago... decent player... while it lasted.

[Danno]

Yeah, I went thru 3 of their Archos5 before giving up... Great looking device, but garbage OS.

(I thought I'd be the last guy with an iPod, but that rumored Tablet is WANT)

Wait, Android? Hmm.

[zerocrossing]

Packard Bell's Viseo 200T

FINALLY there's been a multi-touch monitor announced, just a monitor without having to buy a damned TX2 or something similar just to get gestural multi-touch as a controller for one's DAW.

I've been SO waiting for this. PERFECT. I've been dreaming of having a main monitor for Live (controlled by a Novation RemoteSL) and laying a touchscreen down on it's back in front of it (at a 20 degree angle) for plug in UI. I wonder if Windows will allow you to say the monitors are orientated vertically instead of the usual horizontal/side by side orientation.

[SuperFly76]

I wonder if Windows will allow you to say the monitors are orientated vertically instead of the usual horizontal/side by side orientation.

Yes. Windows will allow you to freely configure monitor location. You're not just limited to up, down, left, or right either. You can mimic your exact setup with the properties tab.

[runagate]

Packard Bell's Viseo 200T

FINALLY there's been a multi-touch monitor announced, just a monitor without having to buy a damned TX2 or something similar just to get gestural multi-touch as a controller for one's DAW.

I've been SO waiting for this. PERFECT. I've been dreaming of having a main monitor for Live (controlled by a Novation RemoteSL) and laying a touchscreen down on it's back in front of it (at a 20 degree angle) for plug in UI. I wonder if Windows will allow you to say the monitors are orientated vertically instead of the usual horizontal/side by side orientation.

Especially useful with Usine's Live-controlling touchscreen patch

I've been waiting almost as long as I've been awaiting VR googles and gloves composition and mixing.

Which, of course, comes in a free version. And not only as a VST host, but in a VST version itself.... nested touchscreen, gestural DAWs.

Archos has a bad reputation for announcing future implementations of features and then reneging, and also for their crap OS which they require you to buy plug-ins to make fully functional, making former version's hardware features like HDMI-out, audio recording, etc. as proprietary add-ons, etc.

This time, however, they appear to have gotten it exactly right (fingers crossed) because they have their proprietary Linux-based OS and Android side-by-side and seamless, and Android apps such as customizable touch GUIs for playing MIDI or OSC keyboards, X-Y pads, etc. over Bluetooth, which the new version is confirmed to have. One small caveat: no one knows whether it's hi-rez default display will make Android apps go weird til they're adapted...?

The Archos 9 will run Windows 7 but, bafflingly, will not be multi-touch or I'd have my panties in a bunch awaiting it's release in October.

I've got my second monitor, a 14" touchscreen with wicked latency but that cost like 40$ on eBay, on a swiveling arm finally, so I'm pretty happy with just that improvement!

Even newegg still has crappy 3M or ELO 15" touchscreens listed at like $525 more often than not.

I am not interested in buying the Wacom thingee since I am poor and thrifty (best when combined, lol) but I wish their web page didn't BSOD my PC so I could actually read further about it.

Like I said, note that it's not a music instrument manufaturer that managed to make this obvious evolutionary leap, but Wacom.

I actually read through Wacom's "components" section last night trying to see if I could somehow just buy their multi-touch overlays in bulk so I could re-use one and re-sell the others, kind of like a "group buy." Guess it doesn't work that way.

[runagate]

Well, speaking of Wacom apparently they just released a two-finger multi-touch Bamboo Touch.

via engadget

Check out the Comments below, and on the 2nd page of Comments, to see pictures that people snapped of it, such as this one:



and here's aptly demonstrating that it's not especially easy to use the gestures, and that more important is that the software you intend to use it with needs to have multi-touch gestural support.

It remains to be seem if it's pressure and tilt sensitive. There are versions with the Wacom pen, which may very well have these features.

The models are apparently about $58 to $149, depending on whether it comes with a pen or not, and what size it is. Oddly, a comment from someone from Staples said they put the display up 4 days ago and I was just in a Staples for the first time in my life and ogling the Wacom tablets, wishing they'd release a wireless, multi-touch control surface. 2-finger multi is better than no multi-touch, I suppose.

The more expensive versions do indeed have pressure sensitivity, but not tilt, and no "radial menus."

It'll probably work better with Windows 7 natively, in which case my beloved Usine touchscreen edition and things like insertpizhere's MIDI-sending GUI-controllers for touchscreen VSTs will be able to accept gestural controls, too (3-fnnger flick to go to next preset, 2-finger rotate to change wet/dry level, etc.)

Honestly, I wish one of these companies would just sit down and pick my brain for about a week of caffeine-addled ranting and gesturing wildly with my notebooks full of detail plots so someone gets this right.

[runagate]

I can't say I was particularly paying attention to M$'s release of a the new Zune HD til this caught my eye:

"This add-on for XNA Game Studio 3.1 adds the following functionality to the product:

1. The ability to target and develop for the Zune HD media player.
2. The addition of new Touch APIs to the XNA Framework for use on the Zune HD.
3. The addition of new Accelerometer APIs to the XNA Framework for use on the Zune HD.

Also included are documentation and examples integrated into Visual Studio help that will show you how to leverage the new APIs. You'll even find a tutorial on how to update the Platformer Game Starter Kit to use the new Touch API's!"

My boldfaced emphases in the quote, btw.

But, as with the iPhone, the question isn't whether MIDI or OSC gestural multi-touch apps will be developed but whether the parent company will allow the software to be downloaded from their app store - in the Zune's case, the only way to install apps currently, though I've no doubt it'll get a "jailbreak."



What exactly possesses these companies to make their devices less attractive to whole segments of potential buyers by crippling them this way is beyond me. Maybe all CEOs have some sort of Daddy-induced control issues.

If someone knows of a multi-touch gestural touchscreen with pressure sensitivity and a X/Y/Z-sensing acceleromater with the capability of installing homebrew applications with no-fuss and that operates wirelessly over Bluetooth please let me know.

[justin3am]

I actually read through Wacom's "components" section last night trying to see if I could somehow just buy their multi-touch overlays in bulk so I could re-use one and re-sell the others, kind of like a "group buy." Guess it doesn't work that way.

http://www.cypress.com/?id=1156&

It's called CapSense. The components are getting really cheap so I think in the next 2 or 3 years you are going to see many more devices using it. In my experience it's more sensitive and responsive than the current gen of displays. Just imagine... OLED overlays for pressure sensitive CapSense surfaces. Drool...

[edit] Some other resources...
http://www.lionprecision.com/tech-libra ... heory.html
http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/CapSense
http://www.slideshare.net/daniel_smith/ ... esentation

I believe the concept is similar to the touch interfaces on such devices as...
Serge TKB
Buchla Music Easel and Thunder
BugBrand CTL1
M-Audio Surface One

[runagate]

Thanks justin.
Since we spoke off KVR about this I've done a ton more research, and given it all a lot of thought. You always know how to help me

I've migrated my ranting to a new noisepages blog:

http://runagate.noisepages.com/

Where I'll keep up-to-date info about gizmos repurposed for digital music...

I already wish I could afford the Wacom nextbeat touch-sensitive sampler/mixer/control surface/wireless turntable/DJ effects/etc. thingee

And it looks like I might be working with a friend to make a Windows CE touchscreen customizable UI MIDI controller application if I finally break down and get some UMPC/smartphone/PVP gadget to control VSTs with.