5 ms·

Yeah, most of them run off a version of MIDI. Though to be honest, I can't really imagine this resulting in anything more 'interesting' than what we have so fa

Yeah, most of them run off a version of MIDI. Though to be honest, I can't really imagine this resulting in anything more 'interesting' than what we have so far. The 'hard' controls used pretty optimized. Whatever clunkiness is there is kinda hard to get around, due to the sheer level of complexity involved. I mean, what's the interface on the iPad going to be? A bunch of sliders. What are the interfaces in real life? Sliders. Granted, an iPad might be able to do funner things than equipment of comparable price, but top of the line equipment (which have motors to move the sliders/knobs to the presets you saved!) is pretty much as flexible and powerful as it can be.

sudont 16y ago
Hopefully the controls would be something beyond NSSlider-s, and allow for chaining commands together into groups that automatically move together, creating effect banks that can dynamically be broken down and controlled. I doubt it'll take off beyond small, avant-garde stage shows, as most theater effects would be pre-run ahead of time. Might be a stupid idea, but I'm basing a guess on twitter:blogging :: monome :keyboard. See also the painful complexity here: http://www.innovateshowcontrols.com/support/downloads/midi-dmx.pdf http://www.innovateshowcontrols.com/support/downloads/midi-d...
- icegreentea 16y ago
  Yes yes... I remember... masters, submasters, scenes, cues... I was the sound guy. My console was like a 3rd of the size with a quarter of the buttons. My manual was less than a 10th the size as the lighting one. But I got more cables hanging out the back. So it will matches up.
anigbrowl 16y ago
I mean, what's the interface on the iPad going to be? A bunch of sliders. Sure, sliders are convenient. But there are accelerometers, image processors, DSP on the microphone input...and multitouch lets you do some thing that don't make sense with a mouse, like pinching to alter the ratio of two two-dimensional values at once (or more). The CPU in the phone or pad is fast enough to do some fun things with complex numbers or whatever and spit out the results via MIDI to a heavy duty DSP. That would be quite useful for simulating vocal tracts or physical modeling things like woodwind reeds or brass tonguing (the different sounds a trumpet player can make by how they put their lips/tongue to the trumpet mouthpiece). There is gear to do this sort of thing already, but most hardware has only multiple 1-dimensional controllers or a joystick, effectively requiring a whole new set of playing techniques. Smartphones make it easier to adapt the input device to the specifications of the player rather than the other way around.
- sudont 16y ago
  That's pretty clever. I hadn't though about muxing sound and controls together through DSP. The quicktime layer in cocoa would probably make it fairly easy to use a video stream as data input. Another thing the iPad has over a computer is simultaneity of interface elements, i.e. two people working a dashboard, vs one on a computer.
- elblanco 16y ago
  Exactly what I was thinking, I can't even count the number of times I've been working with a softsynth and wanted to just reach into my screen (or have a configurable multi-touch interface down on my desk) I could touch and work with. The mouse is entirely inadequate...and the number of soft synth interfaces seems to be near endless.
meatsock 16y ago
> what's the interface on the iPad going to be? A bunch of sliders. or a picture of google earth that plays local sounds wherever you touch. you're not thinking of the big picture, the interface can be anything you can fit on the screen.

sudont 16y ago

Hopefully the controls would be something beyond NSSlider-s, and allow for chaining commands together into groups that automatically move together, creating effect banks that can dynamically be broken down and controlled. I doubt it'll take off beyond small, avant-garde stage shows, as most theater effects would be pre-run ahead of time. Might be a stupid idea, but I'm basing a guess on twitter:blogging :: monome :keyboard. See also the painful complexity here: http://www.innovateshowcontrols.com/support/downloads/midi-dmx.pdf http://www.innovateshowcontrols.com/support/downloads/midi-d...

icegreentea 16y ago
Yes yes... I remember... masters, submasters, scenes, cues... I was the sound guy. My console was like a 3rd of the size with a quarter of the buttons. My manual was less than a 10th the size as the lighting one. But I got more cables hanging out the back. So it will matches up.

anigbrowl 16y ago

I mean, what's the interface on the iPad going to be? A bunch of sliders. Sure, sliders are convenient. But there are accelerometers, image processors, DSP on the microphone input...and multitouch lets you do some thing that don't make sense with a mouse, like pinching to alter the ratio of two two-dimensional values at once (or more). The CPU in the phone or pad is fast enough to do some fun things with complex numbers or whatever and spit out the results via MIDI to a heavy duty DSP. That would be quite useful for simulating vocal tracts or physical modeling things like woodwind reeds or brass tonguing (the different sounds a trumpet player can make by how they put their lips/tongue to the trumpet mouthpiece). There is gear to do this sort of thing already, but most hardware has only multiple 1-dimensional controllers or a joystick, effectively requiring a whole new set of playing techniques. Smartphones make it easier to adapt the input device to the specifications of the player rather than the other way around.

sudont 16y ago
That's pretty clever. I hadn't though about muxing sound and controls together through DSP. The quicktime layer in cocoa would probably make it fairly easy to use a video stream as data input. Another thing the iPad has over a computer is simultaneity of interface elements, i.e. two people working a dashboard, vs one on a computer.
elblanco 16y ago
Exactly what I was thinking, I can't even count the number of times I've been working with a softsynth and wanted to just reach into my screen (or have a configurable multi-touch interface down on my desk) I could touch and work with. The mouse is entirely inadequate...and the number of soft synth interfaces seems to be near endless.

meatsock 16y ago

> what's the interface on the iPad going to be? A bunch of sliders. or a picture of google earth that plays local sounds wherever you touch. you're not thinking of the big picture, the interface can be anything you can fit on the screen.