Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation saw this coming – computer display interfaces were destined to allow direct touch from all your fingers, with no mouse or stylus or clunky single-point interface intervening. Jazz Mutant’s Lemur multi-touch hardware was arguably the first widely-available commercial solution to enabling this kind of control of music and performance. Now, several years after the launch of Lemur, multi-touch is mainstream. Apple’s iPod touch and iPhone already support it in hardware costing as little as US$200. Microsoft promises built-in support in Windows 7. HP says computers and displays are imminent. Many others will follow.

But if you want multi-touch to work for music, what’s the best approach? The dedicated multi-touch Lemur controller (and its Dexter sibling) has won over support from some musicians and multimedia artists for specifically catering to their needs. Various celebs have been spotted using them – recently we saw Justice rocking a pair in Rio.

What defines the Lemur is that you don’t use it like a conventional display. Instead, you create interfaces from pre-defined building blocks – the virtual equivalent of adding physical faders and knobs to DIY controller hardware. To me, that’s been paradoxically both its strongest and weakest point. The strength is, the display focuses on controls that make sense for performance and can be easily manipulated with fingers. The weakness is, you’re limited to these widgets – and, increasingly, the Lemur has to compete with mainstream hardware displays that have no such limitations. As mainstream hardware grows, it puts more pressure on Lemur.

In the meantime, though, Lemur’s creators keep improving the available widgets. The biggest firmware update yet, v2 has just hit beta, with the finished firmware available by the end of the year. It’s a free update for Lemur owners, so a no-brainer there. New in this release:

• Breakpoint object for manipulating multi-segment envelopes
• Gesture object: gesture recognition, pinching, rotating, and finger tracing
• Tabbed container: Now, instead of switching endlessly between control pages, you can fit different sets of controls into tabs
• Mouse/keyboard remote control: keyboard shortcuts and mouse movements now become possible directly from the Lemur

In addition, it’s easier to edit Lemur pages more quickly, aliases of objects save memory, and multi-line scripting beefs up custom options.

It’s really good stuff, which makes me wonder: does Jazz Mutant have the ability to support other third-party hardware if it becomes available?

In the meantime, there isn’t actually any direct equivalent for the Lemur, at least not with this screen size. I imagine those with the cash who want to use a futuristic interface rather than just speculate about it will continue to snap up Lemurs. For the rest of us, it’s interesting just watching the development.

Jazz Mutant [Company Site]

Brad Linder is a blogger, freelance journalist, and producer for National Public Radio. If anyone loves mobile recorders, he sure does. He writes in with a great overview of what was happening in mobile recorders at the AES show here in New York, with plenty of detailed information on his blog.

How do you get new customers? How about filing lawsuits and taking a break-your-legs-style approach to busting recording studios via covert operatives? Yes, it’s Banpiracy.com, a new private business dedicated to threatening studios unless they “go legit.” Their efforts got started as part of Waves controversial sting operations in European studios. Now they’re coming for you Stateside, as an independent copyright police. First, they claim 50% (in the US) to 80% (in Europe) of studios pirate software, with no evidence to support that claim. Then, they plainly state their mission is to be a group of legal vigilantes, filing hundreds of legal actions around the country and taking on dozens of studios here in the US. (Great AES announcement; thanks.)

Let’s be clear: I’m absolutely opposed to piracy. It really has damaged the industry, and it really is often perpetrated by people can afford to pay. For people who can’t afford the software, we’ve been big advocates of cheap, freeware, and free/open source software that can be used legally. But making anti-piracy efforts look like brute thuggery is horribly damaging for an industry that’s been working for years to try to encourage positive relations with its customer base in order to compel them to buy software as choice, not out of fear. I’ve talked to many developers who, despite their concerns about piracy, have worked really hard to build that paying base of users, through mutual trust. And I can only see this nonsense having one effect: hurting the efforts of developers who have fought piracy by using sensible product authorization, providing great support, and taking an active role in the music community.

SonicState.com got a great interview, which is nice, as it means I didn’t have to talk to them:

AESNYC07: More On The Waves Antipiracy Campaign

And developers, please, we’re happy to help you sell more legit software; let’s stay away from these guys. They’re creepy. This isn’t really an anti-piracy effort; they plainly state they’re out to make more money for their clients. And that’s called extortion.

Updated: Amidst the roiling debate going on in our comments now, here’s an excellent and quite balanced article from Pro Sound News Europe. They detail the tactics used. In fact, what Waves/BanPiracy is doing is legal. Whether it’s good PR for existing, legitimate customers is another matter.
Waves tackles the cracks [Pro Sound News Europe]

Another observation, if I’ve got this right. Some readers do feel combating piracy may take this kind of strong-armed approach. But, so far, the only confirmed client of BanPiracy is still Waves. That means, whatever claims BanPiracy makes about the industry as a whole, it’s possible no one else is willing to take these kinds of measures. If you hear otherwise, let us know. But sticking to dongles, serials, authorization, and old-fashioned customer outreach may remain the solution for most developers.

What’s this new Max about, and why was it such a big deal at the AES trade show? To really understand, let’s turn to gaming for a moment. When Nintendo described their vision for the Wii, they talked about appealing to three groups of customers:

• The “hard-core” gamer; that is, their existing audience, of course
• “Lapsed” gamers: people who had done some gaming at some point but lost interest
• Entirely new gamers, across a variety of demographics

History will have to be the judge of Nintendo’s slim white box and controller-wagging interface, but I heard some similar development goals at the AES audio show this weekend. Nowhere was this more apparent than Cycling ’74’s upcoming Max 5. Substitute the word “patcher” for the word “gamer”, and you’ve got a snapshot of the new Max.

After all, whether you’ve touched Max before or not, you’ve likely got some needs in at least one of these categories. Beginners are easily intimidated by the “visual programming” metaphors of a blank-slate, modular tool like Max. Many others get through a couple of patches, often in a school course, but wind up having difficulty getting beyond that first work later on. And even advanced users (maybe especially advanced users) are always looking for ways of working faster.

The build I saw of Max wasn’t entirely complete, but I will say it’s tremendously promising. I talked to many for whom the chance to see Max 5 was the highlight of the entire AES show. It’s a tool you really need to see in action, so be sure to check out Cycling’s just-posted videos of the program:

A First Look at Max 5 [Cycling '74]

This is not the all-words, no-pictures manifesto we saw recently: now you actually get to see the tool in action. Highlights: