There are simpler, more minimal interfaces, and more tangible interfaces for Ableton Live. But when it comes to all-stops-pulled, touch-everything control of the full depth of Ableton Live, it was already hard to beat TouchAble for iPad. Now, with an update, that app closes even more of the gap between what you can do on the iPad and what you can do through the standard Live UI.

The standard computer model – mouse, keyboard, display – places some distance between you and a graphical user interface (even if that mouse is quite precise). The advantage of something like an iPad is, you can touch that interface directly. Part of the reason I’ve criticized that interface is, you’re still short of true tangible control with feedback – and there’s a great “rant,” far more articulate than I have been, on the topic, one that deserves further discussion soon.

But, as a middle ground, TouchAble is impressive. It’s very effective as a kind of “cockpit” for most of Live’s functionality.

New in this release, in brief:

• On-the-fly looping
• Beatjump / loopjump from a clip, among other shortcuts
• New mixer, with crossfader
• Velocity-sensitive drums
• Control Impulse, Auto Filter, Pingpong Delay
• Lots of other enhancements; see the full update list

In fact, with the new Devices, velocity-sensitive Drums, and Looping, TouchAble goes further toward making an iPad-centric “instrument” out of Live.

Odds are, you own just one iPad. But if you’ve got more – or some friends – the new version also supports up to four iPads at once. The video’s shaky, but we get to see that feature in action.

Sylvain Garcia, aka “Le K”, of TouchAble played with all four iPads at Wild Renate here in Berlin last weekend, and sends us documentation. The TouchAble crew also tell us there’s more to come, particularly with artists.

For more in-action videos — proof that this can work in practice, there are two YouTube playlists:
TouchAble Featured Artists
TouchAble Artists

TouchAble @ App Store; via DE:BUG [in German]

If you’ve wished you could use your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad as a remote control for Logic, now’s your chance. And touch control continues to evolve as an additional option for manipulating music software, alongside good, old-fashioned knobs and faders.

Handheld wireless touch control is certainly coming into the mainstream. As we see new controller integration in tools ranging from Ardour to Renoise, Apple quietly added support for iOS touch control in an update to Logic.

One line in the release notes says it all:

Supports iOS control surface apps that utilize the OSC protocol.

Logic Pro 9.1.2: Release notes

– or, to put it another way, that’s all they say. Fortunately, Sam Greene has written up a great little tutorial / first impressions:
Control Logic using your iOS device – Officially.

Basically, select the awesome TouchOSC app and your device under Control Surfaces, and automagically unlock access to mixing controls and automation. It’s nothing revolutionary, but these devices make perfect remote controls. It’s also nice to see this kind of control as something that’s evolving independent from individual apps. That is, instead of having to buy an app for each software you own, just as with MIDI, there’s some interoperability.

It seems to me that the next logical step is to begin to introduce some standardization to the way in which DAWs and touch controllers interact. But before we get there, this kind of solution is a good place to start; I think without playing with this stuff, it’s hard to know what a “standard” of some kind (lowercase “s”) would look like.

Speaking of playing, let us know how this works for you.

Thanks, Sam, for working this out!

Novation’s Automap is coming to the iPhone – meaning a handheld device can provide interactive visual and textual feedback about what you’re manipulating in, say, an Ableton Live set.

Our friends at Hispasonic (Spanish-language) bring us the news. (Thanks, Xavier!) Photo credit: the new blog SaM’s burrow:

Novation Automap for iPhone in beta stage (first screen captures)

That gives you a closer look. I’m not even going to try to wonder what happened to Novation’s NDA. (We seem to be getting mostly “D.”) But, Novation, if you’re out there, trust me – buzz already suggests this is a good leak for you.

On the Ableton forums, some naysayers wonder why you’d want to run a Live set from an iPhone. The answer is, naturally, you wouldn’t – I think they’re missing the point. There are two larger issues here. One is, having a handheld device means there’s just another intelligent way to control your music set. It might be something you prop atop your keyboard or drum pad controller as a small dashboard, or that you carry with you so you can hear the sound in a venue during sound check. The other message is, interactive control with actual labels on parameters is the future for a lot of devices, not just the iPhone. That’s in stark contrast to the primitive way in which MIDI refers to everything in terms of (typically) meaningless numbers.

In fact, there are some promising other attempts to more easily see and manipulate clips away from your laptop screen, on devices like the Lemur. Thanks to the Live API (on which Max for Live’s control of Live is also based), it’s possible to finally get a full, controllable view of your clips. My only criticism would be that we still lack a single, open standard for this stuff. If Ableton Live supported OpenSoundControl (OSC) natively, it’d open all sorts of applications – without the hacking currently required. But that’s a topic for another day, and not just directed at Ableton.

Here’s the full text of this announcement from the Ableton forums. Stay tuned; hopefully we’ll hear official news soon.

Thank you for expressing your interest in the iPhone/iPod touch Application – we now have the first version ready for testing. Please follow the instructions below:

Installation:

*Please note, currently only compatible with Mac OS 10.5x (Leopard)*

The application allows you to use your device (iPhone/iPod touch) as a wireless Automap hardware controller over a WiFi network

Therefore first of all, your Mac which you use to run Automap, and your iPhone/iPod touch must be on the same network.

Once you have done this, you then need to do the following:

1) Download and install the latest Beta release (3.1b3) of Automap here: http://beta.novationmusic.com/automap/

2) Mount the attached volume “Automap_iPhone-1.0b1.dmg”, which contains two seperate files – “Automap_Testing.mobileprovision” and “Automap.app”

4) Open iTunes, drag the file “Automap_Testing.mobileprovision” onto the iTunes icon in the dock (you only need to do this once)

5) Drag the file “Automap.app” into your iTunes Library, you should now see “Automap” listed in your Applications within iTunes

6) Sync your iPhone/iPod making sure that “Automap” is checked in the Applications tab

Once this is done, launch Automap on your Mac, and launch the Automap application on your iPhone/iPod, you should see your Mac running Automap in the list of available servers.

Select the appropriate server, and begin controlling!

If you experience issues connecting to Automap, you may need to disable any Firewalls you have running (if using Airport you might want to set up a dedicated wireless network).

A few known issues so far:

+ Issue with HUI Pan control
+ Default HUI mapping/layout has not yet been created
+ Some web links are yet to be implemented

We have not included any user documentation as we are interested in your user experience with the Application alone.

http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=115761

It appears that network changes in Mac OS 10.5.7 could adversely impact some hardware, specifically the Euphonix EuCon line of controllers. Here is information sent to customers today – thanks to reader Oliver Lucas for spotting this.

Please note that the new Mac OS update released yesterday, Version 10.5.7, breaks support for the feature in EuControl that automatically detects what control surfaces are attached to your network.

Euphonix is working on a fix – please DO NOT update your Mac OS until we release a software update that addresses the issue, as your MC Mix/MC Control will not be seen by your Mac.

For those users who have already updated to Version 10.5.7, you can roll back your Mac OS to the previous version if you are using Time Machine.

Update: this is now fixed.

There are no other apparent audio issues with 10.5.7 that I can see. (Visualists may be pleased about some NVIDIA driver improvements.)

My sense is this is most likely limited to the EuCon, which connects via Ethernet. It sounds specific enough that even other networked music hardware, like the Lemur, may be immune – I’m posting this partly in hopes, though, that Mac users can report back and let us know.

Here are the network changes:

• Improves network performance when connected to certain Ethernet switches that have Flow Control enabled.
• Improves stability for network home directories hosted by Mac OS X Server v10.4.
• Improves Finder search results for network volumes that may not support Spotlight searching, such as Mac OS X Server v10.4, Time Capsule, and third-party AFP servers.
• Includes several improvements to Directory Service and Client Management.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I think this happens too often on Mac OS. It seems like Apple could do more to make it easier for customers to roll back an upgrade, and more to communicate to developers what changes may be.

That’s not simply a criticism. I think Apple excels at producing an exceptionally high-quality operating system, and the expectations users have for desktop reliability set a higher bar than the norm for Linux or Windows. They also run an aggressive release schedule, one that often gets improvements and fixes into user hands sooner. But then, music users are especially sensitive, and I think the situation would be even better if developer communication were improved and rollbacks were possible even without Time Machine.

Anyway, Apple (or Microsoft, or even to some extent Linux) you can’t control. What you can control with any upgrade is to make sure you have an image of your system prior to the upgrade and that you thoroughly test hardware on which you rely immediately so you can roll back. That’s always true on any OS, period. (Apple, to their credit, says just as much in their support document.)

More information is always appreciated.

Jay Smith of Livid Instruments may be in the business of making controller hardware himself, but that doesn’t stop him from appreciate the knob-laden goodness of the NAMM show floor. Jay’s own gear reveals a not-so-secret love of knobs and buttons and faders, and if you’re into that sort of thing, this year’s NAMM music trade show had plenty to love – Akai’s APC40 controller for Live, Akai’s MPK keyboard, the Alesis MasterControl, Arturia’s Factory Experience controller for their soft synth emulations, and even another brutish-looking computer-in-a-keyboard, now with pads, from Open Labs.

The shots give you a particularly good feel for what the Akai APC40 is like up close and personal. It’s no accident that Jay himself is a VJ. I really imagine that a number of these devices might be brilliant for running live visuals, though we still have yet to find out exactly how the APC works. I assume it’ll run as a standard MIDI controller outside Live, but I’m unclear on the specifics of what that will mean.

Thanks to Jay for sharing these photos with CDM.

Now I can’t wait to get another look at Livid’s own controller line and what may be next for it; see its wooden crossfader below. Previously:

Hands-On: Livid’s New Ohm Controller, Custom Control Geared for Visualists

Dynamic control is fantastic. The idea is this: when you switch to a new app or instrument or effect, the hardware controller automatically assigns parameters to controls. That means no messing around with templates, assignment editors, and configuration, and the ability to quickly gain control of your software when editing or performing. Novation’s MIDI-controlling keyboards and control surfaces are likely the best example of this with their “Automap” feature, as found on the ReMOTE line and the cute, DJ-friendly Nocturn.

But doing dynamic assignment also creates some challenges. You have to sort out which parameters get controlled. And most importantly, you need to be able to see what you’re actually controlling.

Automap was, frankly, pretty rocky when it first shipped – when I originally reviewed the ReMOTE SL, a lot of stuff didn’t work at all in some of the hosts. (I remember struggling with Logic, specifically.) But Novation has done a fantastic job of working with all the software you use, from Live and Reason to Logic and Pro Tools, and each release has gotten steadily better. Automap “Universal” 2.0 works exceptionally well with hosts, and plug-in support was starting to come together.

Now, Automap 3 Pro seeks to address those two remaining areas: assign parameters more easily, and see what you’re doing. And for the first time, you’ll be able to use multiple Novations side by side, which means I’m ready to pick up a Nocturn for myself. There’s just one catch, which may win the “Accountants Do the Darndest Things” award of this NAMM show. (Spoiler alert: would you give away or charge for the feature that encourages people to buy more of your gear?)

Heads-Up Display

The biggest news to me is the new heads-up display, which Novation calls “Autoview.”

If you are dynamically assigning controls, you need some feedback to know what the heck you’re actually controlling. That’s why I’m going to gripe endlessly about the lack of a screen on the new Akai APC40 for Ableton Live. Novation has always had lovely little screens built into their hardware. The problem is, an LED is a pretty small screen for people used to looking at 23” desktop displays all day. (I’m only 31 and I’m squinting at it already.)

Oddly enough, if you play with a laptop, you have a huge, gorgeous screen sitting right next to you. You can hunch over it and try to tell what’s happening, but that’s obviously no go.

So Novation has what I think is the ideal solution: a big heads-up display that activates when you grab a controller. (“Ah,” you say, “that is my grain length control,” and go on confidently with your set.)

We saw this basic feature demoed with the Nocturn controller at last year’s NAMM, but now it’s standard on Automap 3 across the whole Novation line. Having both the screen on my device and on my computer screen seems fantastic to me.

Assign Controllers Flexibly

The other main shortcoming of Automap in the past is how to deal with plug-ins with lots of parameters. In Ableton Live, at least, you can throw instruments and effects into Live’s Device Racks, which conveniently have eight macro knobs. That way, the eight encoders on your Novation gear map nicely. But invariably, even in Live I’ll find some plug-in I didn’t put into a rack, and this doesn’t work in all other hosts.

With Automap 3, you can drag and drop parameters onto controls. If you don’t like the arrangement, drag and drop again to swap parameters from one controller to another. (“Yep, grain length really belongs on the bottom right,” says you, and it is so.) That complements the “learn mode” added in Automap 2: click the on-screen parameter and then touch the hardware controller. (That’s very similar to the way Kore’s feature works, by the way.)

Finally, Automap supports assigning the X/Y pad control dynamically. That’s huge for SL owners – and makes me almost wish I hadn’t switch to the SL Compact.

Multiple Devices, New Start-Up Screen

The other big feature is long-awaited support for multiple devices and integrated Mackie HUI support, and there’s a new screen to organize all the new stuff.

Multiple controllers: You can now use more than one Novation controller at once and have Automap working with both of them at the same time. This is really fantastic, especially given that the ReMOTE Zero and Nocturn are both quite compact.

Mackie HUI: This means you get instant control over any DAW that supports Mackie HUI, without specific drivers.

New screen: There’s also a new startup screen for managing multiple devices and the plug-in assignment features. It also brings up links for updating your software and learning how to use all this functionality, with online guides for your software of choice, tutorials, and help.

Now, get ready for some cognitive dissonance:

Pro Pricing that Makes No Sense

I wondered why Automap was suddenly called “Automap Pro.” The answer seems to be that some jittery accountants (or someone else, in a weak moment) decided to charge $30 for Automap 3 Pro. That might be a logical decision if Automap worked on any hardware other than Novation’s, but it doesn’t. It’s not much money – it just doesn’t make much sense.

Here’s where it gets really strange. You can get Automap “Standard” for free. So what did they take out to entice you to buy “Pro”? Multiple device support.

Yep, that’s right. You can use less Novation hardware for free, but if you want to buy more Novation hardware, they’ll charge you for the privilege of using it. (I’m hoping it at least comes free with new Novation controllers, but haven’t seen any announcement suggesting that.)

Also exclusive to the Pro mode:

• XY pad control
• Autoview
• Drag and drop

So, in other words, Automap Standard doesn’t really give you any of the significant new features, except for HUI control and the new startup screen.

I know I’m naive and have terrible business sense, but wouldn’t it make more sense to encourage people to buy more of your stuff? I think Automap Pro is probably worth thirty bucks. I think Novation’s hardware is well worth buying – maybe even more than one unit. But I can’t make this make any sense at all.

Good will from your users is more valuable, Novation – and in the long run, could have a bigger impact on your bottom line. Make Automap Pro free, and encourage users to snap up more of these terrific controllers instead.

I hope at the very least Novation has the sense to do a free bundle of Automap Pro 3 with new controllers. (How many of you would find a bundled copy of Pro enough to put you over the top on buying a new Nocturn, even if you already have something like the ReMOTE SL? I know it’d convince me.)

Still Want It

That said, I still want this update – to me, it finally delivers on all the promise of the whole Automap concept.

And my message to Ableton: I’d love to see a heads-up display integrated into Live, too, especially since the Akai APC lacks a screen of its own.

Stay tuned for an Automap 3 hands-on coming soon. As I write this, the downloads still cover only Automap Universal 2, and the Buy Now page is blank.

Automap Product Page

Tom Phillipson sends us a really lovely video in which he extends what’s possible on a ReMOTE SL keyboard from Novation by adding the touch controls of an iPod touch. This is exactly what I’ve been talking about in terms of the usefulness of the iPod and iPhone apps: they’re a perfect, reasonably affordable (US$220 for an entry-level iPod touch) means of adding interactive controls to your hardware. You can use the touch controls for parameters well-suited to touch and that layout (and see those controls in the dark onstage), and physical controls for other tasks.

Tom writes:

Rob from Hexler suggested you might be interested in this video i made. I recently made a simple yet very effective mod of my novation 25SL compact to incorporate my ipod touch, running TouchOSC.

Via the YouTube post:

TouchOSC is awesome little software, just like having a Lemur, only infinitely cheaper.. and the mod is completely reversible ..
Its extended the functionality of an already very useful keyboard. No keyboards were harmed in the making of this video
Novation 25SL Compact and TouchOSC controlling Ableton 7 and a Access virus Snow.
For my music, check out http://www.myspace.com/zumkabel
or http://www.autoflavour.com

TouchOSC by hexler (R.J. Fischer) is US$3.99 from the iTunes App Store.

See also: ReMOTE SL @ Novation Music

… which I reviewed for Keyboard Magazine

I wondered if anyone else had used calculators as music controllers. The answer? But of course. Here’s a classic Russian calculator model controlling arrangements in Ableton Live. It appears in this example as though this is working as a USB (QWERTY) keyboard substitute, rather than as a MIDI controller, but you get more of the same potential from all those wonderful buttons.

This find comes to us from Toyo Bunko of Noise.io – themselves lovers of mobile technology, having built a sophisticated soft synth for the iPhone. Toyo writes:

The page (in Russian) : http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124.html

And the video (instant download link) is here: http://diver.net.ua/page-id-124-a-dl.html

([Credited as] created by Zinus of "Diver Group").

The calculator model is Elektronika MK-52, it’s quite famous. More info on this calculator can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK-52

He managed to connect the calculator via a USB interface which he took out from an old USB keyboard. So it basically acts like a keyboard controller.

If you’re out there, we’d love to hear more (or from anyone who can translate the Russian here). I expect I’m not the first to point to this, but the calculator music – by popular demand – continues!

To me, the ideal kind of music tech writing is when you get to spend quality time with tools for musical reasons – not simply to talk about the technology, but to make stuff. Over the past weeks, we’ve been gradually assembling ideas, sound designs, knowledge, and tutorials into a string of blog-style posts on the CDM Kore site. I’ve organized those into an evolving guide to working with Kore as a musician, from getting a handle on the basics (including some stuff that initially befuddled us when we tried to use it!), to some “experimental” techniques for pushing the envelope.

Using Kore

We’ve been spending a lot of time with Reaktor, too, so expect a follow-up with that. The idea isn’t really to advocate any tool over another one — on the contrary, for me it’s about figuring out, okay, now you’ve got something, what do you do with it?

It’s been great to get all this input from Peter Dines, Eoin, and the readers, as well (particularly Jonathan Adams Leonard) — the guide above is sort of a “collective knowledge” about the tool. Having written a book and various magazine articles, it’s a totally different experience: more learning than teaching.

On the same lines, I’ve also put together a guide to working with the Kore controller without touching the mouse. That’s part of the whole appeal to me of the Kore system, but it may not be immediately obvious how to do it. If you’ve got Kore in front of you, this will walk you in front of how to do it. I’m still learning to assimilate this with my live sets, but when I get it going it makes me really happy — I’m able to focus directly on sound.

Reference: How to Navigate Kore 2 with Hardware – No Mouse!

This is good timing, as I’m just now back from Berlin where I got to do a short set which happened to combine Ableton Live and Kore. So, separate from this other stuff, I do want to say a big thank you to everyone in Berlin who came out. It was great to meet you, and I hope to come back soon — you have a really fantastic town; I loved being there. It was really creatively inspiring.

Several bloggers were nice enough to write up / photograph the evening:
MIDI Mechanics
Hundertmarknow

– both blogs in German, but they look great; just added them to my RSS so I can keep practicing my German reading skills.

Big thanks, as well, to everyone at the DEAF Festival and in Dublin, in another wonderful and energizing town. I’ll be putting together my notes from the DEAF presentation soon to share.

Photos/screens: Bryant Place. Used by permission. (Click for larger versions.)

Side note: for a look at live touch interfaces with Native Instruments’ Reaktor, see our story for our NI minisite. To really understand how touch is impacting live playing, I think it’s helpful to see what’s going on with different software platforms.

Multi-touch, Lemur, and Going Live

Part of the appeal of Ableton Live is that it behaves as a hybrid between arrangement software and musical instrument. Early versions even carried the tagline “Sequencing Instrument,” but that sums up the problem: instruments generally aren’t sequencers, and visa versa. To “play” your sequencer live is challenging enough, but added to that is the fundamental mouse-pointer interface that’s been in the marketplace for over twenty years. To really control live, you need more direct access.

The Lemur multi-touch hardware promised just such control when unveiled. In an early review, I saw this as promising but cautioned that the custom software the Lemur runs was overly rigid. Since then, firmware updates have gradually added more custom features.

On a recent trip to Los Angeles, I got to watch as Bryant showed off a set of templates he’s been developing that exploit these features for deeper, more interactive control of Ableton Live. Bryant’s session was brief enough that you could blink and miss it, but an awed crowd of assembled Live gurus revealed that he’d showed something really special. It’s a dream multi-touch setup. He’s using the new v2 firmware for Lemur, which we see in a screenshot from Jazz Mutant has also been used in their own template for Live. Not all the features come from v2 firmware, but those tabs make a big difference, and I can imagine continuing to go hog-wild with envelopes and such.

The basic idea: set up effects for live performance and make them readily accessible from the futuristic-looking, multi-touch, colored Lemur control surface. With a few compact screens, and interface elements that respond dynamically to what’s happening in software, it’s possible to use touch gestures to control elaborate effects arrangements in ways that would be very different than the results you could get from conventional knobs and faders.

Have a look at the pictures to really get a feel for what this means. I asked Bryant to describe to us a little more about how it all works. He cautions he’s “more of an engineer than a writer.” (Add “Damnit, Jim” to the beginning of that line, Star Trek fans.) But he actually has quite a lot to say, and you can feel free to ask some follow-up questions in comments.

Behind the Scenes with Bryant

My Live set is designed to take complete songs (preferably electronic dance music), and remix and affect the sound in such a way what I can take an original mix and completely transform its sound and rhythm.

I’m using only Live’s [internal] effects for the following reasons: stability, [efficient use of] CPU resources, tempo changes. I am thinking of adding some Sugar Bytes and possibly Audio Damage – we’ll see. [Ed.: Yes, I have to at least observe that third-party plug-ins are often as stable and sometimes more CPU-efficient – depending on the specific application.]

Some notes and tips, as I have learned building this project:

• Using the Lemur to control Live, which I can then do very quickly and naturally, has allowed me to discover the nature and quirks behind some of Live’s effects.
• Live and is amazing at changing tempo – especially evident when there are quantized auto-filters.
• Changing tempo while holding [instances of] Beat Repeat can cause some problems with the groove as Beat Repeat uses a good amount of audio buffer.
• Playing fast songs (for example, 135 bpm) at a slow tempo (e.g., 75 bpm) usually sounds weird. This can be somewhat enhanced by the following procedure: use two of the exact same audio clip, one using the "beats" algorithm and one using "complex." Together, they have a much better texture than you’d get using just one.

The signal flow and layout:

• Four Audio Tracks: I have four audio tracks for clips. Two A and Two B – I use the crossfader to fade between set A and B.  A1,A2,   B1,B2: These four tracks are "sends only"
• Seven Sends, with Pre-Configured Routing: I have seven sends.  A1,A2, are sent to sends: A Hi, B Mid, C, Low (the seventh send is simply a DRY track "G"). B1, B2, are sent to the hi mid lo sends D E F
• Effects Inserts: Sends Set A (ABC) and Sends Set B (DEF) contain independent auto-filters, multi-band compression tuned to their specific frequencies and auto pan.
• Effects in performance: The effects are controlled by the Lemur in a very magical way. (I spent a lot of time tuning the MIDI mapping)  This allows me to create a separate groove from the original song [using the resulting effects] – AND one that is frequency-independent.  (I had to compensate some things due to buffer limitations and CPU [utilization] for my MacBook Pro.)
• Returns, and More Effects: Next I take the sends and route them back to specific audio tracks.  I route A Hi to X Hi also D Hi to X Hi, and so on. This is where I add band-independent instances of [Ableton’s] Beat Repeat and Simple Delay. (By the way, these delays are far deeper than they seem on the surface.) I have full control of them using the Lemur – you can see the delay units in the images.  Lastly, I use a multi-ball object to control Hi, Mid, Lo. Chorusing tuned to their respective frequencies.  (When used correctly and with taste – the effect is mind-blowing)
• Recording: Lastly, I have my FIRE track which I use as a pre-Master (Xhi Xmid Xlow are sent to FIRE) – so I can record my performances.  I also use some mastering plug-ins to finalize the sound. [Ed.: Interesting, though I’d be inclined to do that after recording!]

The result is called LiveFIRE. I am using v2 Lemur Firmware but I haven’t used many new features — only the tabbed container object, color options, and other little tidbits. [Ed. That may be, but having worked in the Lemur editor, sometimes having just that one object you need can make a huge difference. If you saw an early revision, like the one I first tested, many of these objects are also the result of a series of new features.]

Technical notes: I can’t use my Live set to its fullest capacity due to my MacBook Pro’s limitations with audio buffer.  I have already scrapped my audio interface in turn for my integrated sound card – as it allows a larger audio buffer size. (This problem occurs only when I have audio on all four tracks playing at the same time.)  [Ed.: I’m actually not sure about this detail; we’ll have to discuss it more. Switching to internal audio is usually the opposite of what’s necessary, so we’ll have to have a separate conversation about exactly what’s going on, what the symptoms are, and what the cause may be. An inability to get a sufficient audio buffer, or problems running out of CPU horsepower to complete the tasks, would be symptomatic of either trying to push the envelope a bit too far with the set or encountering some driver-OS-software issue. Then again, it sounds as though Bryant is intentionally modifying the buffer to get certain results – an interesting and unorthodox technique. We’ve kicked off the discussion, so we can look at this some more.]

My future plans are to naturally incorporate the LiveAPI, which will take some time and a lot of remapping. [Ed.: The Live API is a user-supported way of customizing functionality in Ableton Live – it’s a hack, and requires a bit of Python coding knowledge in order to make it your own, but it’s a very powerful outlet and well worth revisiting here later.]

I really look forward to continuing this discussion. What would your ultimate touch controller look like for Ableton Live or other software? Or would you rather dump the touch and stick with tangible hardware control?