The gaming industry has made their bet, and it’s that touchscreens go better with tactile controls. Might digital musicians reach the same conclusion?

A funny thing has happened on the way to the touch era. The vision of a device like the iPad is minimalist to the extreme: an uninterrupted, impossibly-slim metal slate, as impenetrable as some sort of found alien scifi object. The notion is that by reducing physical controls, the software itself comes to the fore. It’s beautiful conceptually … and then you find yourself tapping and stroking a piece of undifferentiated glass. For navigating interfaces – and even, I’d argue, exploring sound design and composition – it works brilliantly. But for live digital performance (what to game lovers is called “gaming”), for anything that wants tactile feedback, it can be imprecise or unsatisfying, or both.

Watching this shake out as a design problem is fascinating, especially coming from the perspective of music. Digital musicians were exploring alternative interfaces since before it was cool. Given the ability to make any sound we can possibly imagine, the question of how you design an interface around sound is compositional, philosophical, essential.

Whatever winds up working in the marketplace, there are some fascinating ideas for combining touch with tactile. Since both are good at certain tasks, why not do both?

We’ve seen several examples among musicians and researchers exploring how to augment the touchscreen with physical input:

Mike Kneupfel’s research at NYU’s ITP program, in the video at top, investigates adding additional inputs. See: Extending the Touchscreen.

We saw that kind of extensibility in an iPad dock concept by Livid Instruments.

While it lacks additional tangible controls, I/O extensibility is featured in a still-as-yet-unreleased “pro” dock by Alesis, and most recently in a DIY dock by circuit bending pioneer Reed Ghazala.

Now, game vendors are moving in the same direction – even with prototypes that look quite a lot like the research project above. (Sometimes, arriving at the obvious conclusion is necessary for a great design.)

Sony’s PlayStation Vita, successor to the PSP mobile game platform, augments touch input with tactile controls in much the same way as Michael Knuepfel’s work does. Notably, it also proposes how these inputs can coexist in a form factor that’s larger than a phone, but smaller than a tablet – scaled roughly to a comfortable holding distance between your two hands. (Microsoft and Apple each unveiled standard split keyboards on Windows 8 and iOS 5, respectively. The era of thumb ergonomics is now fully underway.)

Nintendo’s Wii U controller combines a lot of sensing capabilities into one device. Like Sony’s effort, the centerpiece is the combination of the interactive touch display with analog controls. But true to its Wii heritage, Nintendo is packing other sensing technology, too. While its evolution has been more piecemeal, the same is true of the Xbox 360 in the Kinect era. The Kinect camera is really a bundle of mic and stereoscopic camera sensing with software intelligence for motion analysis and even speech analysis via a variety of methods. While Kinect is touchless, the conventional gamepad still plays a role.

What’s the relevance of all of this evolution to music? Digital music’s demands parallel gaming, requiring precision, accessibility, scalability from beginners to hardcore experts, and real-time interaction. Also, music research has often been at the forefront of experimentation with a variety of means of translating sensory data to expression. And since musical practice itself is roughly as old in human evolution as language, if not older, it’s a key way of glimpsing how ubiquitous interfaces can become meaningful.

Let me put that another way: the stuff game companies are doing now looks a heck of a lot like what computer musicians have been doing for years.

While much of the acclaim for platforms like the iPad has been for their transparency and unadorned interfaces – and while I believe those are valuable concepts – bundles of capabilities for interacting with the world can become powerful. That means efforts like Apple’s addition of USB MIDI connectivity to the iPad, or Google’s nascent work to standardize USB host mode and open hardware development (based on Arduino), take on new meaning. Add to this additional connectivity via Bluetooth and wifi, and it may be that we only really see what these platforms do when, like the PC, they start geting sociable with a range of other gear.

This could also mean that communities like the music community have a chance to prove that the “post-PC era” is a little different than it’s been described in the mainstream press – and maybe a little less a radical departure. The “post PC era,” we’re told, is less about being a hub for a lot of hardware. But as people look for tactile feedback, some of the coolest applications of these platforms may not be in the mainstream use as “consumption” devices, but at the fringe.

I’ve just come from the launch of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in New York. You’re not missing much; there were a handful of people snapping up the tablets. (I think the 10.1, and a few other Honeycomb-based tablets, do have a bright future, though their growth may be a bit slow at first as developers get their hands on them and give people a reason to buy them.)

What was most compelling to people at the launch, though, was a planned appearance by pop star Ne-Yo (at least according to some staffers to whom I spoke).

But the connection was, at best, tenuous. It may be when devices like these tablets are made more viable for musicians onstage that that connection starts to make sense. And that may mean that Apple and Google/Android vendors alike need to start to think more aggressively about the larger ecosystem and hardware applications. Remember all those futuristic promises from Apple about hardware accessories? Right now, the most significant hardware is the Square payment add-on, and it uses a hack to make it work through the audio jack. Both Apple and Google can do more work to open up hardware development.

It’s all well and good for the tablet to be a “post PC” device, to be different from PCs, to be better. But they may simultaneously need some of the openness to other gadgets that made the PC age so revolutionary.

Looking for all the world like a high-end audiophile stereo radio receiver as much as pro audio equipment, the shiny, new Symphony I/O has arrived from Apogee. It’s a top-of-the-range audio interface designed for low latency, high-quality digital-to-analog conversion, and quality clocking, as well as flexible input and output, coming from a company known in the category. With Pro Tools HD support, it’s also a rival to Avid’s own audio interfaces, while also working with all major Mac DAWs – even Ableton Live. You’re talking an investment of a few grand here, depending on configuration, so this isn’t likely to appeal to every bedroom producer. But pricing, starting at US$3690 with the I/O modules, also isn’t astronomical.

Another big highlight: Ethernet and USB releases planned for later in the fall mean the Symphony I/O is a viable alternative for mobile, laptop-based users, not just PCI as on Avid’s Pro Tools HD interfaces. That makes the Symphony interesting as a solution for the road. (The Symphony also works as a standalone converter, not just as an interface.)

Your best bet – check out the full specs from Apogee.
Symphony I/O

I’m mostly ignorant of high-end audio boxes; I can speculate about them a bit as I would pro baseball. I can, say, however, that the trend in converter quality has absolutely been to greater quality for dramatically lower price. It’s also notable that configuring and using converters is much easier than it used to be. The Symphony I/O makes it easy to switch DAWs (though sadly only on Mac, not other OSes), and even plans 64-bit kernel support on Mac OS later this fall. It’s a far cry from the days in the 90s when you’d spend a couple of days mucking about with Mac classic drivers and expansion chassis just to get a Power Mac to do any audio recording at all. (I’m unfortunately more knowledgeable about that than I care to be; I’d like to leave that in the 90s with memories of the Lewinsky scandal.)

What I can offer is the first-hand thoughts of a very biased – but also very interesting – source. Kevin Vanwulpen is one of the engineers at Apogee, responsible for firmware, software, and digital engineering. He was excited enough about his baby that he wrote me an extended explanation of why it’s cool and why it matters. Note that this is not an official PR line (I’m sure PR’s not going to be terribly happy to see it – blame me, not Kevin, guys). And it should be taken with a grain of salt; this device is basically family to Kevin. But taken as such, I do enjoy hearing engineers talk about their creations, so here’s what Kevin has to say.

Executive summary of the highlights from Kevin:

• The converters sound a lot better.
• “Modes” for working with a variety of DAWs makes switching Logic, Live, and Pro Tools far easier. (That’s not news for your basic audio interface, but it’s new to interfaces of this class.)
• Analog fans, this is DC capable. Route control voltage to your heart’s content.

the proverbial cat is out of the bag: SymphonyI/O is online. As usual, I won’t bore you with the stuff you might as well read on our website …but I do want to highlight some other points about the product you may find of interest, which is one of the things I love about your blog.

Also note this was not written by marketing but by myself and thus there is some of my bias/opinion/whatever in there.
Ok here it goes, in random order:

a. The sound….yes I am sure marketing covers that, but I am sure it will take a little while before people ‘get it’.
I do not have ‘golden ears’ (but some who do agree)…I truly can not tell doing a blind test whether I am listening to the analog source or AD-DA. Don’t get me wrong the previous generation was great…but well this is truly a major step up, which I am excited about (I am not in the business of designing the same thing in a new jacket…and neither are some others here, including Lucas our analog wizard)

b. I am excited about the Modes (marketing called it Audio Interface Mode). I personally compare it to multi-booting a computer (such as bootcamp and many others)
In the past Apogee’s products often got complicated very fast, because they are used in very different contexts and we had a hard time squeezing features and trying to make them make sense to everyone. In the end of the day if you’re using Logic you don’t care about ProTools HD specific features and vice versa for example.
Symphony I/O can be restarted in a mode of the users choice and allowed us to keep the box make total sense and easy to use…for the context it’s living in at that moment. Rather than all contexts all at once

I personally will use it with Symphony64 at home…but it’s nice to (down the road) hook it USB to a laptop as that’s plenty in most cases (for me at least) when on the go, which I am not all that often anyhow.

c. As you know I am personally an Analog-synth and modular (eurorack) geek…until now us poor CV-needy souls had to more or less pick between the DC-capable MOTU with it’s crappy sound (for some reason with modulars that is sooo obvious) or better sound quality. I am talking about use with Expert Sleepers’ Silent Way (which I use) or MOTU’s Volta.

Well this thing’s DA’s are DC capable…yay.

But not only that they have an amazing sense of zero (forgot what Lucas calls it, he calls it true-zero or something)…but in short the zero offset is not comparable to the other stuff out there. The legs are veeery symmetrical which does mean you absolutely without worry can use it to get double the voltage swing (and thus octave range)

Second it’s extreeeemely temperature stable, which is clearly important in that situation. I have not ‘measured’ it versus a MOTU but in my experience once tuned I have not had issues (which i do with MOTU as my rig happens to be near the AC airflow in my relatively small appartment where there are physical constraints where I cna put my modular)
I actually last week got an Expert Sleepers ES-1 with DB25 to use with this puppy. I pre-ordered my personal SymphonyIO. I like my Ensemble and all I use right now, but well this is a good notch up.

Obviously it can go out quite hot (+24dBu) so you get a nice large range to play.

d. We do see this not just as a product but more so as a project or platform or whatever you call it.
That does imply we decided to not ship it all at once….yes it doesn’t do everything under the sun today and for those people they can hold of. Likewise for many it is everything they wished for.
Likewise the box is very modular in design in many aspects which will allow us to adapt and allow people to invest in this without the stuff that is valuable obsoleting as fast as technology in general does.
Personally I like the Hasselblad analogy where they had an impossible time selling such expensive digital cameras…untill they figured out to make the digital part a slide-in part that gets updated whenever new stuff comes out and evolves with digital camera technology…but the body/optics and all that stay.

Don’t get me wrong there are many great aspects to this box, but well I know you know how to read and can go through our website and all that…the above is sort of my own input and highlight of less obvious stuff that I find cool about it.

If you’re an Apogee user or in the market for this kind of device, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this offering and how it stacks up to the competition. And what do you think of the staggered release schedule as far as features, which starts now but extends through 2010?

Sometimes, audio products come in sexy, exciting packages. But sometimes, they simply solve a set of problems. And the products that fit into the latter category can be as beloved (dare I say sexy), if not more so.

Since I first saw a prototype in the fall, I’ve been eagerly awaiting trying out Cakewalk’s V-Studio 100. It immediately resonated with features I wanted to see in hardware. Rather than talk the specs, let’s talk about the kind of problems you might like to solve in your mobile rehearsal, production, and performance rig:

• You want to mix live, but don’t want to carry a mixer. You’ve got a laptop set, but you’re mixing it with other sources – and you want to be able to add live instruments / voices / Nintendo DS / circuit-bent creations to your main output without routing through the computer (which also saves your bacon when the machine crashes / you accidentally overload the CPU in Live)
• You want to record your live sessions. ‘Nuff said. Sure, you have a portable recorder, but then you have to patch it in…
• A lot of the time, you reach for the mouse because a control surface wasn’t convenient. And then there’s the fact that, while keyboards now often have mixer controls, the faders aren’t motorized.
• You want to carry less gear, but you really need an audio mixer and some live effects and some recording and a control surface for your software mix.

And, of course, yours truly has been sort of encouraging all of these problems with talk of Game Boys and iPhones and custom-built Theremins and actually playing live instruments and pushing your Live set to the envelope and … oh yeah, then you want to record the whole thing.

I can’t vouch for whether the V-Studio 100 fulfills all my wishes just yet, because I don’t have the thing here. But while there are inevitable compromises in multi-function designs, the V-Studio 100 is set up in a way that appears to come close to what I think a whole lot of us need as laptop musicians. And despite the Cakewalk name, it’s actually aimed at users of a variety of Mac and Windows tools:

• Control surface with motorized fader: One motorized, touch-sensitive fader, plus 5 rotary encoders, 11 buttons, transport controls; supports Mackie Control and SONAR’s ACT
• Standalone mixer: 8 ins, 6 outs, headphones – mix while in audio interface mode or on its own
• Built-in effects: 4 reverb types, 6 channels of EQ and compression – so you can add effects to instruments / vocals in the box without having to worry about adding latency by routing through the computer
• USB 2.0 audio interface: 8 in + mix / 6 out, 24/96, 2 mic pres with phantom power, Hi-Z guitar in, MIDI I/O, ASIO, WDM, WASAPI, Core Audio support
• SD recording: 2-channel recording to SD cards in both standalone and interface modes, so you can make recordings whenever. SDHC-compliant, so you can add up to 32GB cards – and the 8GB and 16GB cards have been surprisingly cheap.
• Bundled software, including Vocal Strip: The Vocal Strip to me is the star, with vocal-specific processing tools, but there are also specialized Channel Tools, Peak Limiter, and LE versions of Guitar Rig, Dimension, and Rapture, plus an entry-level SONAR for PC

So, it’s a:

• controller
• gig recorder
• practice tool
• audio + MIDI interface
• mixer
• effects box

You can pretty quickly see how much you get into a compact setup. Sure, you could get a single motorized fader as on the FaderPort, and tote a portable mixer, and an audio interface, and a mobile recorder, but having them all in one box is a heck of a lot more convenient – less to buy, less to lug, and less to plug. The SD portion has some of the rehearsal-friendly features people like on Roland’s mobile recorders: markers, looped playback, and even a metronome. Also, the use of Mackie Control means the controller potion could make a nice companion for the likes of Logic or Ableton Live, not just SONAR. There’s not a lot there to control, but just having transport and a fader map correctly is a relief.

Of course, my general excitement aside, what makes this live or die is the way the dividing line is drawn between the standalone and computer-integrated functions. That’ll be top on my list in testing.

Pricing hasn’t been announced, but the price ballpark I heard sounded quite reasonable, so I expect this will turn out to be a pretty good value. I’ll keep you posted. June is currently the planned date.

As you know, my policy is generally not to post press releases, but in this case I think there will be some delay before the same information is available on Cakewalk’s site. In lieu of the link, enjoy (excerpted):

Essential tools for music production in one affordable package
SONAR V-Studio 100 elegantly combines the most essential tools needed by today’s modern music producers and performing musicians in a compact and affordable package.

· High Speed USB 2.0 Audio Interface

· Universal DAW Controller

· Personal Digital Mixer

· SD WAV Recorder

· VS Production Pack suite of virtual instruments and effects (Mac/Win)

· SONAR VS digital audio workstation (Win)

Use SONAR V-Studio 100 with or without a computer

SONAR V-Studio 100 Hardware Features

High Speed USB 2.0 Interface

SONAR V-Studio 100 is a high quality USB 2.0 audio and MIDI interface utilizing world-class Roland engineering design and component technology.

· 8 in + mix / 6 out, 24-bit/96 kHz quality

· 2 mic pre-amps w/phantom Power, hi-z guitar input; MIDI I/O

· ASIO, WDM, WASAPI, Core Audio support

· Compatible with DAWs such as SONAR, Logic, Live, Cubase, and Digital Performer

Universal DAW Controller

SONAR V-Studio 100 is a universal DAW controller that supports all popular digital recording software for Mac/PC via Mackie control protocol, including Logic, Live, Cubase, and Digital Performer. Additionally, V-Studio 100 provides extended control capabilities over SONAR through the implementation of Cakewalk’s Active Controller Technology (ACT).

· 100 mm motorized, touch-sensitive fader

· 5 rotary encoders, 11 buttons and transport control

· Use with any DAW through Mackie Control protocol

· Advanced control of SONAR through Active Controller Technology

Personal Digital Mixer

SONAR V-Studio 100 is an ideal digital mixer for small groups or solo performers who need easy control of few instruments and vocals mics; DJs, MCs, and any electronic musician who needs to mix multiple sound sources. All users can enhance their live sound with the pro-quality on-board effects which offer easy routing and accessibility.

· Ideal for mixing small bands, solo musicians, DJs, home studios

· 8 inputs, 6 outputs plus headphones

· 4 types of reverb and 6 channels of EQ and Compression

Mobile SD Recorder Live Player

SONAR V-Studio 100 can capture that creative moment whenever inspiration strikes by providing high quality digital recording that can be used without being connected to computer. Record directly to the VS-100’s SD-card to capture song ideas, rehearsals, or live performances. Create backing tracks on your DAW of choice and transfer them to the VS-100’s SD-card for playback during live performance (even while recording). Likewise, recorded performances can be easily transferred from the VS-100’s SD-card for additional editing, tracking, and sweetening.

· Record away from your computer

· 2 channel wave recording and playback

· Capture rehearsals and live performances

· Play and record along to backing tracks

· Built-in metronome

· Insert markers during record and playback

· Loop a region for practicing parts or jamming

· Easily transfer audio to and from any computer via USB

SONAR V-Studio 100 Software Features

VS-100 Production Pack (Win/Mac) suite of effects and instruments includes:

VX-64 Vocal Strip is a seven-stage processor designed specifically for shaping and sculpting incredible sounding vocal tracks. Each of the VX-64’s stages have been fine-tuned to be vocal-specific, taking the work out of dialing in an entire chain of vocal processors.  The VX-64 features a new Cakewalk technology that employs phase-coherent, multi-band saturation to avoid unwanted distortion; unique filtering to avoid harsh artifacts at extreme high and low frequencies; and an auto-leveling circuit that prevents the tube saturation from sounding too harsh when high gain transients are processed by it. VX-64 also employs a new de-essing algorithm designed with Cakewalk’s LP64 linear phase effect filtering technology to remove sibilance without creating any frequency smearing.

Processing stages include:

• Input – simulates a tube pre amp
• De-esser – removes sibilance without smearing
• Compander – vocal compressor with an expander to reduce unwanted background noise
• Tube EQ – for adding character ranging from subtle warmth to intense heat to the vocal
• Doubler – advanced doubling effect providing the quality of actual re-tracking
• Delay – preset delays useful for vocal tracks with tempo sync
• Output – provide saturation control with a built in soft-clipping filter
• Order of processor stages is user definable with click & drag reordering

Channel Tools — provides easy and powerful control over individual placement of the left and right channels anywhere in the stereo field. Ideal for adjusting L/R channel placement, gain, pan/width, and phase; also provides a widening or narrowing effect to stereo recordings through adjustments to mid-side gain.

Boost 11 Peak Limiter — gives your tracks radio-ready punch through transparent peak limiting and volume maximization without additional coloring of the source material. Boost 11 employs a "look-ahead" limiter and PDR (Program Dependent Release) to provide professional results with a simple interface.

Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3 LE — built on the latest award-winning guitar amp modeler from Native Instruments; 3 amps and cabinets, 11 effects, tuner, metronome, and over 50 presets.

Dimension LE — a streamlined version of the acclaimed Dimension Pro instrument from Cakewalk. Dimension LE features over 400 sound programs, ranging from bass, organ, and electric piano samples to cutting-edge synth sounds, rhythmic grooves, and a special edition of Garritan Pocket Orchestra.

Rapture LE — is a special version of the award winning Rapture wavetable synthesizer. It includes over 200 programs and hundreds of oscillator shapes. Rapture LE is perfect for performing the modern synthesized sounds igniting today’s pop, dance, and electronic music.

Cakewalk Studio Instruments — a collection of four virtual instruments that provide a fast and easy way to create backing tracks using a photo-realistic, interactive user interface. Instruments include a Drum Kit, Bass Guitar, Electric Piano, and String Section.

SONAR VS digital recording software (PC only) — a special entry level DAW based on the powerful SONAR 8 audio engine but offering a streamlined user interface.