Every so often, I’m reminded of a simple fact: the greatest machine on the planet remains the human machine. So, yes, it may seem strange to one of the uninitiated to imagine strapping an iPhone to your wrist. And yes, musicianship in the digital age is partly about triggering, not just playing (though Onyx can really blow on his Akai wind controller.) But the bottom line is, the precision of movement and the genius of human musical creativity wins out. However unusual the technological solution, it can still tap into that power.

In the video above, our friend Onyx Ashanti shows off his proof-of-concept work-in-progress as he assembles a new musical rig. Open source patching software Pure Data (Mac/Windows/Linux) is the sound source, proof that you can substitute free software at the center. The controller is an iPhone running TouchOSC (though this makes me want to revisit ultra-portable, open, embedded hardware with sensors). And yes, that’s a Yamaha WX5 wind controller, a digital input tool of choice for those with a wind background. Onyx says this is only to be one of two iPhones.

Expect craziness to come, but I like watching things in progress, too – so I couldn’t resist sharing.

http://onyx-ashanti.ning.com/

Correction: Instead of looking closely at what Onyx was playing, I relied on my memory, and egregiously called the WX5 an Akai EWI. Thanks to commenters for spotting that.

The beauty of using touch for controllers is flexibility. Sure, you give up tactile feedback – but you can also quickly make your own layouts, make touch controllers an ideal complement to your existing hardware gear (the stuff with physical knobs and faders and pads).

For that reason, we’re all eagerly anticipating an upcoming version of the awesome OSC-based iPhone/iPod touch controller, TouchOSC.

http://hexler.net/software/touchosc

The included layouts are already fantastic, with rotaries and virtual buttons and multi-faders and toggles and X/Y pads. But custom control would be even better. Creator hexler writes CDM with the latest:

The long-awaited update to TouchOSC that will allow for custom layouts has just been submitted for review to Apple,
so I hope that as soon as next week it will be available as a free update to all users on the App Store.

Together with this release (1.3) there will be a free editor application to visually design and upload layouts to the device. You can take a look at the last beta version I published if you want, there’s both Windows and OS X versions available, but I will also prepare a Linux version as soon as possible, of course without the new version of TouchOSC this is but a preview of things to come:

http://dev.hexler.net/touchosc/touchosc-editor-0.7-osx.zip
http://dev.hexler.net/touchosc/touchosc-editor-0.7-win32.zip
http://dev.hexler.net/touchosc/touchosc-default-layouts.zip

And nicely enough, the editor is built in cross-platform Java, which I think makes a whole lot of sense. (Go Java, Python, etc., rather than getting stuck in hard-to-port platform-specific stuff like Cocoa.)

Thanks, hexler! I don’t have a video of the new features yet, so instead here’s a nice novelty – the beginnings of a creation using the free SuperCollider (which runs OSC natively) in combination with TouchOSC to make a custom step sequencer. Should fuel other ideas, too:

New Year’s Resolution: do cool new stuff. In celebration of the coming of 2009, I’ve got a set of tutorials to post here on createdigitalmusic and createdigitalmotion, so you can get a jump start on the new year by learning some new skills and making new music and visuals. First up: our friend Bill Van Loo has a great video tutorial on working with touch control on an iPod touch or iPhone.

The ingredient list here:

• TouchOSC, one of a handful of superb new touch controllers on the iTunes app store that supports the flexible, forward-thinking OpenSoundControl protocol. TouchOSC’s edge? Ready-to-use, clever, music-oriented control layouts.
• Ableton Live, a good choice because of its live-playing emphasis and solid hosting features
• BigSeq, Audio Damage’s fantastic analog-style sequencer plug-in
• OSCulator, the glue that holds the rest together by intelligently

In fact, even if you don’t have an Apple mobile gadget, you may find this useful: the OSCulator software on the Mac used for control processing can work with a variety of controllers. If you don’t want to spend $200+ on an iSomething, you can spend a few bucks on a Wii controller and run with that, or grab a SpaceNavigator (also very affordable) or Wacom tablet. (OSCulator is Mac only; PC users may want to check out the likes of GlovePIE.)

chromedecay studio look: TouchOSC with Ableton Live and BigSeq

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