Design Your Own Audio Controller

pronobozo writes with a link to "a cool interface called LEMUR for controlling audio applications. 'LEMUR is a handy and modular touchpanel based controller designed for audio and multimedia real-time applications. Our technology associates multitouch capabilities with visual display. LEMUR is provided with an extensible library of User Interface Objects such as faders, switchs, pads, keyboards, strings, etc.'" It's also vaporware at this point, but looks cool enough I hope it really reaches the market early next year as the site promises.

Comments

does it go to 11 ?

[ch-chuck]

Sure, why not.

Re:does it go to 11 ?

[gryphokk]

From the FAQ:

• How many fingers can be put on the panel simultanously ?
  

  
  In theory, there isn't such a limitation. However, we suggest you not to use more than ten fingers at once, since our sensor hasn't been experimented yet by 11 fingers beta testers.
  

Been done already - obligitory HHG ref

[Weaselmancer]

"The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive - you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope."

Chapter 12

Re:Hmmm

[cjpez]

In the FAQ section, they claim that it can handle 10 simlutaneous presses (at least that's what it seems to say), which would mean that to do more you'd have to use more than just both your hands. So if that's true, I imagine that's quite sufficient.

Also, OSC == THE FUTURE, so meh re: lack of MIDI. :)

In case of the Slashdotting...

[Kinetic]

Mirrors, including the video files, are at MirrorDot.

Good idea that should be expanded

[alaivfc]

I think they are entirely marketing this in to narrow a makret. Yes, it seems like it would be great to control audio apps, but there is a much greater potential. Many large control boards could be easily replaced with a small dynamic board that gives you the pots/switches/etc. that you need at the time.
I'm thinking, in particular, things liking theatrical light and sound boards in which you use most of the sliders very rarely - but its still important that you have the option to input them through a slider or nob (as opposed to entering a number).
I bet there are other applications in industries where large control boards are involved where this could be useful as well.

DIY MIDI

[L3WKW4RM]

For some less-vapor, DIY MIDI controller kits (soldering, planning, etc. required) you can build from scratch at Thorsten Klose's awesome site, or assemble pieces from Doepfer. I've built a few great fader boxes and knob boxes. What a fun hobby.

Re:Infomercial

[Fnkmaster]

There are now marketing firms that specialize in grass roots marketing efforts, by putting out semi-phony blogs and probably pimping things on supposedly "community-driven" sites like Slashdot. As soon as the market gets big enough, the marketers will be there. And Slashdot is numerically significant and a good spot to push technogizmos on the geek thought leaders.

I would be surprised if people didn't try to use Slashdot in this way. Just look at how Roland Piquepaille has made a business out of getting Timothy (I think it's usually him) to publish his inane Slashdot submissions, which ALWAYS have link-backs to his "summaries" of various news stories in his blog. He's Slashvertizing for his blog, so he can get more advertising hits.

What does it all mean? Well, you just have to be a little more cynical around here I guess. In any case, it's nothing really new - used to be we'd see vaporware announcements and the like float by, but the submission writer and the sketchy company weren't usually one and the same. Now sometimes they are.

Re:No MIDI Support?

[fishbowl]

"How does this affect the LEMUR's ability to interface with application such as Cakewalk's SONAR?"

It practically eliminates that compatability. While OSC is an open protocol, and even though there are quite a few products listed (including a bunch of open source items), it is pretty much a Reaktor thing. Don't get me wrong, Reaktor is very, very cool. But if you wanted to use it with ProTools or Cubase or Logic or FLSTudio or Magix or Cakewalk, you would probably have to setup some sort of OSC proxy that sits on the OSC bus and outputs MIDI.

I cannot fault them for taking this approach -- there are some limitations with MIDI, with some ugly workarounds and some pretty bad scalability issues. Imagine if you were epxected to run Kermit over Ethernet instead of TCP/IP, I think that's a fairly good analogy.

I suppose you could extend something like MIDI-OX to implement OSC, and cause it to route the messages you were interested in onto the midi bus.
I have no doubt at all you could make Reaktor do exactly that, sit on the OSC bus and pass some of the messages through, filtered for your various midi devices.

If the Lemur becomes popular, the support will follow. Wake me up when I can buy on on Zzounds. Meanwhile I'll continue building my ucapps.de midibox, using my Peavey PC-1600's and my FCB-1010. Right now my rig has seven instruments and 4 controllers, and while MIDI is frustrating, I have not reached its limitations.

The Problem with this: LACK OF FEEL

[sr180]

With this device, you cant FEEL the buttons, so you have to look at it as you adjust it.

Example: My tv remote. I'm watching tv, I pick up the remote, and I can adjust channel, volume, power etc with out looking at the remote. With a device like this, you cant do that, as there is no tactile feel, you cant just feel where the volume button is and press it, you have to visually find it first. There is a programmable LCD remote available that has floundered on the market for exactly this reason.

This also applies to the main application for this device, audio mixing (as well as stage lighting and visual applications.) Try cueing audio to some on stage effect while having to look at this device instead of looking onstage...

Its a cool device and I'd love it at home, but the lack of tactile feel will make it useless in many applications.