A cheapo alternative to the Lemur controller

It's hard not to lust after the fantastically cool and clever Jazzmutant Lemur synth controller. But if you don't have €2190 and an enthusiasm for Max/MSP, Danish developers Livelab's Tablet 2 Midi software could be the next best thing. It's currently beta, but shouldn't cost more than €50. You can pick up a basic tablet PC for £200-£250 on eBay (the Fujitsu Stylistic range is the absolute bottom of the range), and a cheap usb/midi cable. Of course, it will only be mono-touch (the Lemur can take simultaneous movements from ten (or more) fingers. And the Lemur software is the best looking music software I've ever seen. This isn't. And you'll look pretty dorky with a cruddo HP tablet PC. But it's cheap, and until Behringer announce the £150 LM-2000 Multitouch Instrument at NAMM 2006, it's all we've got. (via Matrix Synth)

Posted by Tom Whitwell.

Comments:

Most (if not all) tablet PCs are not touch-screens - they use electromagnetic digitizers (like a Wacom tablet), so you'd have to use the pen instead of your finger which isn't nearly as much fun. NEC make LCD monitors with touchscreens though. Don't know if they support multiple touches.

# posted by

Anonymous : 6:00 pm

I know for a fact that conventional touch screens support one (maybe) two fingers. The Lemur is the only device with the technology to support 10 fingers. Having used a Lemur, the touch sensitive surface feels unique and expensive. Using a pen to "notate” changes of a synth? Ha, very lame.

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:14 pm

"Using a pen to "notate” changes of a synth? Ha, very lame."

I mean, didn't the fairlight do exactly that? Im no synth expert but i certainly do recall a lightpen. And that thing rules.

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:19 pm

yeah, you say that now...

# posted by

Anonymous : 11:18 pm

Exile is using a touchscreen? that's new. Last I saw (a month or so ago) he used a Regelwerk, a laptop, a KaossPad and a regular midi keyboard...

Now, this is just a software midi mixer... that's very unhip, and has nothing in there that can't be done with reaktor, max/msp, PD etc. etc. I think they just saw the Lemur and thought "hey, we could do that!".

It doesn't even seem to have any cool digitizer features, like pressure or tilt - for very good use of those check out the Symbolic sound Kyma website... eep. That's some cool shite.

# posted by

Anonymous : 9:00 am

A cool DIY project would be to use a kinotex input combined with a cheapo tablet - that would give both display *and* multi-touch input. Use Macromedia Flash to cook up a nice interface and there you go.

# posted by

Anonymous : 8:23 pm

You can buy strap on touch screens for monitors of any size (including laptops) for less than $200. They usually only support single touch operation. Regardless, your operating system only supports 1 to 2(in the case of windows with hack softwar) touches.

For links, check the Max/MSP or CEC (Canadian Electroacoustics Conference) list archives.

I don't really see the need of this software. Maybe so you can design a new interface front end for your software?

Actually, this might be really really useful for turning hardware synths into softsynths... must investigate. Could be what i've been looking for for the Nord Modular.

# posted by

msutherl : 3:43 am

There's also this multi-touch pad: http://tactiva.com/tactapad.html

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:56 pm