Android and iOS tablets/phones in the studio

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by ultra242

I am looking for opinions and ideas regarding the use of touchscreen devices in the studio. If you could influence the design of an app, what would it be? What would it do and what would it look like? Assume it could integrate with the DAW or hardware device of your choice.

Thanks!
ultra242

Having just installed TouchDAW on my Google Nexus 7, I actually have some thoughts on this.

Obviously, anything that can be done to simplify setup is important. Once I'd worked through getting TouchDAW communicating with its driver on my PC a couple times the process became pretty straightforward, but the dev's documentation was walking the thin line between offering adequate explanations and presenting skittish potential users with a dense load of text, they went lite on explanation. (The do have vids. But even if I was a member of the "TV" generation, I would always rather get tech/procedural info from clear, precise written instructions; still, vids can be a very valuable adjunct.)

I also installed the app on my phone, as I was captivated by the x-y filter control by shaking and tilting as I saw it demoed in an app for the vid. (While I used to do a lot of electronica, I'm doing almost all roots music nowadays, so its not clear how soon I'll be using the X-Y control aspects. Still, come on, how cool is realtime filter control via shaking a phone around?)

That remote control software, as you probably already know, creates what is apparently a virtualized workalike of a Mackie control surface -- and that's good as there's support for that out there and basic mappings for a number of DAWs -- but I have to say that the documentation's urging to 'read the chapter in the DAW manual on the Mackie control surface' produced no joy, as whatever info on that and my DAW, Sonar, that may have existed seems to be missing on the web, now. Or something.

So it becomes a matter of poke and hope. (A phrase newly relevant to the brave new world of tablets.)

Mostly that's fine but there are a number of v-controls in the app that I can't figure the relation of to the underlying DAW controls. Maybe they're simply not connected -- or maybe I'm being hung out to dry by the lack of info.

Anyhow, as a business developer, myself, I have some understanding of the scope of the problem of trying to document software relationships established by others [the Mackie/DAW-ware connection] when you have to support a wide variety of very different softwares that have fairly divergent approaches to UI. There's only so much one can reasonably expect for an app whose full price is $5, after all!

One of the things I really like in TouchDAW (sorry to be working on 'the past' but, you know, that's the foundation upon which future software must build) are the two way communications. I'd used 'dumb' generic remotes to control my DAW from across the room, and it was doable, at least as far as a series of overdub passes would go.

But with two way communications and a visual representation with tracks labeled and track meters active, and a read out of the timeline -- that obviously makes a huge difference.


I have to say that control of my DAW is probably the single most compelling use I've found for my cute little tablet. Certainly, it's about the only thing the tablet can do that the computer can't, except maybe virtual fingerpainting.

[theblue1]

I wouldn't say insufficient -- I mean, I got it all set up pretty quickly. But there was a bit of experimentation to figure out how the connections between remote app, desktop driver actually worked as it wasn't totally, immediately clear from their explanations. Let's just say that if they err, they err on the side of brevity.

(As an over-explainer, myself, I think there's some merit to erring on the side of brevity. If I ever manage it, I'll give a long report on the experience... )

Getting it set up in Sonar wasn't a problem at all (there are a few i's to dot and t's to cross of course) and basic control was pretty easy to suss out. But there are a number of controls I'm sure are or can be put to good use -- if I could just figure out how they interact with Sonar. (Back to poke and hope. )

I don't think the developers of TouchDAW were out of line thinking they could send users out looking for Mackie control surface documentation for their particular DAW -- I would have thought such a thing would be easy to find for Sonar. But I was wrong. The links I found all went to broken links at the Cakewalk site. There was apparently one doc -- and it's now gone.


And, just to be clear, I'm overall delighted with the app, despite those issues.

Oh, and, believe it or not, I don't really feel all fat fingered on it on m y 7" Nexus.

I actually have considerably less fat-finger problems on it than I do simply typing on my Android phone's (admittedly small 3.2") keyboard interface.

(Thank heaven for Swype, which is on the phone. That is a great technology. Google ought to license it and include it in Android. Unfortunately, the Nexus 7 has nothing like Swype and typing on it is a complete, total, PITA. It wouldn't be an issue for a two finger typist, but I'm used to moving along at 60-70 wpm and being reduced to poking a letter at a time is like being stuck in amber that's slowly hardening.)

[The dman]

I've been using Touchdaw with my Nexus7/Cubase and I love it but i agree the documentation is lacking. It seems some of the parameters in Touchdaw don't do anything in Cubase but all I need is basic transport functions and an occasional slider so it hasn't been an issue

For $20 a year I have 80gb of google drive space which works similar to Dropbox, not quite as slick but it works fine. I also have all my manuals and session notes on google drive, I find it handier to use the tablet for notes etc. when I'm using the Daw

I used to use a handheld recorder to record my rough songwriting ideas now I use Recpro on the Nexus and I can instantly email the files to myself or upload them to Google drive for access on any device

I also have all my manuals and session notes on google drive, I find it handier to use the tablet for notes etc. when I'm using the Daw

The tablet is a lot handier than I thought it would be when I bought it

[theblue1]

I actually have been using a Google Drive spreadsheet to store my lyrics and links to my songs. It all used to be in an online database but I moved it back to my local machine when I switched servers a couple years ago (I was moving from an Win/ASP server to a Linux/PHP server and all the server code I'd written for it was no longer usable).

It's just an interim thing, when I figure out just how I want to do the online DB, I'll move the data back up on the web.

But in the meantime, I do have a quick lookup for lyrics and links to previous recordings of songs on the web (which, due to my sieve-like memory with regard to my ~160 songs or so, I often have to visit in order to remember how I actually performed them).

[Creating the multi-page spreadsheet was relatively easy, since the live DB is currently living in an Access file, I was able to just export to the spreadsheet pages using Access.]

Using a spreadsheet to do the work of a database does rankle an old DB programmer, but that's what regular folks mostly do, I guess, since normalizing tables requires a certain amount of logical ability (which seems like a fading point of light in the skill set of the mainstream )...