Blog - Sonore

When one posts the little photo it's becomes clear what it is, but otherwise it seems a little presumptuous to reuse the name of an well known academic software tool of experimental sound analysis and manipulation -
the other Lemur (software)
http://www.cerlsoundgroup.org/Loris/ICMC95/TimbreManipulationTool.html

Then again there have been attempts to get a decent touch interface to musicians, in other words past the Korg Kaospad -

Well here is one -
http://www.turnkey.co.uk/tkweb/stockdetail.jsp?sku=MMAN-SURFACE1&context=WEB
but this was announced and never came out despite the linked company still trying to sell them.

I understand reliable material is still hard to source and still deliver a vaguely affordable product. I congratulate them for breaking new ground. I just hope they have their patents squared away.

Posted by ndkent on January 15, 2005 at 12:09

Looking back at what I just wrote I don't want to make it seem like I'm being overly ironic. I do think that if the price isn't sky high and it works well then it's a fantastic development. I know there are both issues in visually labeling a touch interface and making it responsive to more than a single finger. If that's well taken care of then it most definitely is a substantial development.

Posted by ndkent on January 15, 2005 at 12:15

Thanks for the interesting info and links! Funny that it was also the name of that audio software. I wonder whether it's a sort of tribute or pure coincidence. "Lemur" sure sounds like a quite unique name.

I'm looking forward to see the device in action!

Posted by Patrick on January 15, 2005 at 13:36

oh very interesting meeting - being an active kaospad user and currently recording a new album I'm very interesting in new interfaces - you know I love user interfaces and usability matters desune ? ;)

Antonin in Paris

Posted by antonin on January 16, 2005 at 09:21

Lemur's inventor is in Bordeaux, so I guess there should be good PR and distribution in France when it's out. :)

Posted by Patrick on January 16, 2005 at 11:42

Man, that LEMUR seems to kicks some serious ass! how much is it? :)

Posted by Jesper on January 20, 2005 at 18:44

Thanks for the link on OK FRED, （ Franck's interview is in OK FRED #3）.

Posted by ay2 on January 20, 2005 at 22:51

Oops sorry about that, it's now fixed. :)

Posted by Patrick on January 20, 2005 at 22:54

Jesper: I think the price hasn't yet been announced.

Posted by Patrick on January 20, 2005 at 22:54

ah je ne savais pas !
hum tres tres interessant ca...

Posted by antonin on January 21, 2005 at 01:18

Cycling '74 (MAX/MSP) picked up US distribution and announced an estimated price of $2495 in April "subject to change without notice".

I saw a live demo and was impressed and it does work.

Right now you could create an interface with switches and buttons that respond to touch and at the same time send out info that can be assigned to stuff in MAX, Pd and Reaktor and Ableton Live in the neare future

Then the visually impressive part was an area with either a defined number of spheres you could move or bounce with any number of fingers touching the screen, or spheres that would only appear if you touched the screen - so you'd see multiple spheres for multiple finger touches. The sliders could be assigned to control the response.

They had it hooked up to Jitter (the video manipulation addons to MAX/MSP). Maybe this doesn't so und so nice to say but right now it was almost exactly like the Fairlight CVI (not the sampler but the realtime computer video instrument also from the mid 1980s)
http://www.tesseractvisuals.com/fairlightCVI/images/fairlight.jpg
notice the finger usable touchpad, sliders and buttons? err.. and nick used it a lot in his school days

I'm sure it will do much more - because it was just a beginner level Jitter patch doing the video, it's important to remember that it's just a controller, the sound and image software is what does the audio and video.

That brings up some pros and cons.

It is very cool up close. I'm sure you could do something or other to share looking at it with a big audience, but for the most part is is a sort of personal interactive experience.

So that brings up some questions of what are you getting exactly in terms of functional interface. You can lay out a bunch of sliders and buttons any which way, but it's very pricey if that's all it did.

At the demo, Daniel-NewClueless indirectly brought up a very good point. He noticed that since the sliders can control a software mixer if then you could see the audio levels sent back to the Lemur screen. The whole area of dynamically updating the Lemur screen with info from apps seems potentially possible but not yet developed. The more I think about it, the more important it seems to be to get a highly interactive experience rather than mererly a novel exp[erience

Right now what works and is most unique is multiple circle objects you can manipulate with a finger that each output X, Y coordinate data (= 2 parameters, for example - pitch and volume.) So one has to think of what lends itself to be controlled thay way until perhaps new virtual controller objects are designed.

That's a definite "catch". Right now it seems you can assign pretty much any parameters to your virtual controllers but you can't develop new ones. (only the developer can) Working with MAX or Pd many users sort of expect to potentially add external objects, so one hopes and wonders both how many and how creative forthcoming controllers will be - since you are getting just the top level building blocks

"UI Objects: Fader, Multi-state Button, Trigger, Multi-button 1-D and 2-D area, status monitor. (Additional objects are slated to appear before final release.)"

Posted by ndkent on January 31, 2005 at 18:04