I’m currently thinking about possibilities to add multi touch monitor capabilities to my macbook pro.
So far I saw that there’s a company called troll touch that mods iMacs and macbooks into touchscreen devices. It seems very expensive though, so I’m not going to go that route. Then I saw there’s a touchscreen made by mimo that seems to work for Mac osx but their largest screen is only 7". They do have a 10" version in the making but that’s still kind of small. Another thing I’ve read about is using the iPad as a touchscreen for the mac via wifi. That seems to be very slow though and expensive as well. So the other day I found this 20" touchscreen for only 200€ at my local Media Markt. It’s the Viseo 200t from Packard Bell. I searched the internet for any information about mac osx compatibility with no results whatsoever. So I wonder if there’s anybody out there familiar with the matter. They only say it’s windows 7 compatible but I really hope there is a way to make it work on a mac. It would be awesome for tweaking faders and knobs in music apps and for drawing stuff… Using a mouse is just not very convenient for those things.
Any ideas or recommendations would be appreciated.
If it’s a newer Macbook it has multi-touch on the touchpad, no? Probably not what you were looking for.
The next obvious step would seem to be a graphics tablet; you can get basic ones for about $100 US. Not sure if they will work with the OS though; they work with apps like Photoshop but I don’t know how they apply to non-graphics programs.
Next thing I can think of after that is the iPad, but I don’t know if that’s a multi-touch screen either…
Well, thanks for your input, John.
I do have a multi touch trackpad which I like. I also have a cheap graphics tablet that can be used instead of a mouse. It needs a special pen in order to work, though. It is okay for drawing, I guess but my main purpose would be a different one:
I want to be able to access all the buttons, sliders and rotary knobs of my DAW directly with my fingers. The great thing about multi touch is that I could do several things simultaneously. For example I could mute multiple tracks at the same time, I could change multiple parameters of effects plugins like rate and intensity or resonance and cutoff etc very quickly.
I heard that he iPad has an app called iDisplay that turns it into an additional touchscreen for any mac. The problem with that is that it has to run via wifi and seems to be very laggy and unreliable.
So I made an appointment at Media Markt for tomorrow and their mac guy will let me try to hook up that PB Viseo 200T 20" TFT to a macbook pro. It probably works as a display but I’m very curious if the touch feature works under osx. That would be incredible. So I’m hoping but not really expecting it to work. I’ll keep you updated when I know more.
Id honestly go with outboard gear if you want that amount of control.
A lot of what youll want to do can be done with Keyboard hotkeys. Learn them all, it will increase your productivity rate by a lot.
Besides actually having a nice board outfront to use, I suggest something like the Novation mkII or the Axiom Pro. For a lot of plugins, you might as well just use a mouse. Having a touch screen would be cool, but will not really be any more efficient. In a lot of my synth plugins, id rather use a mouse. Theres too many controls that I need the precise control from a mouse pointer than what I could do with a finger tip.
Okay, maybe I should mention what my current setup usually is:
- macbook pro 2.8 GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB internal drive (720rpm), Mac OS 10.6.3
- Ableton Live 8.0.9 Suite
- Native Instruments Komplete
- various guitars and basses of which some are midified with hex PU and Axon AX, violin
- Motu UltraLite Mk II
- Midi Controllers: M-Audio Radium 61, Behringer FCB1010, Korg NanoPad, Korg Padkontrol, Korg Nanokontrol, Akai LPD8
So that’s a lot of knobs, faders and buttons to move and especially a lot to configure for different songs. Then I have to remember all the mappings which is a PITA if they change a lot. So the great thing about a touch screen would be that you could actually see exactly which parameter your manipulating. None of my controllers has any kind of indication (display) to show what is assigned to what…
I’ve been looking at the Axiom Pro 61 as an alternative to my Radium mainly because mine has very poor quality keys which kind of makes playing it harder. So I might get that or something similar soon. Of course it costs an arm and a leg…
I’ll see about that touch screen in a couple of hours. I do want a second screen anyways, so if it works I’ll definitely get that one.