Clever subject header huh?
 
Last night I watched a video about sonar X2's touch screen features and windows 8.
To my mind it's still an expensive technology that's very much in it's infancy but it is very interesting none the less and prices are falling and will continue to do so. I had serious reservations about using touch screen on a desktop simply because of RSI and the aching arms and the general uncomfortableness (why isn't that a proper word ?) of it all.
 
I was reading the BFD3 feature request list on the BFD2 forum and thought, I wonder who would be the first to bring out a touch screen version of their drum VSTi. Lots of people use drum pads and with multi-angle monitors and the continual improvement of both the screens and software I can see drum pads going in the bin and people tapping out their grooves on their monitors a few years from now.
Remember from whom you heard if first. Maybe I should get my self down to the patent office
 
I found a really good and unbiased review from a fellow cynic like myself who seems to have been converted (as have I) to the potential of touch technology or "touchtech" as I like to call it.
Did I just make another new word ?
 
Cakewalk aren't the only ones to have seen the potential either, they're all at it
 
Here's them videos for you
 
Touch Screen & Music Production Part 1
 
Touch Screen & Music Production Part 2
 
 
Steve
 

How do touch screens handle velocity?  I know the iPad uses its internal accelerometer, but it doesn't seem very smooth/accurate to me.  This would preclude its use as a drum trigger for me.
 
I too am a cynic, but look forward to seeing it develop.
 
Oh, and is "discomfort" a proper word for it?

Yes that did also cross my mind and there in could be a major problem as it would surely be a hardware requirement that the screen would need to be made velocity sensitive and if they could do that I guess that could cost a lot more than your average touch screen.
I don't use a drum pad but I think a lot of people use them more as a sketch pad to quickly tap out a pattern and then edit the velocities later so it could still have some use.
 
Discomfort did cross my mind but I felt uncomfortableness had a more plural and general feel to it. 
 
Steve

I'd go with uncomfortableness every time.  I'm pretty sure it's a word I've used before, so if we both have, it must be a real word.
 
I agree that if people use finger drumming, then velocity may be a bit hit and miss anyway.  I'm sure if I used the pads on my A-300 Pro I wouldn't get that great a result either.  I use my V drums, normally (and sometimes not normally, too).
 
The iPad certainly doesn't seem to work well (velocity wise), for me, but I've not used it a lot.  I also don't know if a large, fixed touch screen could use the same approach (accelerometer), but I guess we don't know what's around the corner.  Perhaps we'll be air drumming..
 
I use the iPad to remotely control Sonar, if I'm recording away from my DAW, somewhere else in the studio, using AC-7 Core HD.  It is pretty handy, but between you and me, I used to just take my wireless keyboard and use keyboard shortcuts.
 
I just like moving the touch faders - I feel like Mr Sulu..
 
 
edited for spelling

jb101
I use the iPad to remotely control Sonar, if I'm recording away from my DAW, somewhere else in the studio, using AC-7 Coe HD.

V-Control Pro looks even nicer. Costs a bit more though. But you get direct access to really everything on your DAW in what seems to me a far easier way.
 
http://www.youtube.com/embed/R5Vcgf3-jvs

Thanks for the link Steve; pretty cool...
My guess; Cake is working frantically to fully implement "touch" into Sonar.
 
Tom

hellogoodbye

jb101
I use the iPad to remotely control Sonar, if I'm recording away from my DAW, somewhere else in the studio, using AC-7 Coe HD.

V-Control Pro looks even nicer. Costs a bit more though. But you get direct access to really everything on your DAW in what seems to me a far easier way.
 
http://www.youtube.com/embed/R5Vcgf3-jvs

 
Looks fantastic but not velocity sensitive which was the point of my post.
Steve
 

Having given it some more thought I'm not sure that making a velocity sensitive touch screen monitor would be quite such a big ask.
When I was at Goldsmiths in London about 7 years ago now there was a tutor there who was building his own drum kits  from trigger pads that could be bought very cheaply. I don't know whether or not they were velocity sensitive but they were very cheap and he was suggesting we did the same if working with groups of children. My point is, I don't think the technology behind your average drum pad is too expensive and if it can be adapted to integrate with a tough screen monitor then Bob's your uncle
Think Laurie Anderson's Drum Suit
 
If velocity sensitive triggers could be implemented behind a touch screen monitor then perhaps they could be switched it on and off for normal everyday use and it needn't be too expensive.
I'm no expert on these things but as they say, "where there's a will there's a way"
 
Steve
 
 
 
 

I'm totally picturing my kid snapping sticks hard against the monitor... jamming away with the monitor flat... until...
 
CRACK
 
:-)
 
I'll need a touch screen with tempered glass!
 
And we'll have to mic the monitor to get that natural sound of sticks on glass to mix in with the synth!

At a Microsoft session back in Feb, I asked about this (velocity on touch) and could only get a "working on it" answer