Tom Phillipson sends us a really lovely video in which he extends what’s possible on a ReMOTE SL keyboard from Novation by adding the touch controls of an iPod touch. This is exactly what I’ve been talking about in terms of the usefulness of the iPod and iPhone apps: they’re a perfect, reasonably affordable (US$220 for an entry-level iPod touch) means of adding interactive controls to your hardware. You can use the touch controls for parameters well-suited to touch and that layout (and see those controls in the dark onstage), and physical controls for other tasks.

Tom writes:

Rob from Hexler suggested you might be interested in this video i made. I recently made a simple yet very effective mod of my novation 25SL compact to incorporate my ipod touch, running TouchOSC.

Via the YouTube post:

TouchOSC is awesome little software, just like having a Lemur, only infinitely cheaper.. and the mod is completely reversible ..
Its extended the functionality of an already very useful keyboard. No keyboards were harmed in the making of this video
Novation 25SL Compact and TouchOSC controlling Ableton 7 and a Access virus Snow.
For my music, check out http://www.myspace.com/zumkabel
or http://www.autoflavour.com

TouchOSC by hexler (R.J. Fischer) is US$3.99 from the iTunes App Store.

See also: ReMOTE SL @ Novation Music

… which I reviewed for Keyboard Magazine