The iPhone and iPod Touch have big, pretty screens, plenty of space for touch control, and fit in your pocket for lots of other useful things (like, you know, calls or music or whatever these things were invented for).
So, why not put them to use in performance? Just this week, Create Digital Motion has picked up two new solutions for doing just that, free:
MIDI Control with iPhone and iPod Touch: i3L MIDI Bridge
Mrmr : iPhone + 10.5 + Quartz Composer = Wireless VJ Nirvana
Mrmr’s support of OSC is geared for VJ apps, but something similar could be applied to OSC-supporting music tools like Max/MSP, Traktor, Reaktor, and others. And i3L’s support of MIDI, of course, will work with anything. I could see it cuing up scenes in Ableton Live or changing instrument patches, etc.
No iPhone? No problem. One quick note: if you don’t have the cash for a new iPod or iPhone, there are always alternatives. Jason Kramer’s Bluetooth MIDI solution works just fine with that free phone you got with your plan — maybe even one you recently retired. Much as we love all this flashy new stuff, there’s nothing quite like giving your toxic technological leftovers a new lease on life!
Control Music Software with a Bluetooth Cell Phone / PDA (Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Logic Pro)
LiveController [Jason R. Kramer]