Something to replace a touch and hold, like the Reactable thingys...?

Pxlhg

@catherder said:

@Tentype said:

@catherder said:

@Tentype said:

@Pxlhg said:

@Tentype said:
Another option is Beatsurfing 2.

It has a built in 4 track looper that basically records your finger movement and plays it back on a beatsynced loop. It has built in synths but can also be used as an auv3 or standalone midi controller for other synths. The touch tools in it are geared towards drums and rhythm mainly, but you can get creative with it.

I might be wrong, but it feels pretty underrated as far as innovative touch interfaces go.

So far, from all the things I've read here it seems like the closest fit.

Yeah it's a pretty cool app but leans toward modern music and thus are not ideal for long sweeping drones, at least I don't think so. There are plenty of options to get notes playing and midi flowing but that's not really what I was ... dreaming about (TC-11 doesn't take midi from other apps or hardware) .

Appreciate the input but it's not going to be an app to app or just app solution (if there's ever going to be a solution😅).

Gotcha, here's a pretty easy (IMO) and comparatively cheap DIY idea for you unless you're committed to poking potential developers:

• Buy a pack of cheap short capacitive touch pens like this: https://a.co/d/917h7PV

• Once you have them head to the hardware store and find a decent size metal washer with a similar inner hole diameter to the pen. Buy a bunch of them.

• Stack up washers to your desired height, but more importantly to a good weight to make the pen tip activate.

• Glue, or use electricians tape to hold the stack of washers together.

• Glue the pen inside the washers hole with the tip sticking out enough.

• Get some felt stickers (usually used on furniture legs to avoid them scratching the floor) and cut a hole for the pen tip and stick one on the bottom to avoid the washers scratching your screen.

• Cut off the pen top.

• credit me in your next album 😉

With a little testing for proper weight this should result in as many little capacitive touch devices as you want that can sit on your screen acting as extra fingers on any multitouch app. No batteries.

This is a good idea, but best not to cut off the pen top. Just did some experiments with various touch pens. I wanted to see what happens if I hold them with some isolated plastic tubes. The passive styluses worked in this scenario, but just using their tip without the metal tube connected did not work. This is because whatever touches the screen needs some kind of counterpoise for the touch to be registered. This can be the human body or just the metal body of a passive touch stylus that acts like a little antenna.

Oh interesting! I wonder if the stack of metal washers would achieve the same effect as the metal tube?

It could work. It all depends on the sensitivity of the touchscreen. There might even be differences between different iPad models.

Hey! Now we're getting somewhere🤣 This is certainly interesting and I will have a long hard think on if I can actually do this at home. I have no tools to speak of and living in an apartment, but, if I do it I wanna do it as proper as can. This is fun..

Pxlhg

Tentype @wim @catherder @tyslothrop1

Ha ha ha, it works!! Thanks a lot for your suggestion @Tentype - that was what working. I just took some parts from home and then I made a roll of thin cardboard strips to make the pen thicker. So cool that one can use multiple pens at the same time. I wish I had a 3D printer, the design/concepting a construction to hold the pen would be real fun. I thought it would take more weight but 200 gram might be enough depending on the concept. So fun, thanks all - again!! (there's no hearable sound from the iPad, sorry)

tyslothrop1

Looks cool

Tentype

@Pxlhg said:
Tentype @wim @catherder @tyslothrop1

Ha ha ha, it works!! Thanks a lot for your suggestion @Tentype - that was what working. I just took some parts from home and then I made a roll of thin cardboard strips to make the pen thicker. So cool that one can use multiple pens at the same time. I wish I had a 3D printer, the design/concepting a construction to hold the pen would be real fun. I thought it would take more weight but 200 gram might be enough depending on the concept. So fun, thanks all - again!! (there's no hearable sound from the iPad, sorry)

Awesome! So glad you gave it a shot! Would love to see what you do with it. 💕

rs2000

@tyslothrop1 said:

@TheGhostCat said:
Might there be a solution in apples built in AssistiveTouch?

Cool feature, I didn't know about. Although seems to involve some Menudiving, so things need to be properly prepared.

Here's the part of the manual, I found most interesting:

Create new gestures

You can record custom taps and swipes using the touchscreen and save them to the AssistiveTouch menu.

To create a new gesture:

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch.

Tap AssistiveTouch, then tap Create New Gesture.

Recording starts automatically when you touch the screen, so you can tap or swipe whenever you're ready.

When you're finished, tap Stop.

To review your recorded gesture, press Play. If you want to re-record your gesture, tap Record. Press Save to name your gesture when you're ready.

If you're unable to perform a multi-finger gesture by using multiple fingers at the same time, you can record individual movements, and they group together. For example, draw two horizontal dots on the top half of the screen, and a half circle on the bottom of the screen, then press Stop. When you press play, all dots and lines play at once.

It's a cool feature indeed because it allows for controlling any app that has no control facilities built in.
And the gestures can be triggered by MIDI messages which is even better.
The downside is that it needs some preparation work, as the iOS Assistive Touch is a powerful but convoluted feature.

Pxlhg

@rs2000 said:

@tyslothrop1 said:

@TheGhostCat said:
Might there be a solution in apples built in AssistiveTouch?

Cool feature, I didn't know about. Although seems to involve some Menudiving, so things need to be properly prepared.

Here's the part of the manual, I found most interesting:

Create new gestures

You can record custom taps and swipes using the touchscreen and save them to the AssistiveTouch menu.

To create a new gesture:

Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch.

Tap AssistiveTouch, then tap Create New Gesture.

Recording starts automatically when you touch the screen, so you can tap or swipe whenever you're ready.

When you're finished, tap Stop.

To review your recorded gesture, press Play. If you want to re-record your gesture, tap Record. Press Save to name your gesture when you're ready.

If you're unable to perform a multi-finger gesture by using multiple fingers at the same time, you can record individual movements, and they group together. For example, draw two horizontal dots on the top half of the screen, and a half circle on the bottom of the screen, then press Stop. When you press play, all dots and lines play at once.

It's a cool feature indeed because it allows for controlling any app that has no control facilities built in.
And the gestures can be triggered by MIDI messages which is even better.
The downside is that it needs some preparation work, as the iOS Assistive Touch is a powerful but convoluted feature.

I forgot to even try this but I just did and it worked with TC-11 but you can only play the gesture no touch along with it.
It's very cool though and I need to experiment some more, great tips folks!

MonkeyDrummer

@Pxlhg said:

@wim said:

@Pxlhg said:
@wim Apologies for tagging but, isn't this kind of stuff up your alley? I mean building it. I saw some guy (lost the article) used an Ardino (?) board and some stuff and it worked but, well not the prettiest of solutions.

No problem tagging me. Ever. 😎

Thank you!

Sorry, but I can't really understand what you're looking for. Are you thinking, like a device with touchpad or something, that records and plays back the touches on it to control apps?

Ha ha, I got carried away with the illustration, maybe I should have started with that. Anyway this (image) is something like the original thought in my head. I now know that being this small is just a dream (probably) as they need all sorts of tricks inside, beside a battery.

Ha! Years ago I tried the same thing for the exact same reason!

I sacrificed several of those cheap styli to try to understand the science of the magic of the iPad touch and build something… never could get it to work. Resorted to begging the dev to just allow touch latching to no avail.

Pxlhg

@MonkeyDrummer said:

@Pxlhg said:

@wim said:

@Pxlhg said:
@wim Apologies for tagging but, isn't this kind of stuff up your alley? I mean building it. I saw some guy (lost the article) used an Ardino (?) board and some stuff and it worked but, well not the prettiest of solutions.

No problem tagging me. Ever. 😎

Thank you!

Sorry, but I can't really understand what you're looking for. Are you thinking, like a device with touchpad or something, that records and plays back the touches on it to control apps?

Ha ha, I got carried away with the illustration, maybe I should have started with that. Anyway this (image) is something like the original thought in my head. I now know that being this small is just a dream (probably) as they need all sorts of tricks inside, beside a battery.

Ha! Years ago I tried the same thing for the exact same reason!

I sacrificed several of those cheap styli to try to understand the science of the magic of the iPad touch and build something… never could get it to work. Resorted to begging the dev to just allow touch latching to no avail.

Oh yeah! I don't know, I got all 5 to work simultaneously. Maybe they have improved because I tried them on iPhone 5s and an 2020se and on my iPad Pro m1. They work real good for being as rough as they are (compare to Apple Pencil). I also thought it would take some weight but they're quite sensitive so having them in a circle like this works real well (till the plastic start reshaping, a disk of some dense wood, around 12-15 mm thick would have been nice to try)

Check it out, registered touch on all 5😆

bangzero

cool hack! have you considered adding some passive electronics? there's a wikipedia article on Body capacitance that sez "Capacitance of a human body in normal surroundings is typically in the tens to low hundreds of picofarads, which is small by typical electronic standards. The human-body model defined by the Electrostatic Discharge Association (ESDA) is a 100pF capacitor in series with a 1.5kΩ resistor." might make smaller sensors possible.

Pxlhg

@bangzero said:
cool hack! have you considered adding some passive electronics? there's a wikipedia article on Body capacitance that sez "Capacitance of a human body in normal surroundings is typically in the tens to low hundreds of picofarads, which is small by typical electronic standards. The human-body model defined by the Electrostatic Discharge Association (ESDA) is a 100pF capacitor in series with a 1.5kΩ resistor." might make smaller sensors possible.

Thanks for the article, interesting but I'm not sure that's the way I wanna go. After playing with it for a bit I think the idea doesn't hold for me. I mean if you wanted you could set up a whole bunch of iPads laying flat and use various set of pen-clusters to run TC-11. There's not much more than TC that are so touch intense and the app is old. If there was maybe 10-20 similar app but I can't think of one. --- I'm just realising I have 'sqsl - Astral', gotta try that with five pens and tttt-en fingers ..😂

Edit: played with Astral for a bit, the circular pen contraption works really really well, better than with TC for some reason.

Pxlhg

This is absolutely amazing to use with Astral, I had an old project with Butter, Speldosa and Cube Synth Pro. I had Zoa as a help engine but this time that got too much, way too much. Now I just have to move the thingy every now and then, search for good poses and make a note... The plastic sucks, maybe if I can find one more and drill 5 holes to use as a stabiliser. I correct the distance of the pens when starting new, and it works so good .. for a while then ... the plastic wins. That piece of dense wood, could look something like this (mockup from Nomad)