MusicRadar

Hexlar TouchOSC
£2.99

You've surely noticed JazzMutant's Lemur - it's a modular controller with a 12-inch multitouch display that uses the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol to talk to DAWs, synths and other audio software. It looks absolutely gorgeous, but as you might expect, it doesn't come cheap. TouchOSC for iPhone offers broadly similar functionality and, what's more, it looks equally pretty, yet costs just a few quid.

TouchOSC includes f­ive non-editable layouts, and each consists of several screens of colourful, touch-friendly virtual faders, pots, axis controllers and buttons. Five of these can be triggered and used simultaneously, and each layout approximates a common task - there are two for mixing, one for drum programming, one for general control and another that provides an octave of virtual keys.

We say 'approximates' because, on their own, these layouts do nothing - they simply transmit and respond to OSC commands. TouchOSC also transmits accelerometer data.

To use the app, you need to bind its controllers to an OSC-compatible application running on your computer. This requires a little juggling of IP address and incoming and outgoing port numbers (as it connects across a Wi-Fi network), but we had it up and running without any trouble. There are dozens of applications that can talk OSC, but the most common are Cycling '74's Max/MSP, the freely available Pure Data and the SuperCollider programming environment.

All of these bits of software are of a fairly technical nature, but thanks to a stack of bundled examples, you don't need any in-depth knowledge to effectively use them with TouchOSC. Download the Mix2‑MIDI patch for Pure Data, for example, configure MIDI ports to your DAW and start moving your f­ingers around the screen. A simple MIDI learn on your DAW is all you need to start manipulating the software's parameters.

The response time is fantastically short, and you have absolute control over the widgets on the screen, complete with feedback, if the OSC patch and application caters for it. And if you have the conf­idence to stick with native OSC control, almost anything is possible.

Buy now from the App Store

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