Controlling/Running a DAW on a tablet

Johnatorium

Has anyone any experience of running a DAW via a tablet?
Was thinking about investing in it for a live setup, for launching some additional synth tracks, backing guitar tracks, etc.

Malice

I'd definitely try before you buy. Synths can be quite taxing on RAM and processing power so I'd be skeptical of a tablet's ability to be up to the job.

leviathon

Wouldn't see the point unless there's a very specific reason it has to be a tablet. You could run an ipad with iodock from Alesis (http://www.alesis.com/iodock). For what you'd spend on that you'd get a savage normal form laptop and a usb desk and still have change left over.

Splinters

TouchOSC which runs on both Ipad ad Android is the business, well worth a look. I wouldnt buy a tablet specifically to use it as theres far better and more practical controllers available but if you already have a tablet then why not bring it into your setup and make things more interesting.

Johnatorium

Thanks for all the replies.....seems like a tablet probably isnt the way to go. I was just considering it from a portability point of view!

So would anyone have any suggestions for this....
I'm going for a electronic kind of setup....similar to Delphic, but with a bit more guitar in places. Recording wise, i use Cubase and i record guitars, bass and synths myself and use Reason for my drums.

So for a live setup, i'm trying to get a drummer on board, and i will be mostly playing guitar (have a singer, and bass player is not a problem). As some of my tunes would have multiple synth tracks, i'd need some way of launching or controlling them.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as i'm a dumbass when it comes to this stuff!!

Splinters

Its probably not the most appealing suggestion if you're not already using it, but Ableton Live is pretty much the industry standard for this type of thing these days. Almost every professional live electronic artists out there are using it, even if they use a completely different DAWs for studio work.

Theres a whole heap of controllers that work great with it. I use, and can thoroughly recommend the Akai APC 40 but Novation have a similar cheaper version which is still amazing, the Novation Launchpad. They can be picked up on adverts.ie for around €80 or so.

Ableton is one of those programs you can go seriously deep into and use for some very complex routing, automation etc but its also very easy to pick up initially for launching clips, live performance, remixing on the fly, pretty much anything you'd want.

If theres a better solution available Im certainly not aware of it.

rcaz

Guitar-playing computer man here, huge +1 on Ableton.

I control Ableton with a keyboard, a Novation Launchpad and a Behringer FCB1010, which sounds like it'd be perfect if you need to trigger things and play guitar at the same time (like me!). We have a few songs where the drums are loops playing in Ableton, and I trigger different loops at the appropriate times with my feet while playing guitar. It's great 'cause we're no longer just sequencing all the loops in arrangement mode and playing along to a backing track, if we want to jam on a section for longer than usual I can just trigger the loops accordingly. Makes a laptop performance a bit more 'live' than before we had it. It's also lots of fun and looks quite cool I think :P

Johnatorium

rcaz wrote: »

I control Ableton with a keyboard, a Novation Launchpad and a Behringer FCB1010, which sounds like it'd be perfect if you need to trigger things and play guitar at the same time (like me!).

Sounds like the kinda thing i'm looking for! I've been looking at the Novation Launchpad this week....looks like the business (if i can offload my electronic drum kit!!) Just need to incorporate my Microkorg XL into it and i should be good to go!