My Email to Jazzmutant ... Fingers Crossed!!

I sent Jazzmutant an email about their OS. If you're a Lemur owner, or someone that is interesting in the Lemur, would you like to see this happen? ...

Hi Jazzmutant,

I'm James (GV1) on the forums. I'm emailing to discuss further development of the Lemur OS. Please read the email before responding.

I've recently purchased a Lemur, last week infact, I paid £1600 for it. The Lemur is a fascinating device that walks all over TouchOSC. Even after you ceased production I still went out and purchased because my iPad and Samsung Galaxy tablet just don't cut it in the studio or live.

Now, with that said, I am really excited about discussing the possibility of opening up and API on the Lemur OS to allow for developers like myself to hook into the OS and expand the Lemur. When I say expand, the main thing I am talking about is allowing developers to create custom objects, and be able to share them with the community. Currently TouchOSC don't have the objects, or the scripting capabilities that the Lemur has, and I can't see that improving anytime soon either.

I know you can't release it Open Source, but opening up an API will allow for some amazing developments on the Lemur. There are lots of professional programmers within the community that would contribute, myself included.

I don't know the reason for the production ceasing, my guess is that the production was to expensive when there are cheaper alternatives available. But, the cheaper alternatives don't compare. Just look on the Internet, you will see the demand for the Lemur to continue the production. This is probably something you can't consider at this point BUT open up the API, and see what happens. What I can see happening if you did this is that a lot of people will be interesting in the new advancements to the Lemur that the community has contributed (custom objects) and over time this interest will cause so much demand that producing the Lemur would be something to consider if the demand ever reached this point.

Just imagine all the new videos on YouTube, and all the new tutorials, that will hit the Internet. Free marketing. New interest. New demand.

Objects are at the heart of the Lemur, and there are some objects I would love to see. There are some objects I'd love to create that are just wacky and experimental, but being able to do this and share it with the community, and to also download other users objects, would be amazing. And this is something TouchOSC could never do. Once you download an app on a tablet, expanding it using a programming language is impossible. So again, you have the edge over the market that TouchOSC and other apps just can't compete with.

Do you have a contact number so that I can discuss this in person?

If you don't believe this is something that would work, just ask the community. Send out an email to your list, ask for a response on the forum. I promise you this is something the whole community would love.

I'm expecting a generic response, but it would be great if you could give this idea some time and discussion with other members of staff just to see if it actually has any interest.

Regards,

James Jeffery
(GV1)

Not a lemur owner, but curious to hear what they'll say...the waiting game begins.

James, perhaps you can enlighten me a little as to the advantages of this vs. an iPad?

Is it velocity sensitive?

£1600 is an awful lot of money to drop on a touch screen controller imo, I'm just wondering how that price is justified, particularly as you could've bought 4 iPads for the same price and had one for each limb.

scoobylol wrote:James, perhaps you can enlighten me a little as to the advantages of this vs. an iPad?

Is it velocity sensitive?

£1600 is an awful lot of money to drop on a touch screen controller imo, I'm just wondering how that price is justified, particularly as you could've bought 4 iPads for the same price and had one for each limb.

Scooby. I have an iPad and TouchOSC, honestly imho it don't compare.

For starters TouchOSC lacks the objects the Lemur has. It also lacks the scripting capabilities that the Lemur has. Regardless of what people say, you do notice a better touch response on the Lemur. I know this is hard to believe but there is a noticeable difference. I've had some lag issues with TouchOSC too ... not much, but I have had them. I don't see the Lemur purchase as a waste at all.

You can set velocities with the Lemur, you can also set lots of parameters on the objects. TouchOSC lacks on that.

My initial idea was to hack the OS on the Lemur, and modify it for my own use. This wasn't the reason for purchase but it is something I am going to attempt.

But ... if Jazzmutant open up the API, allowing us to create custom objects, then this is something that TouchOSC would never be able to do - ever. Simple because it couldn't offer an API for developers on the iOS and Android platforms. The platforms don't allow it.

Even if Jazzmutant fails to allow this, there have been rumours flying around that after December 2011 they will release open source when they totally cut off the Lemur community. That's only rumour though. If they do this, then the future of the Lemur for current owners will be very promising as so much could be done.

The different between the Lemur and iOS/Android in this sense would be the Lemur has an open development platform, allowing much more customization. All it would take is some clever developers to bang their heads together and create a new OS built on the old one that allows for infinite possibilities of creativity. Again, something tablets can never do.

I can't really see TouchOSC going any further. It's been a while since the last major update.

Ok so touchOSC I assume is an app? I'm not too up on touch screen surfaces, not my cup of tea so excuse my ignorance.

But the actual iPad app platform essentially IS completely open to new app developments. What is to stop someone creating an "objects" based application based on the Lemur? Particularly with the way people completely jailbreak these devices these days to bypass certain things. That for example would make it open source.

End of the day dude, if you're happy with your purchase then that's cool, I'm just genuinely interested in what makes this thing worth £1600 big 'uns.

Well, an API is like this.

Imagine a water tank that contains water that cant be opened. This is closed source. It does what its ment to ... it holds water. But imagine if the designer put holes at the top. Then you could attach pumps to color the water, and route the water, or heat it, or add air etc ... this is creating an API. You could break holes in the box, that would do the same thing (jailbreaking). Or the designer could take the box back, put the holes in it and make it open source. Ok it's a shit analogy but you know, you get the picture.

By objects I mean touch objects. Stuff you touch that send/receive midi data. All the basic stuff is implemented, knobs, sliders etc. But what if you wanted to create a UI object that mimics the stars alignment and produces sound based various star alignments. Wacky idea! But you know.

Each star would control a control on a synth. You could then set things like morphing the stars from one alignment to the next, and set the speeds.

If they opened the API this would be possible to create the UI. You could then share it with others. If you hacked it you could do the same thing, but there would be no documentation and risk fubaring the device.

If these objects were prepackaged so it was as simple as dragging and dropping, this would make sharing easy.

This is something that would be difficult to do on the iPhone. You *might* be able to do it on the iPhone, but this requires knowledge of the platform, Objective-C and other things.

Rather than just creating "adding" to the OS on the Lemur, on the iPhone you'd have to hack it. A lot more tricky and less likely for developers to get involved in.

To answer the question, as it stands, the Lemur allows for more customization.

Haha excellent reply mate, and in fact that idea about taking the position of the stars is actually quite beautiful. I'd LOVE to see someone impliment that, it's like a conceptual sound artists' wet dream.

Keep us updated on how you get on. In fact a couple of videos would be cool to see how you use it in your workflow. There's a lot of impressive gear on that list!