TouchOSC

TouchOSC is an iPhone / iPod Touch application that lets you send and receive Open Sound Control messages over a Wi-Fi network using the UDP protocol.

TouchOSC screens

Description

The application allows to remote control and receive feedback from software and hardware that implements the OSC protocol such as Pure Data, Max/MSP/Jitter, OSCulator, VDMX, Resolume Avenue 3, Plogue Bidule, Reaktor, Quartz Composer, vvvv and others.

The interface provides a number of different touch controls to send/receive messages:

Faders
Rotary controls
Push buttons
Toggle buttons
XY pads
Multi-faders
Multi-toggles
LEDs

It supports full multi-touch operation, five controls can be used at the same time. Additionally the program can send Accelerometer data. The application comes with five layouts that are organized in multiple pages. We are working on another version of this program with configurable layout and adjustable control behavior and value-range.

Videos

XLR8R TV - Control Ableton and Max/MSP	Novation 25SL Compact iPod Touch TouchOSC MOD	Supercollider + TouchOSC = Step Sequencer	TouchOSC / Ableton Live	Controlling Reaktor
TouchOSC & VDMX	TouchOSC with Ableton Live and BigSeq	TouchOSC controlling Traktor	TouchOSC controlling VirtualDJ	Controlling Usine

Documentation

Download the manual for version 1.1

PDF
HTML

Examples

Ableton Live

Tutorial on setting up TouchOSC with OSCulator and Live on OS X
How-to on setting up TouchOSC with Pure Data, MIDI Yoke and Live on Windows

Circle

Simple CircleOSC - An application to interface with FAW’s Circle, by Synpatic Failure

Logic

Three part tutorial on using TouchOSC with Logic Pro
How-to on Logic/OSCulator/TouchOSC setup, by Brett Terpstra @ TUAW

Max/MSP

basic.maxpat.zip - Basic sending/receiving
max5-beatmachine-send-and-receive.zip - Sending and receiving for the “Beatmachine” layout (by Florian Schulz)
max5-beatmachine-rotaries2midi.zip - Sending MIDI from the rotaries on page 3 of the “Beatmachine” layout (by Florian Schulz)
simple-send-and-receive.zip - Sending and receiving for the “Simple” layout (by Mitchell Turner)
mix16-send-and-receive.zip - Sending and receiving for the “Mix16″ layout (by Mitchell Turner)
touchosc-midikeys-v1-1a.zip - Sending MIDI Notes and CC’s for the “Keys” layout (by Matthias Schneiderbanger)

MIDI

As most audio/visual software does not support OSC directly (yet), in order to use TouchOSC with these applications the incoming OSC messages need to be translated into MIDI messages. If you are on Mac OS X please check the OSCulator files on this page. This is by far the easiest way to convert OSC messages from TouchOSC to MIDI on the Mac OS X platform.

To translate OSC messages from TouchOSC to MIDI messages on Windows follow these steps:

Download and install Pure Data Extended
Download and install MIDIYoke
Download and open one of the Pure Data MIDI patches following this section (for example: simple-midi.pd)
Make sure you are receiving output from TouchOSC in Pure Data. Refer to the TouchOSC manual on this page for more information
In Pure Data open the menu Media -> MIDI Settings…
For output device 1 select Out To MIDI Yoke: 1 and press OK
Start the application you want to receive the MIDI messages with, go to MIDI settings/preferences and select In From MIDI Yoke: 1 as input
Use the MIDI learn function of the application to map controls from TouchOSC to controls in the application

Pure Data MIDI patches:

simple-midi.pd - All controls in the “Simple” layout mapped to MIDI CC’s
mix16-midi.pd - All controls in the “Mix 16″ layout mapped to MIDI CC’s (by Dan Myers)
mix2-midi.pd - All controls in the “Mix 2″ layout mapped to MIDI CC’s (by Jeremy Stacy)
beatmachine-channels-midi.pd - Beatmachine MIDI patch with switchable channels (by Jeremy Stacy)
beatmachine-midi.pd - All controls in the “Beatmachine” layout mapped to MIDI CC’s (by Velvetsol)
keys-high-midinotes.pd - “Keys” layout mapped to MIDI Notes (by Jonathan Asher)
keys-low-midinotes.pd - “Keys” layout mapped to MIDI Notes (by Jonathan Asher)

OSCulator

simple.oscd - All controls in the “Simple” layout mapped to MIDI CC’s 0-102, Channel 1
mix2.oscd - All controls in the “Mix 2″ layout mapped to MIDI CC’s 0-52, Channel 1
mix16.oscd - All controls in the “Mix 16″ layout mapped to MIDI CC’s 0-90, Channel 1
beatmachine.oscd - All controls in the “Beatmachine” layout mapped to MIDI CC’s, Channels 1-4
keys.oscd - First two pages mapped to MIDI Notes, third page mapped to MIDI CC’s, Channel 1 (thanks to Zettt)
Setting up Osculator and Ableton Live - Setting up 2-way communication with Ableton Live using OSCulator (Thx Camille!)

Pure Data

basic.pd - Basic sending/receiving
simple-receive.pd - Receiving messages from the “Simple” layout
beatmachine-receive.pd - Receiving messages from the “Beatmachine” layout
mix16-receive.pd - Receiving messages from the “Mix 16″ layout
mix2-receive.pd - Receiving messages from the “Mix 2″ layout

Processing

simple.pde - Receiving and displaying messages from the “Simple” layout (page1 only). Requires the oscP5 library.
Example code for handling accelerometer data
Processing Apps - Processing examples + video by Mike Cook

Quartz Composer

touchosc-quartz-composer.zip - Example patches (by Toby Cole)

Reaktor

Tutorial on how to set up Reaktor with TouchOSC by CircleSix
simple.ens - Receiving values from the “Simple” layout
mix2.ens - Receiving values from the “Mix 2″ layout

Supercollider

touchosc-simple.scd - GUI example for the “Simple” layout (by Wilm Thoben)

Torq

using-touchosc-with-m-audio-torq.pdf - Tutorial on setting up TouchOSC with M-Audio Torq (by Dan Myers)

vvvv

touchosc-and-vvvv-version07.zip - Example by strukt
touchosc-simple-p1-vvvv.zip - Example by Rainer Kohlberger

Known Issues

Cannot receive OSC messages from Reaktor. Workaround is to use this PD patch on the same machine as Reaktor to pass-through messages. (in progress)

Support

Problems? Suggestions? Send e-mail to dev@hexler.net

If you like TouchOSC please check out SonicLife, another OSC enabled controller application by hexler

h e x l e r . n e t