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.

Available in the Apple App Store now.

Description

The application allows to remote control and receive feedback from software and hardware that implements the OSC protocol such as Pure Data and Max/MSP.

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

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, by Christopher Willits	Controlling Reaktor, by Circle Six	Traktor with TouchOSC, by 2nd Reality (inforlk)	Controlling DMX LED Lighting, by Andrew Bahls	Controlling Reason Thor (Japanese)
Controlling Ableton Live, by DJ Icaro Ferre	Controlling Arduino	iPod Theremin using TouchOSC and Pure Data	iPhone Theremin using TouchOSC and Max/MSP	TouchOSC Controlling DMX Lights

Documentation

Download the manual for version 1.1

PDF
HTML

Examples

Circle

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

Logic

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)

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)

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 Zett)