interactive lcd touch screen monitor for music keyboard free sample

Most of us now have an iPad or some sort of tablet or smartphone. What’s more, we’ve probably tried using it to make beats, play synths, do some field recording or control our studio computer with a swipe-swipe of our fingers. We’re completely at home with the multi-touch screen environment. But we’re also perhaps grumbling at the size of the tablet/phone screen, quickly running out of processing power, and troubled by how best to integrate our devices into a larger studio setup. Conversely, on our desktop and laptop studio machines, we have far more power available and access to all the software tools we could wish for, but often find ourselves reduced to controlling them with a mouse.

Multi-touch technology has been very slow to make any headway in the world of desktop computing — and not just in terms of music production software, by any means. Surprisingly, perhaps, given the ubiquity of the iPad, Apple’s OS X doesn’t support multi-touch, but on ‘the other side’ it’s been available in some form or other since Windows 7. And, with high-quality, 24-inch, 10-point touchscreens now available for a very modest outlay(around £300), Windows 8 maturing through version 8.1, and Windows 9 on the horizon, some developers are now making significant progress. So, maybe it’s finally time to figure out how and where multi-touch-capable software could enhance your own recording studio, whether that be a modest home-studio setup, or something on a grander scale.

2. Infra-red technology creates an optical grid across the screen, and registers a ‘touch’ when the beams are interrupted. This is particularly suited to larger screens. It’s what the Microsoft PixelSense was based on, and it can be found today in Slate Digital’s Raven MTX. It benefits from great accuracy, not having to use annoyingly reflective glass, and the ability to register touches from any object (not just a finger). However, infra-red screens are vulnerable to accidental ‘touches’ from elbows, clothing, insects and so on.

3. Capacitive technology has risen to the top, primarily through Apple’s use of it. It’s durable, reliable and accurate, with a good resolution (although not as good as a stylus), and the price has come down significantly due to the sheer number of phones and tablets using it. Capacitive screens work by creating a minute electrical field, from which a capacitive object (such as a finger) draws current, creating a voltage drop at that point of the screen. Most phones and tablets now use a variant called Projected Capacitive Touch technology, which essentially doubles up the grid for improved accuracy and tracking, and also supports passive styli and gloved fingers.

Microsoft introduced native multi-touch support with Windows 7, but two things prevented it from really catching on: the expense of the hardware, and the fact that a desktop OS designed primarily for a mouse isn’t particularly suited to being operated with your fingers. In an act of pure genius (or madness, depending on your point of view) Microsoft then designed Windows 8 to offer the user two distinct interfaces: the Windows Start (formerly known as Metro) Modern UI, which is intended for touching, and the standard desktop, for use with a mouse and keyboard. It meant that the OS could be used on multiple devices: tablets, phones, laptops and desktops could all use it, and be touchable and futuristic in every environment.

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of people without a multi-touch interface, it was confusing and a bit frustrating, in that half of the OS couldn’t comfortably be used when all you had was a mouse! Microsoft addressed many of these concerns with Windows 8.1, and further updates have brought the Modern and the Desktop interfaces much closer together. The experience for the mouse and keyboard user is now much more that of an enhanced or augmented desktop, rather than a touch interface that was out of their reach. At the same time, sales of all-in-one computers with multi-touch screens, hybrid laptops and Surface tablets have grown at a healthy rate, and so multi-touch technology is fast becoming ‘normal’ on regular Windows computers.

So what does the Windows App Store offer in terms of music apps? Unfortunately, not a lot! There’s a sprinkling of piano and guitar-strumming apps, and some sample-triggering and remixing ones. There’s a DJ remix app from Magix called Music Maker Jam, which is pretty cool in a DJ-remixing-preset-samples kind of way, and a recording studio from Glouco, which does at least allow you to record via a mic input and sequence the included instruments. However, Windows Store apps have been hampered by two things when it comes to music production. Firstly there’s been no support for MIDI, and secondly, the output latency is only as good as the system’s soundcard using standard Windows drivers.

With Windows 8.1, Microsoft revealed a MIDI API (application programming interface), which for the first time allows a Modern app to use a MIDI input. Image Line took advantage of this in FL Studio Groove, a decent music-making app that lets you sequence, mix and mess about with a range of sample-based instruments and drums — and, of course, you can play the sounds from a MIDI keyboard.

The MIDI API is the first release from a new team of creative people at Microsoft who are working to improve the MIDI and audio aspects of Windows apps for the forthcoming Windows 9. This is unprecedented, and potentially very exciting for music makers. Pete Brown, from Microsoft’s DX Engineering Engagement and Evangelism department, said that they’re doing some serious engineering here, including on audio latency for Universal apps (apps that run across all Windows devices). They’re working with a lot of partners, big names and small, from both hardware and software worlds, to help prioritise, prototype apps, and so on. He tells me they’ve made sure that the approach is aligned with industry needs and requirements, and not just what Microsoft think needs to be done. It’s been the most open development process he’s ever seen, and he says the response from partners so far has been extremely positive.

The first thing to realise is that multi-touch is not mouse emulation, as it was on the old single-touch screens you might find in supermarkets or information kiosks. So, although it sometimes appears as though you’re just mousing about with your finger, it doesn’t always work as expected. In an application not designed specifically for touch control (we’ll call these ‘non-touch’), like Cubase, a single finger can access all the menu items, controls and parameters, just as with a mouse. But with some of the plug-ins you’ll find you can’t play the virtual keyboard unless you pull your finger across the notes, giving you a sort of Stylophone effect.

This problem is more obviously demonstrable in Adobe’s Photoshop: you can select all the tools and menu items, but you can’t actually use your finger on an image — nothing happens! Oddly, if you start with your finger off to the side of the page and then drag it onto the image, it then allows you to draw — but only as long as your finger stays in contact. Adobe say that this is because there’s no touch standard, and they already have their own APIs for use with Wacom’s pen and touchscreen products. They’re also waiting for Apple to join in the game, which, I fear, is something we’re going to hear from a lot of developers of software aimed at creative professionals.

Slight oddities aside, most DAW software actually works very well with single touches on a multi-touch screen. In my tests, Cubase, Pro Tools, Reason, Studio One, Reaper and Tracktion all happily let me poke around to my heart’s content. Ableton Live proved good for launching clips, entering notes and moving regions, but I ran into trouble when attempting to move parameters: once I’d grabbed a control with my finger, the knob or slider would zoom to the maximum or minimum value with the slightest finger movement without letting me easily set any value in between. Fortunately, there’s a fix for this. You have to create an ‘options.txt’ file in the Preferences folder, which lurks in the back end of the dusty reaches of your file system, and add the line “-AbsoluteMouseMode” (more precise information can be found at: www.ableton.com/en/articles/optionstxt-file-live). This allows all of the parameters to be moved much more smoothly. Unfortunately, I’m not aware of similar fixes for Bitwig Studio, which has exactly the same problem, or Digital Performer 8 (DP8), where some plug-ins exhibit this behaviour.

In the project/session/arrange window, with the exception of Live, Bitwig and DP8, all DAWs responded to the pinch/zoom two-finger gesture to either expand the track height or extend the timeline. Reaper even managed to do both directions at the same time. So, although these programs are not multi-touch compatible, there’s not that much you can’t do with your fingertip, assuming you can get your fudgy finger on the sometimes tiny knobs. You could load Reason, Live or Pro Tools onto a Windows 8 Pro tablet, such as the Microsoft Surface, and get on with making music without having to add a mouse to the equation.

Similarly, with stand-alone plug-ins and instruments, such as Native Instruments Reaktor or the Arturia Mini V, you’ve got single-finger control over all the parameters — the only problem is the Stylophone effect on virtual keyboards described earlier. Even though, especially on a tablet, you can go without a mouse, there’s no reason why you would want to do so on a desktop machine. The beauty with multi-touch on the desktop is that you can use everything. So, you can use your mouse and keyboard as normal, but perhaps when tweaking plug-ins or working closely in the arrange page you can simply reach out and touch it. Which is fantastic!

1. Console View: all the faders and pan, sends and other controls are all gloriously multi-touchable. You can use all your fingers, all at once, and mix to your heart’s content.

3. Matrix View: You can drag/drop samples, launch clips and move things about with as many fingers as you like, making this performance side of Sonar a real joy to use — Ableton and Bitwig really should take note.

Sonar struggles, though, when it comes to consistency. In the Pro Channel expansion to the Console view, the knobs in the EQ, Tube and Compressor respond to a rotary, sort of half-circle finger movement, but the knobs in the rest of the Pro Channel respond with an up and down movement. You can’t control more than one knob at a time, although you can move other controls on the console. Using the visual display on the EQ suffers from the same ‘zooming about’ problem found in Live, though they’ve dealt with this issue in X3 by sliding out a lovely large EQ window, which works perfectly with multi-touch.

Meanwhile, back in the arrange window, nothing is actually touchable! You can’t move any regions, cut them up or edit them in any way. Nor can you add notes to the piano roll or change any automation. All the arrange page things that can be done in the other non-touch-enabled DAWs can’t be done in the touch-enabled Sonar, which is a bit strange. The changes they made to the Pro Channel EQ shows exactly what’s required for touch to work effectively: you need big knobs. The Console view is hampered in places by the size and throw of the faders and some of the small controls. Cakewalk have built multi-touch into their existing GUI, and although it works well in some areas it also demonstrates why this might not be the best way to approach it — although, of course, you still have your mouse and keyboard.

StageLight has the standard arrange window, with tracks and a timeline, piano roll and automation, but it also has drum pads, a step sequencer, and a virtual keyboard that you can lock to various preset tunings, making it very easy to play all the right notes. In version 2 they’ve added in some nice-sounding synths and instruments, all with touchy parameters, and they’ve introduced an Ableton Live-style loop arranger, with large clip boxes to poke with your fingers. One very neat feature is that, through its support of VST plug-ins, it includes a multi-touch GUI version of the standard VST parameters window. It’s very simple, with each parameter displaying just a slider and a value, but it hints at what’s possible. Matthew Presley, Product Manager at Open Labs, mentioned how the right-click element of touch — where you hold until a menu appears — is something they’ve found frustrating. In refreshing the interface for version 2, they decided to get around that by creating a ‘Charms’-style toolbar at the side with all the editing tools, including a ‘Duplicate’ button, which takes the finger pain out of copying and pasting. Their core concern was to make it easy, so that people can just get on and make music.

At $10, there’s nothing really to touch StageLight. The pricing model is similar to that used in so many iOS and Android apps, and it’s something we’ll probably see much more of — the standard software is very cheap, or free, and then, through an in-app store, you can purchase additional features as you get more serious. It’s a refreshing change from the ‘Lite’ versions of DAWs we’re so familiar with, where you always wish you could afford the ‘real’ version just to get a little more functionality. StageLight is increasingly being pre-installed on many Dell, Lenovo and Acer Windows 8 tablets, and as kids these days are unlikely ever to possess an actual desktop computer, this might very well be where they start making music.

Ben Loftis, Product Manager for Mixbus, had this to say: “In a touch interface, you must accommodate calibration errors, parallax, and the splay of your finger. You don’t have any haptic feedback. So, if you want an analogue-console experience on a touchscreen, you will need a touchscreen that is larger than the analogue counterpart. But exactly how much larger depends on the hardware and the user. Currently, Mixbus v2 chooses between three sizes, based on your monitor resolution. But v3 will give the user an infinitely variable-scale slider, so we can accommodate more combinations of screen size and resolution. Also, our plug-ins (like the XT series) are arbitrarily scalable: if you stretch the plug-in window, all the knobs get bigger. We think this will be important for touch users, because many existing plug-ins use tiny buttons.”

The grandaddy of digital audio on the PC, Software Audio Workshop (SAW) Studio added multi-touch control to their Software Audio Console (SAC) live-sound mixer application as long ago as 2010. It was tied into the revolutionary 3M multi-touch screens, as favoured by Perceptive Pixel. Unfortunately, it hasn’t got any further than that, and still only supports multi-touch on these rather expensive screens. The layout of SAC lends itself brilliantly to multi-touch and currently works very well with a single touch — but it would be good to see this opened up to more current and cheaper technology.

It turned out that the development libraries they were using (JUCE C++) contained multi-touch features, which were primarily intended for the iPad, and that these had simply translated into the GUI of the VST version. This is true of all their plug-ins. They’ve now released a larger-GUI option for LuSH-101, for people with fat fingers.

I had a similar experience more recently with Arturia’s Spark 2 soft synth. Arturia told me that they hadn’t planned to make it multi-touch, but that they’re very happy that it is. So, the programming languages already exist to allow developers to include multi-touch functionality without specialist add-ons or tools — which means plug-in manufacturers may start to produce their multi-touch GUIs even while the DAW makers drag their feet.

The alternative to direct touch control of the DAW or plug-ins is to use touchscreen technology as a controller. The Jazz Mutant Lemur, the first commercially available multi-touch controller, has now evolved to become an iPad app, and there are now dozens of iPad apps for controlling DAW software via MIDI or OSC — in fact, there are even a few for Android. They’re selling well and there’s obviously a desire and use for it. The lack of haptic feedback (an actual physical knob or fader) doesn’t appear to be a barrier to most users, despite the recent Kickstarter campaign to manufacture knobs that you can stick onto the surface of the iPad (http://sosm.ag/ipad-knob-kickstarter).

James Ivey, Pro Tools Expert hardware editor (www.pro-tools-expert.com), who owns a Slate Pro Raven MTi controller, put to me the case for touchscreen controls over physical faders: “I was using a Euphonix [now Avid] Artist Control and Mix. So I had 12 faders to play with. With the MTi I have unlimited faders — what’s not to like? I really don’t buy into the “Oh, it’s not a real fader or pot” thing. I’m so much faster on the Raven. It’s big, it’s clear and if I don’t like something about the workflow or arrangement I can change it.”

Perhaps more of a barrier, then, is the physical size of the iPad, and the connectivity when away from the cosy security of your home network. With a touchscreen attached directly to your desktop you have none of the connectivity problems, because the screen is right there: attached via HDMI or DVI, it’s part of your system via a virtual MIDI driver. Although Windows tablets may suffer from the same size issues, hybrids, all-in-ones and dumb touchscreens don’t give you a proper console-sized surface to play with either. Probably the most important point is that the controller can ‘be’ anything — knobs, faders, pads, XY controls, you are not stuck to a hardwired configuration.

SmithsonMartin’s Emulator Elite is an awesome crystal-clear, projected capacitive, 10-point touchscreen that folds out into a beautiful sheet of glass. This is then rear-projected upon to create what looks like the ultimate futuristic DJ performance tool. At $15,500, the ‘Elite’ part of its name is apt. However, a rather more reasonable $99 buys you the screen’s core controller software for use with the desktop. CEO Alan Smithson is a DJ and fully admits that 90 percent of their focus is on the DJ market, but the capabilities of Emulator Pro extend far beyond controlling Traktor and offering performance tools.

Emulator Pro runs only in full-screen mode, but that doesn’t mean it has to obscure the DAW: a feature that’s particularly useful for single-screen setups is the ability to ‘cut holes’ out of its GUI, so that the software running beneath is visible through it. That may be useful to reveal meters, a preview screen, or the arrange page, for instance — the possible configurations are endless.

If Emulator Pro is found lacking anywhere, it’s in the depth of the MIDI side of things. Channel and controller numbers is as far as it goes, so it can’t send SysEx commands or emulate a Mackie HUI, for example. However, Shane Felton (of www.alien-touch.com) has been working on an implementation to get 24 channels of Mackie HUI Control into Pro Tools running on his Apple Mac. The result looks not unlike the Slate Raven MTi, and includes many of the same shortcut buttons and controls. He uses Bome’s MIDI Translator to provide the HUI emulation and three virtual MIDI drivers (one for each group of eight faders) that are setup in Pro Tools. The template files are available to download from his web site, though he stresses that it’s a work in progress and would value contributions.

Back in the world of Usine Hollyhock, we find all sorts of depth, function and parameter possibilities. It has its own ‘add-on’ community, where you can find all sorts of control scripts and patches. Whether it’s SysEx, OSC or even Mackie Control emulation, you’ll find that someone has created a patch for it. Usine Hollyhock has the potential to be an extremely versatile controller. It doesn’t quite have the design simplicity or focus of Emulator (since it’s much more than a controller) but it has far more depth and breadth in terms of control potential.

CopperLan is a networking protocol that connects compatible music software and hardware together. Each device can reveal its parameters by name and be controlled by any other device automatically. It’s a bit like MIDI control, but at a much higher resolution and without all that manual mapping and learning you have to do. There are wrappers for non-compatible plug-ins, but for these you have to manually configure the controls. A CopperLan-compatible touchscreen controller could potentially map itself automatically to whatever CopperLan-compatible plug-in is selected. It can also work internally, without the need for a network, which makes it such an interesting solution for a virtual controller running on the same machine as your DAW.

The DTouch mixer is essentially the fader section of Pro Tools’ mixer window, with cut-outs around the meters so that they shine through. Once the alignment is set up, the design is flawless and you wouldn’t know you were using anything other than the Pro Tools mixer. The toolbar provides all the usual transport controls as well as buttons to activate groups, open selected plug-ins and such like. In the edit window, although no multi-touch controls are overlaid, you get an expanded toolbar full of useful tools and functions. There’s also a load of buttons to which you can assign your own macros. The toolbar allows you to zoom around and perform edits without having to return to the mouse, which is what makes the workflow so effective.

At the time of writing, DTouch was available for Windows 7 only, Pro Tools only, and at a mandatory resolution of 1920 x 1080. However, Devil Technologies were kind enough to let me try their Windows 8.1 beta version, which should be available by the time you read this. One side-effect of the alignment and tight integration is that it’s not very flexible — there’s no ability to edit the controls or create knobs and faders for other things as there is with Emulator and Hollyhock. Instead, its beauty lies in the seamlessness with which it functions alongside the DAW.

I asked the company about the possibility of releasing a generic HUI-based controller, but they tell me they would much prefer to do something that’s designed for the specific DAW — and, encouragingly, they have a Cubase/Nuendo version in the works already. They are also testing out ways to support two screens; currently you have to have everything on the single touchscreen monitor, or the alignments start to shift. Having said that, I tried it over two screens and found that it can work very well, especially on the mix window. But I guess you are back to selecting clips in the edit window with the mouse if you’ve moved it to a non-touch screen.

One unique feature is the ability to incorporate an external, hardware HUI-compatible controller alongside DTouch, to give you the best of all worlds. At 200 Euros it’s more expensive than other, more flexible options I’ve discussed, but it’s a no-nonsense dedicated solution that’s supremely good at what it does.

Let’s get back to the DAW manufacturers. We know the multi-touch support is patchy at the moment, but what of their plans for the future? There appears to be a rough split between software manufacturers for whom multi-touch is already a priority and those who, though interested, are focusing their effort on other priorities. It seems that most of the major firms are the least interested in implementing multi-touch, though. Of course, I should qualify this with the caveat that most major developers don’t like dropping hints about anything that’s unreleased — but Steinberg, for example, went as far as to state that they don’t currently see a market for multi-touch outside the iPad.

The industry’s strong focus on the iPad in recent years is certainly one reason why we see so little development on desktop multi-touch. The other major one is the absence of any lead from Apple into multi-touch support in OS X. It’s not hard to foresee the increasing convergence of iOS and OS X in the medium term, but a fully multi-touch-capable version of OS X still seems a long way off. This, to me, seems a little short-sighted.

James Woodburn, CEO at Tracktion, had this to say: “Eighteen months ago, we were asked regularly when Tracktion would be available for iPad — in fact, we already have a ported version of Tracktion that runs on iOS, but we chose not to release it, as it makes no sense to us to run a full DAW on a limited platform. We would rather design a solution that utilises the iPad’s key benefits and does not expose the limitations The demand, at least from our user base, for iPad support has really dropped off a cliff in the past 12 months — and demand for PC touch is on the rise, albeit quite slowly.”

The key to unlocking multi-touch on the desktop is in the design and implementation of the interface. DAW software has to perform lots of different and precise tasks, some of which lend themselves to touch, but many more of which would be hampered by the fatness and inaccuracy of human fingers. It just makes no sense to build touch into something that would be better accomplished with a mouse. There are also issues with hands and fingers masking the very controls you’re trying to fiddle with.

Bremmers Audio Design have been working with touchscreens for many years, and in MultitrackStudio they’ve developed a neat pop-up window that materialises a couple of inches above what you have your finger on. That means you can see both the control and the value. Even with this function, trying to edit the score window accurately with a fingertip is truly an exercise in futility — but it’s no problem because that’s why we have a mouse. With the iPad it must all be about touch, but with the desktop you can use each and every tool at your disposal, be it single-touch, multi-touch, gestures, stylus, mouse, keyboard, trackpad, Leap Motion, Kinect, hardware controllers, or something else entirely. The desktop should remain an awesomely creative and versatile place.

Spending time over the last few weeks rummaging around in the world of touch-enabled software, I’ve created a bit of a personal wishlist of features. Let’s hope some developers are reading!

In a DAW, I don’t want to be restricted to touch any more than I want to be restricted to a mouse. I want touch controls to become available when I need them — like the way the Pro Channel EQ slides out in Sonar (their mixer needs to do something similar). I want to be able to pinch/zoom into a region and then draw in automation with my finger; but I don’t necessarily want to have to use my fingers to copy and paste, trim audio or move notes.

Scrolling has to be easy, perhaps gesture-based, so that I don’t have to fudge around trying to finger empty space between controls to move the GUI. But I don’t want to have to return to the mouse just to move the screen a bit. Reason has that neat side-panel that shows a zoomed-out version of the rack — which is perfect for finger scrolling. Once you start adding hardware into the equation, a touch-screen makes for a much less jarring experience than putting your hand back on a mouse. In using Arturia’s Spark 2 with the Spark LE controller, it’s so great to be able to simply tap on the screen to change a parameter, preset or sample — it’s a far more fluid experience than moving from a creative hardware place to that mouse zone. It’s also done my RSI no end of good!

In terms of virtual control, which is perhaps more useful, because you could use it with various different bits of music software, a multi-touch screen holds enormous potential. It could be anything, could control anything. Imagine your 24-inch multi-touch screen set before you like a mixer, but placed physically beneath your main (non-touch) screen, and whenever the focus changes to the mixer, or plug-in or instrument, the touchscreen evolves to display the appropriate controls. Something a bit like Novation’s Automap that automatically pulls out the parameters and lays them out in front of you. CopperLan seems to hint at this sort of power, but requires everyone to be compliant for it to reach its potential. That’s the sort of integration we really need.

Hopefully, as more manufacturers realise the advantages of the desktop platform for multi-touch interfaces, they will use it to enhance our music-making environments. With Windows 9 just around the corner, Universal apps and Microsoft’s new-found interest in music production, there’s very little competition and great buckets of processing power and potential for the software developer, which can only mean great things for we touchy-feely users.

The history of touch technology can be traced back to the touch-sensitive capacitance sensors of early synthesizer pioneers such as Hugh LeCaine and Bob Moog — and it’s interesting to note that Apple’s iPad shares the basis of its touch technology with the humble Theremin! The concept of the multi-touch screen was first realised in the 1980s by Bell Labs, but probably made its way into the public consciousness through sci-fi films and series such as Dillinger’s desk in Disney’s Tron (1982) and Star Trek — The Next Generation (1987-94).

In computing terms, multi-touch refers to the ability of a surface to recognise the presence of more than one point of contact. This is distinct from single-touch interfaces, which essentially emulate the mouse input, and moves us through the world of pinch/zoom and gesture control, with which everyone’s familiar, to the possibility of individual touches creating individual actions and responses simultaneously.

The technology that we know today evolved out of a few sources: Fingerworks, a gesture-recognition company who pioneered a number of touchscreen products and were bought by Apple in 2005; Jeff Han’s Perceptive Pixel (bought by Microsoft in 2012) who, back in 2006, were demoing vast multi-touch walls and dazzling us with the concept of pinching photos and swiping maps; and the original Microsoft Surface, now called PixelSense, which started development in 2001 and was an interactive table that combined multi-touch capability with real-world object interaction.

It’s remarkable that in 2005 JazzMutant developed their own multi-touch technology to release the Lemur multi-touch OSC controller commercially. In 2007, with the release of the first iPhone and, a few months later, Microsoft’s Surface (PixelSense) 1.0, we had both ends of the multi-touch spectrum spectacularly catered for. But it would take a few more years for that middle space of tablets, hybrid laptops and multi-touch monitors to really find their technology and pricing sweet spots.

This is a very good question and a hard one to answer! The manufacturers are all over the place, with dual-touch being marketed, confusingly for the end user, as multi-touch, and screens designed for Windows 7 being pushed for Windows 8.

Windows 7, which is still favoured by so many music-makers, supports two-point multi-touch out of the box — so gestures and pinch/zoom all work fine. More points are supported with an additional download, but there was not really any part of the Windows 7 OS that made use of it — so your mileage using multi-touch on that platform will be almost entirely down to the software you’re running.

If designed for Windows 8.x, multi-touch monitors must have at least five simultaneous points. Many all-in-one machines meet only this minimum requirement, whereas hybrids and tablets tend to have 10. Quite honestly, having played with multi-touch for music making for a while now, I’ve rarely found myself using more than two touch-points at once, although sometimes I’ve used up to eight when messing about on a mixer to see what I could do. That said, a 10-point screen is more likely to be a projected-capacitance type, and so of a higher quality than screens offering fewer points.

I chose the Acer T232HL for my own use, because at the time it was the only thing available from the new generation of multi-touch screens. Dell kept promising one, but it kept getting delayed and finally came out about six months after I got the Acer. The Acer remains well regarded, particularly for its ability to lay almost flat, so it was a good choice in that respect.

The biggest gripe I have with multi-touch at the moment is with touch latency — my Acer T232HL adds about 10-15ms (an estimate, having tried playing drum pads, and so on). My understanding is that performance in this regard is rather better on tablets such as the Microsoft Surface, but I’ve not had a chance to test that, so whether, for example, it’s better enough for you to play drums without the latency proving a distraction,z I can’t yet say. Unfortunately, the published specs won’t help: the ‘Response’ time listed in a monitor’s specification usually refers to the change from black to white, and there’s no documentation on the touch response.

We music makers are a greedy bunch. While the rest of the world is moving to ever smaller and more portable devices, we seem to be accruing acres of screen real estate as we hook up multiple monitors to our DAW computers. One question that arose during the course of my research, therefore, was whether you could use two multi-touch screens concurrently with a single computer. This could give you greater access to more parameters spread across a larger desktop or, perhaps more interestingly, allow two people to work on different screens on the same project — for instance, one controlling the mixer, while another controls virtual instruments or effects.

It was a similar story with music applications: when trying to stretch Sonar X3’s mixing console across both screens, for example, the same issue of which screen held the focus arose. The process for grabbing focus is very obvious when you have the screens at different resolutions, because the console jumps in size as you move it between the screens, and that jump is the screen grabbing focus.

However, if I split different tasks out to different screens, the results were more intuitive. Moving Sonar’s mixing console to one screen and its project window to the other allowed me to use them simultaneously with no trouble at all. So, you could have one person mixing levels while the other triggers loops in the Matrix, all in one project on one computer. The bottom line is that multiple multi-touch monitor setups are feasible for music-making, and different applications can be controlled at the same time from some different screens, but I suspect a little trial and error will be required to arrive at the best workflow for each application.

The best touchscreen monitors stand out in an underrepresented monitor market due to their impressive touch display performance. While most displays forgo touch capabilities, even portable ones that would have benefited from the feature, there are excellent touch displays out there that not only beat the odds but do so exceptionally. They"re the ones to consider when you"re in the market for one.

Whether it’s for creative use, productivity tasks, or just to have a screen that’s a bit more interactive, the best touchscreen displays are worth a look. They can help you streamline your workflow as well as make it easier and more intuitive to navigate through your day-to-day task. And, they deliver such a seamless, responsive, and intuitive touchscreen implementation, you"ll feel like you"re writing with an actual pen and a paper. You won’t get that same immediate feedback from even the best mice and the best keyboards.

We’ve put in the work to help you find the right touchscreen monitor for your needs, scouring the market to find the best touchscreen monitors and gather them here for your convenience. Much like how we test monitors, we consider various factors when deciding which ones are worth recommending.

We look at how accurate and responsive the touch capabilities are, what the picture quality is, and what kind of features are included, not to mention how well they’re executed. Some of them we"ve tested or used ourselves, and others we"ve included based on our expertise.

From regular-sized displays ideal for a desktop PC to portable ones for those needing more screen real estate while on the road, these are the best touchscreen monitors in 2022. Since availability varies between the US and UK, we’ve separated the best touchscreen monitors into those two categories.

If you prefer a more traditional monitor, possibly with a higher resolution, check out our best 4K monitors guide. If accurate colours are important to you, whether you’re a photographer or video editor, you might want to invest in one of the best monitor calibrator tools.

With so many options on the market, our choice of the best touchscreen monitors comes down to the details. And detail is something that Dell"s P2418HT monitor does brilliantly. This 1080p monitor on a 23.8-inch panel boasts an LCD screen to deliver excellent resolution, contrast, and colour. Moreover, it boasts an anti-glare surface that works beautifully in distracting light conditions as well as ultra-thin bezels that give it a stylish flair and you more screen real estate.

Looking for a cheap touchscreen monitor from a reputable brand? The 21.5in Dell P2219H IPS monitor is available at a brilliant price, and it still does an impressive job, making it one of the best touchscreen monitors available for those on a tighter budget.

The ViewSonic TD2230 is small, light and portable touchscreen monitor, making it perfect for anyone with limited desk space and/or who needs to travel with their screen. The 22in, Full HD, IPS display offers beautifully sharp image quality and high visual accuracy. The screen is also scratch-poof, and the bookstand design allows it to be tilted and adjusted from 20 to 70 degrees, or rested flat.

While creative professionals usually go for larger screens, there’s definitely a place for portable monitors in content creation. Nomadic users in particular can benefit from a portable monitor that’s designed specifically with video editors, designers, and music producers in mind.

The ProArt Display PA148CTV is something of a rarity in the sea of portable monitors with its robust set of features targeted towards creatives. They include the Asus Dial, a physical dial that you can use to make effortless adjustments to your project whether you’re in Lightroom, Premiere Pro, or Photoshop. There’s also the Virtual Control Panel function, which allows you to use the display itself as your touchscreen control panel, simplifying your workflow.

The Viewsonic TD1655 is another small, portable option from Viewsonic, and one that comes with a budget price. The 15.6-inch monitor offers 1080p resolution, which is more than enough for a panel this size. It is a little light on special features, but it delivers where it counts.

The Asus ZenScreen Touch MB16AMT is an impressive piece of portable display that boasts a plethora of features in its small, 9mm frame. That includes four-hour battery life, included stylus that works beautifully, built-in speakers, and automatic screen orientation. It isn"t a wonder, therefore, that it"s a bit pricier than other 1080p portable monitors out there.

Want a larger touchscreen monitor? Most touchscreen monitors tend to be on the smaller side, but this 27in offering from Planar offers a relatively large IPS LED-backlit display. While Full HD is a little thin for a 27in display, the screen offers dependable color accuracy and contrast that won"t shift depending on where you"re looking.

It"s a versatile monitor too, with a built-in HD webcam and microphone, making it great for home office working and video conferencing. It boasts 10-point capacitive multi-touch and an ergonomic stand that can take the display from completely flat to a 70-degree tilt.

Number one in our list above isn"t in stock in the UK at the time of writing, but the Philips 242B9T is a good alternative. It might not be the most stylish looking touch monitor but it has an awful lot to offer. For a start, it comes with built-in 2W speakers. Also, you can connect it to a wide range of devices via HDMI, DVI, VGA and DisplayPort.

The 21.5-inch Dell P2219H IPS monitor is something of a bargain and one of the best touchscreen monitors at an affordable price. It offers up to 250 nits of brightness, 178-degree viewing angles, and Full HD resolution. There"s a nicely adjustable stand, ultra-thin bezels provide for a sleek look.

As we mentioned in our list for the US above, the 22-inch ViewSonic TD2230 is a small, light and portable touchscreen monitor, perfect for those with limited desk space or who need a travel-friendly monitor. The scratchproof Full HD, IPS display offers sharp, accurate image quality, and the bookstand design offers versatile adjustment so you can rest it flat or tilt from 20 to 70 degrees.

The Asus VT229H comes with many features you’ll find on most touchscreen monitors, including 10-point multi-touch capacity, 178/178 viewing angles, flicker-free backlighting, and blue light filter to make it easy on the eyes. However, it also boasts a few extras you won’t find on rival displays, and these help make your workflow more seamless.

At the other end of the spectrum, the Viewsonic TD1655 is a small, portable budget 15.6in monitor. It offers 1080p resolution, you can use all ten fingers on the screen, and you can easily flip the screen to vertical, which can be very useful for those working with code, or if you simply need to scroll through reams of text.

Nomadic creatives will appreciate this portable monitor. There aren"t many such devices aimed specifically at video editors, designers, and music producers, but the ProArt Display PA148CTV offers several features specifically aimed at creatives. The Asus Dial is a physical dial that allows quick adjustments to projects whether you’re in Lightroom, Premiere Pro, or Photoshop. The Virtual Control Panel function allows you to use the display as your touchscreen control panel, simplifying your workflow immensely.

You get impeccable colour coverage (100% sRGB and 100% Rec.709), excellent colour accuracy of ΔE < 2 out of the box, and Calman Verification. All this and more is packed into an incredibly compact package, so if you"re looking for an additional screen for travel or use in the field, this is a gem.Is a touchscreen monitor worth it?If you’ve ever used a touchscreen laptop and wished you could do the same at your desk, then the slightly higher price of a touchscreen monitor over its non-touch counterpart is well worth it. After all, there’s no other way to get that kind of nuanced control when navigating various windows and apps. For example, if you want to translate handwriting to text or draw directly on the screen using your finger, one of these panels is the way to do it. And, instead of having to use keyboard shortcuts to carry out a command, you can perform the actual action directly on the screen.

But, you won’t be holding a touchscreen display the way you would a tablet or smartphone. So, consider whether you’re comfortable using your fingers to navigate a screen that’s sitting at eye level for long periods.What are the disadvantages of a touchscreen monitor?There are some drawbacks to using a touchscreen monitor. For example, holding your arm up to interact with a touchscreen throughout a day’s worth of work will get tiring no matter how strong you are. And, you’ll have to clean that screen regularly. Otherwise, that buildup of smudges and fingerprints can get in the way of seeing it properly.

Most importantly, however, touchscreen displays are more likely to experience some kind of damage. This is because there’s much more going on under the hood than with non-touch monitors. And, when something goes wrong, it will cost more to fix due to the more complicated design of these panels.What is a 10 point touchscreen?A 10 point touchscreen can register 10 distinct points of contact all at once. Not all touchscreen devices and displays utilise this technology. But, having it makes a huge difference in the accuracy of your taps, swipes, and various gestures. With one or two-point touchscreens, any accidental contact like the edge of your palm grazing the screen could confuse the interface and register a tap where it shouldn’t be. Utilising a 10 point touchscreen largely eliminates that kind of accidental interaction. And, it also allows for more complex interactions like typing directly on the screen.

There might have been many times when you found yourself squinting at a tiny laptop screen, struggling to fit mixer panels and plugin windows on the same screen. If you’ve had enough and want to save your eyesight by making investing in a computer monitor, then you needn’t look any further than this guide. However, we understand that not everyone has the space for a monitor, so don’t forget to check out our list of the best laptops for music production!

A computer monitor is essential, especially when it comes to music production. You don’t want to waste your money on something that won’t last very long. After conducting a lot of research, we’ve concluded that the best computer monitor for music production is the LG 34WN80C-B. We’d recommend this monitor to all music producers because of how much screen real estate it offers. Don’t worry about the specifics because we’ll get into that very quickly.

Our two other picks are the Dell Computer Ultrasharp U2415 and the HP VH240a. Each monitor has a large screen, which saves you the hassle of trying to buy multiple monitors. As we mentioned before, we’ll be giving you all the details on each of these monitors very quickly.

In this article, we’ll take you through a list of the top seven best computer monitors for music production. We’ll give you an overview of each product, followed by a list of its technical specifications. After that, we’ll go through the advantages and disadvantages of each. We’ll conclude the article with a short buying guide for computer monitors and some frequently asked questions.

First up on our list of the best computer monitors for music production is the LG 34WN80C-B. This is the best monitor for producing music. It is curved and ultrawide and was explicitly built for multimedia purposes.

The second item on our list is the Dell Computer Ultrasharp U2415. In addition to working well in a music production studio. This monitor also works well for gamers in search of an anti-glare screen.

It has Vesa mounting. What this means is that you can mount the display on walls or brackets with a 100m VESA mounting pattern. Please note that the mounting bracket is not sold with the monitor.

Next up on our list is this ACER monitor. It offers you the chance to work with an ultra-wide monitor without having to change your existing setup too much. The screen size of this monitor is excellent, and it has a high-resolution screen.

If you’re a music producer looking to create a more productive workspace with a monitor that has excelled HD resolution, then you’ve found the exact monitor to help you achieve that goal. These Dell UltraSharp monitors have excellent screen space, and they work wonderfully as studio monitors.

We’re almost at the end of our list, and our next pick is the ViewSonic VA2855SMH. This computer monitor has a larger screen than some of the other computer monitors mentioned in our list. It’s perfect for music production because of how large the screen is, preventing you from needing a dual monitor setup. Additionally, since most music producers require a setup that works well with a digital audio workstation, this ViewSonic product is one of the best monitors for music production.

The last item on our list is the ASUS VZ279HE! In addition to this monitor being one of the best computer monitors for music production, this is one of the best studio monitors that you could buy.

This Asus monitor uses Asus Eye Care technology with flicker-free backlighting and a blue light filter that has been designed to minimize glare and eye pain.

In this case, you’re purchasing a computer monitor for music production. Therefore, you want to ensure that the monitor you buy fits into your music production setup; for example, it should work well with DAW software and have a few HDMI inputs. As an audio engineer or music producer, you might choose a gaming monitor because of its enhanced graphics performance, thus allowing you to see all the windows open. In other words, just make sure that the monitor can hold up to what you need it to do.

In this music production situation, the best monitors for music production should be bigger. If you have a bigger monitor, it means that you have more space on your screen to keep multiple windows open. It will help you become more productive, and if your monitor is big enough, it prevents you from purchasing a second monitor.

When buying a new monitor, it’s essential to check to see what inputs the monitors have. This is because you will need to connect your computer to an external monitor at some point. Make sure that your monitor is equipped with an HDMI port, along with USB, VGA, and various others.

This article took you through a list of the top 7 best monitors for music production. We’ve concluded that the best monitor for music production is the LG 34WN80C-B, with the Acer R240HY and the Dell UltraSharp U2720Q 27 as our two other best computer monitors! Now that you have some idea about which monitors are best for music production, don’t forget to check out our guides to the best mouse for music production and the best sound card for music production!

Soundation provides you with loops, samples, software instruments, audio effects, etc for free in your web browser! With multiplayer mode, you can collaborate in real time with others! Soundation provides you with an online community to publish your music and see what other people are working on.

Amped Studio is a modern web based music studio and production environment. With instant access to virtual instruments, effects, loops and easy to use tools to make music right in your browser. Compose with your voice, explore the sound library and share your projects with Amped Studio.

Learn the basics of making music online with this interactive site from Ableton. Play and experiment with beats, melody, song structures, bass and more — all from your browser. And you can export it all to Ableton!

Serato Studio is the ultimate beat maker with intuitive software that’s perfect for beat makers and DJs at any skill level. Make DJ edits, mashups and beats from your music library with plenty of loops, drum kits, instruments and ready to use samples!

A digital playground that uses technology to uncover possibilities of the material world. They build gadgets to make the world musical and use online synths because they are super accessible.

Dot Piano is a visual musical instrument that lives on the web. Use your computer keys or MIDI keyboard to record a song, then share it simply by sending a link!

An online music creation platform recreating the sound of the legendary TR-808 drum machine and TB-303 bass synthesizer that allows you to download your creations, save them and share them on social media.

Create an addictive beat with an app intuitive enough for beginners! Simply slide your finger across the play pad to record and tweak drumbeats, melodies and bass lines. Just bring your inspiration and Figure will help you take care of the rest!

Audacity is an easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux and other operating systems that is completely free and perfect for beginners!

A virtual deal simulator to help artists, managers, and labels model deal options and forecast profits. It’s a rough guide to better understand the finances of how record deals work!

An analogue synth made with the Web Audio API that allows you to explore oscillations, waveforms and range in the comfort of your browser! Explore the world of Square, Sawtooth and Triangle waveforms!

Groove Pizza is a free web based playful tool for creating grooves using math concepts utilizing shapes, angles, and patterns. Share your creations on social media, or you can continue your groove over at the online digital audio workstation at Soundtrap.com!

This highly interactive online music composition course is built for software-based musicians of any genre: electronic musicians, producers, video game composers, and more. If you write music in a DAW or other music-making software, or you want to learn how to, Building Blocks can help.

Free-to-use collaborative music studio with built in drums, synths, fx and much more! Quickly layer loops and beats to create ever evolving soundscapes. Intuitive workflow fine-tuned to keep you locked in the groove and express your musical creativity - alone or together with others.

A web-based musical sequencer that uses 8bit sounds and samples. Designed to mimic the classic Nintendo Game Boy it features basic controls and graphics where you can assign simple waveforms and noise, tweak volume, panning and low/high frequency cutoff!

A web based dj app built for music discovery and playlist development that easilly connects to their partners Pioneer DJ, Serato DJ, Denon DJ, Hercules, DJay and more.

Probe, from the makers of Audiotool, is a free online wave based sample editor and audio lab with integrated effects right in the comfort of your browser!

TwistedWave is a multichannel editor, but not a multi-track editor, and you will only have a single track at a time, where you can mix music and voice together!

The Hip Hop Poetry Bot is an AI research project, exploring speech generation trained on rap and hip hop lyrics by black artists. The research project built an algorithm that requires a large, public dataset of rap and hip hop lyrics to train it. Therefore, the project is launching with an open call asking rap and hip hop artists to contribute their lyrics!

AR Synth is an online AR/3D experiment that helps everyone to engage and play with five famous synthesizers from the collection of the Swiss Museum for Electronic Music Instruments (SMEM): create interactive loops, compose patterns and interact with features inspired by these machines. AR technology or not you can enjoy these synths!

This experiment pays tribute to and explores the original musical instrument: the voice. Play four opera voices in real time. No singing skills required! In the experiment you don’t hear their voices, but the machine learning model’s understanding of what opera singing sounds like, based on what it learnt from them.

Use the aQWERTYon (QWERTY accordion) as you play along with your favorite YouTube videos to learn about improvising, learning, and making music with your computer keyboard. Feel free to check out heir bedroom producer course and Web Midi as well!

An online and free text-based podcast editing software! Type Studio transcribes your podcast so you can edit it by just editing the text with an easy user friendly experience for both professionals and amateurs!

Learn piano with Pianu, where it doesn’t feel like taking a class; it feels like a game! You’ll start with the basics and work your way to more complicated chords, and before you know it, you’ll be playing full songs!

Boomy uses music automation technology powered by AI that allows you to use to create and save original songs in seconds for free and you also create and distribute releases to all major streaming services and earn a share of royalties!

djay is a music mixing software program that allows playback and mixing of digital audio files with a user interface that tries to simulate the concept of "two turntables and a microphone" on a computer so you can get to mixing.

A fun and easy-to-use DJ software that has all the tools you need to mix music and videos in your browser using music from SoundCloud or YouTube by playing videos from the YouTube catalog. If you need help getting started with YOU.DJ, check out our article here!

Web based DJ software with MIDI that integrates with your local music library and SoundCloud"s online catalog for blending songs seamlessly. Need help getting started? Check out our article here where we walk you through the app!

Promo is an online video maker that helps you create high-quality professional video clips with royalty-free music, customizable video templates and more. There"s a free trial you can use, and even if you don"t choose to purchase it those videos are yours!

Create custom drum beats with just a few clicks! Start with options from 15 drum kits and 26 effects, and adjust the pitch of each drum to your own liking. Save and share your beats from the comfort of your browser!

A multitouch synthesizer that allows you to play with 4 waveforms, delay & scuzz effects, then record, loop and even download your creation from the app.

A fun and easy to use online music studio including a sample pad, a voice recorder, a sequencer and music samples added by artists that’s good for beginners!

Mint Songs builds tools that enables music artists to turn their creative assets into eco-friendly NFTs for $0 minting fees. With Mint, users can grow and display and sell their music NFT collections on the Mint marketplace.

Sound.xyz combines music and economic tools for artists through NFT songs. From listening parties to meetups, Sound.xyz fuels collaboration and ownership amongst artists, their community and their backers.

Catalog is a record press, an auction house, and an open music library. Catalog records are unique tokens that exist on the internet forever. Verified artists receive 100% when they sell their record and fans can trust what they"re buying.

Every aspect of the light imaging system in Pro Display XDR is crucial to the overall quality of what you see onscreen. Each element builds on top of the last to create a display with unbelievable brightness and contrast.

Typical LCDs are edge-lit by a strip of white LEDs. The 2D backlighting system in Pro Display XDR is unlike any other. It uses a superbright array of 576 blue LEDs that allows for unmatched light control compared with white LEDs. Twelve controllers rapidly modulate each LED so that areas of the screen can be incredibly bright while other areas are incredibly dark. All of this produces an extraordinary contrast that’s the foundation for XDR.

For even greater control of light, each LED is treated with a reflective layer, a highly customized lens, and a geometrically optimized reflector that are all unique to Pro Display XDR. Through a pioneering design, light is reflected, mixed, and shaped between two layers to minimize blooming and provide uniform lighting.

Converting blue light to white is a difficult process that requires extremely precise color conversion. It’s why most display makers use white LEDs. Pro Display XDR accomplishes this conversion with an expertly designed color transformation sheet made of hundreds of layers that control the light spectrum passing through them.

Pro Display XDR extends exceptional image quality to the very edge. To ensure that LEDs along the sides of the display mix well with adjacent ones, a micro-lens array boosts light along the edges. This creates uniform color and brightness across the entire screen.

With a massive amount of processing power, the timing controller (TCON) chip utilizes an algorithm specifically created to analyze and reproduce images. It controls LEDs at over 10 times the refresh rate of the LCD itself, reducing latency and blooming. It’s capable of multiple refresh rates for amazingly smooth playback. Managing both the LED array and LCD pixels, the TCON precisely directs light and color to bring your work to life with stunning accuracy.

Load any audio file into Quick Sampler, or create samples by recording directly into Quick Sampler with hardware like a microphone, synth, or drum machine. Automatically tune and loop a sample, create a "sliced" instrument that"s great for a drum loop or vocal phrase, or use Quick Sampler as a simple one-shot player for single drum hits. You can also convert sliced loops into a Drum Machine Designer kit, where individual slices are loaded onto pads to provide maximum control of playback and plug-in effects.

Drag a file from the Logic Pro files browser, Loops browser, a region from any track or from the Finder into one of these areas of the Quick Sampler waveform display:

To listen to your sample, play the Quick Sampler with musical typing or a connected USB or MIDI keyboard. The sample is mapped to keys above and below the defined root key, which by default is C3. Notes below the root key play the sample at a lower pitch and slower speed, while notes above play the sample at a higher pitch and faster speed a sample.

To play a sound across the keyboard range or if you want to loop a sample, choose Classic mode. The sample plays while you hold a key and stops when you release.

To play a sample from start to end whether a key is held or not, use One Shot mode. A simple note trigger will play the entire sample. Use this for triggering single drum sounds.

To divide a sample into individual hits, use Slice mode. Slice mode analyzes the sample and divides it into slices based on the transients in the sample. The slices are then mapped to keyboard keys so you can play each slice independently. You can also create a Drum Machine Designer track from a sliced sample, where individual slices are loaded onto pads to provide maximum control of playback and plug-in effects.

You can edit each sample slice directly within the Drum Machine Designer. Click a pad in the drum grid to see the sample in the waveform display, below the drum grid. Change the playback mode, adjust the start and end point of the sample, adjust the fade in and fade out, and more.

You can create a MIDI region of a sliced sample, then add it to the Tracks area or a Live Loops cell. Drag from the lower portion of the waveform display in Sampler to the Sampler track lane in the Tracks area or to a cell of the Sampler track in the Live Loops grid.

It’s been nearly two decades since prototype digital pianos hit the market, and that means we’re working with mature technology. Regardless of your budget, there’s probably a good keyboard that suits your needs.

Our Top 5 Lists feature the best digital pianos and keyboards for each price point, ranging from budg