Hot rumor: CDM’s Peter Kirn reports that the JazzMutant Lemur controller software has been ported to the iPad, and that he’s seen it in use:
“A funny thing happened to me the other afternoon. I’m looking over the shoulder of M-nus DJ Ambivalent (Kevin McHugh) at Berlin’s Watergate and an afterparty, and I see – no, that’s not TouchOSC. That sure looks like a Lemur step sequencer.
And then I might have spotted something similar in the front-of-house at Flughafen Tempelhof’s FLY BERMUDA show, for Richie Hawtin.”
The Lemur was retired last year, as adoption of the iPad by musicians reached critical mass.
At that time, many Synthtopia readers wondered why JazzMutant did not port the Lemur software to the iPad:
“Why isn’t Jazzmutant just developing a UI for a variety of DAWs now? Why not take advantage of all of this?
I’m curious how much Korg made with their various iApps. I sure gave them 40 bucks or so…”
Jazz Mutant Lemur On The iPad
While nothing has been officially announced on this, Kirn reviewed the hardware Lemur a few years ago for Keyboard Magazine, so it’s unlikely that he was confused by a similar-looking interface.
Lemur advocates would argue that the device had many features which are yet to be duplicated in apps for the iPad or other tablet devices.
What do you think of the prospect of the Lemur coming to the iPad as an app? Is it about time – or do you think it’s too late for it to be relevant?
The video, via bishop813, captures some the JazzMutant Lemur in use with Reason 4 & Ableton Live.
I’d say it’s about time. All of the iPad controller software has been modeled after the Lemur anyway, for the most part, so I would think they should be able to step the game up. It’s not ‘too little, too late’ as long as Jazz Mutant bypasses the need for a WIFI connection somehow. Otherwise I still wouldn’t even trust its connection in my own house.
Considering that Jazzmutant couldn’t be bothered to fix bugs that they themselves acknowledged for more than a year, I wouldn’t get too excited. If they have hired different programmers there might be a chance that this version of the Jazzeditor won’t suck. I loved my Lemur but the frustration of dealing with the bugs in the Jazzeditor software and subsequent unusable features on the Lemur impacted my decision to sell it greatly. The Key Command features touted in v2.0 never worked properly and Jazzmutant basically gave their customers the cold shoulder when they decided to provide no further support, not fix the known issues, and not make the code open source so the users wouldn’t be left with Lemurs tethered to aging machines and dated operating systems.
Good points – that’s why I wonder if a Lemur app would make much of a splash, at this point.
I would like to see some of the ideas explored on the Lemur brought to the iPad. And more alternatives / competition in the MIDI controller space would probably be good.
I think touchOsc is probably the most similar, and it still leaves me wanting as far as ease of use. Attempting to setup controllers for varying soft synths tends to be a chore, and I still don’t see a lot of templates online. If anyone does really find it easy to use for say reaktor/razor, massive, groove machine, sylenth1, please chime in on your resources! Anyways, lemur COULD provide additional stability if it does offer wired support.
The Lemur has it’s advantages over the iPad still, such as little to no latency and a larger screen. I agree that the jazz editor has it’s flaws, but overall the lemur is stll the easiest and most customizable midi interface I have used.
If they do a complete port of their software, and fix the previous issues, it would do well I think. The programability within the lemur software itself is more than any of the programs available for the iPad right now (this is without using Max of course).