New Google Project, Argos, Will Let You Create Free Multi-Touch Musical Instruments….For The iPad

Free Music Software: This is a video demo for Argos Interface Builder – an open-source drag-and-drop interface tool, for Windows and Mac, designed for building multi-touch music and visual performance applications.

Argos was developed as a 2009 Google Summer of Code project. It lets you create multi-touch interfaces for MIDI or OpenSoundControl applications and instruments.

To start, Argos will offer standard GUI components:

  • text-boxes
  • check-boxes
  • sliders
  • knobs
  • buttons.

It will also offer audio-specific controls, including:

  • envelopes
  • multi-sliders
  • X-Y pads

If that’s not cool enough – developer Dimitri Diakopoulos is already thinking about a version of Argos for the Apple iPad:

With the impending release of the iPad in late March / early April, it would make sense to have Argos in a stable and useful condition for users by then.

The tentative plan is to complete some of the major unfinished features and perhaps use ofx-iPhone.

Argos is currently pre-release and Diakopoulos looking for developers who may be interested in helping with the project.

14 thoughts on “New Google Project, Argos, Will Let You Create Free Multi-Touch Musical Instruments….For The iPad

  1. Headline is misleading – Google's Summer of Code program funds work on a whole lot of things that are not Google projects in any real sense, including this.

  2. This is 50% of what the digital musical interface future needs… now we just need to overcome the impasse of MIDI, and hardware and software created around MIDI. Multi-touch, as I've been ranting about for years now, is far and away the best way to achieve true musical expressiveness in digital music performance and composition… but not until envelopes, automation and all the rest can become more complex (without becoming more complicated) and that required a UI which can deal with higher order perspective patching ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Kudos, this is a great step in the right direction.

  3. This is 50% of what the digital musical interface future needs… now we just need to overcome the impasse of MIDI, and hardware and software created around MIDI. Multi-touch, as I've been ranting about for years now, is far and away the best way to achieve true musical expressiveness in digital music performance and composition… but not until envelopes, automation and all the rest can become more complex (without becoming more complicated) and that required a UI which can deal with higher order perspective patching ๐Ÿ˜‰

    Kudos, this is a great step in the right direction.

  4. Good points – but I'd love to just be able to use something like this as the ultimate patch editor for some older synths, like the Six Trak or a DX7.

  5. Good points – but I'd love to just be able to use something like this as the ultimate patch editor for some older synths, like the Six Trak or a DX7.

  6. Headline is misleading – Google's Summer of Code program funds work on a whole lot of things that are not Google projects in any real sense, including this.

  7. Headline is misleading – Google's Summer of Code program funds work on a whole lot of things that are not Google projects in any real sense, including this.

  8. Need to get the iPad off Apple, the closed system is too limiting. Plus the WHACK JOB chipset they are using will be another roadblock (chip arch specific fails)

    Let's try to get some focus on Android run pads? aPad anyone? I don't like Java (the Android variant is tolerable), but that OBJ-C crap is for the birds. Generally the most bad of programming languages around.

  9. Need to get the iPad off Apple, the closed system is too limiting. Plus the WHACK JOB chipset they are using will be another roadblock (chip arch specific fails)

    Let's try to get some focus on Android run pads? aPad anyone? I don't like Java (the Android variant is tolerable), but that OBJ-C crap is for the birds. Generally the most bad of programming languages around.

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