- Up until just recently, the competition for supremacy in iOS control of Ableton Live was essentially a race between two horses: Liine and Zerodebug. Liine's LiveControl 2 and Zerodebug's TouchAble applications won over distinct fanbases, but LiveControl 2 was the new kid on the block and had the edge on a number of features. That all changed when Ableton released 9.1, which temporarily rendered LiveControl useless for those who had installed the upgrade. (As of December 27th, this was fixed.) In a bit of good fortune, Zerodebug seized the opportunity with the release of TouchAble 2, a major upgrade that touts an impressive list of new features in addition to a ground-up code rewrite.
One of the things I noted in my original review was the relative difficulty in getting TouchAble up and running, which required knowledge of IP addresses and the installation of a virtual MIDI device on PCs. This process is much improved with TouchAble 2. There are still prerequisites that have to be installed (including Java, which could be a problem for some due to the security issues that have surfaced this year), but once that's done it becomes extremely simple to start using TouchAble in future sessions. While the best option for connecting is still an ad-hoc wireless network (especially when playing live), in the studio I had no problems at all connecting through a router. According to the Zerodebug folks, this is thanks in part to the new code rewrite, which has made the app faster and more reliable.
Once you've successfully connected to a Live session, the new TouchAble GUI reveals a similar layout to the original, where you can choose from six views to occupy either half or all of the screen real estate: Clips, Mixer, Devices, Keys & Drum Pad, XY Pad and the new Template Editor view. Touchable 2 now also takes advantage of the top and bottom edge of the GUI. The top houses global controls like transport, quantization and undo/redo, and the bottom shows controls specific to the currently active view. In order to maximize usability, these new toolbars and the main side menu can be hidden, which is a nice addition.
You'll find a browser button in the new top toolbar. This opens up yet another UI element along the left edge of the screen that allows you to navigate through Live's library. While this may seem to fall into the "neat, but ultimately useless" category, the browser goes a level above most controller apps by enabling drag and drop loading of devices and samples from Live's library into individual tracks or drum racks. This is a pretty handy addition that helps you get a track built up quickly right from the iPad. The browser is a bit hamstrung because Live's API doesn't return custom user entries from the library, so for now it's factory presets and devices only.
Moving down into the views themselves, the Clip view sees two of the more notable changes in this new version. First, there is now an option to navigate larger sessions more easily using a mode that allows you to select which clips will be in focus from a higher-level overview. The second (and more impressive) change is the ability to edit MIDI clips within TouchAble 2, filling a conspicuous gap from the original. The wait was worth it, though, as the Zerodebug crew did a great job here. You can enter notes in either Drum Mode or Chord Mode, with each applying different flows to the act of creating, moving and deleting notes. Notes can also be transformed in different ways once they are in a clip, allowing you to do interesting things like mute individual drum's MIDI hits or reverse the MIDI sequence for an instrument. One curious omission from the note transformation controls is the ability to quantize notes that have already been recorded, which would have been very helpful.
Device control got a boost in TouchAble 2 as well. Starting off in the Devices view, the same native template/basic fader dynamic from the original is still in effect. The native templates have improved here though, with EQ8, Autofilter and Ping Pong Delay all sporting new and/or improved interfaces. (Other device interfaces will reportedly be made available via in-app purchase sometime early in 2014.) Navigating to the devices you want to control has been made easier in TouchAble 2 as well. The Devices view has a new Combo Mode that allows you to pick a group of your favorite devices from anywhere in the session and make them quickly accessible, as if they were all in the same track.
For those looking to work with something other than the usual slider interface, Zerodebug added the Template Editor view. This is essentially Lemur or TouchOSC functionality within a Live controller, allowing you to build completely custom interfaces right on the iPad and connect them to a mixture of Live parameters and MIDI messages. Between the Devices view, the XY Pad and these custom templates it's easy to get lost in the possibilities. In fact, I found myself at a point of confusion when I had a single parameter mapped in more than one place—in the current incarnation, the XY pad modulation is not fed back to the custom template controls, so parameters can be jumpy when switching between the two views. I also found myself wishing for the ability to save a template as the default for a given Live device or plug-in, rather than having them mapped directly to a single instance of a device.
Despite these complaints, after a week of playing, TouchAble 2 has carved a place for itself as my go-to Live controller. The new features and revamped code base could make an easy case for a paid upgrade, but the new version is generously offered as a free update for any current users. Much like the original version, it takes a few days to get a hang of some of the more enigmatic UI indicators, but this video guide is an excellent resource. If you already own TouchAble, you owe it to yourself to spend the time to get re-acclimated with the new version. If you don't own it yet, and are an Ableton user with an iPad, it's an easy recommendation.
Ratings:
Cost: 4.5/5
Versatility: 4.5/5
Ease of use: 3/5