Hi All
There have been quite a few discussions about the merits, or not, of touch screens, and thought that instead of adding it to other posts, a new thread would be in order.
Anyway here’s something to think about.
The human being works a lot more efficiently if they can press what they see, rather then having to look, to see which button they need to press, to achieve what they can see onscreen.
The touch screen is used in all types of jobs and walks of life, and because there are no moving parts, there is nothing to wear out or clog up; in fact for a lot of jobs and uses the touch screen is the best input device that was ever invented. (Thought control is still some way off)
There is however one thing about a touch screen that some keyboard manufactures have not yet realised, and which was identified in other industries a long time ago, and that is, that a screen that is too small, badly laid out or the use of the wrong colours, wreaks total havoc for the person that has to use it.
When keyboard manufactures get this sorted, (Some already have) then the touch screen will realise its full potential in keyboards.
A good touch screen BTW should allow you to just lower your eyes (Without moving your head) and not have to refocus to see it, and to also have large and well defined buttons, with similar functions grouped together.
Another viewpoint on the touch screen to consider.

Bill

I am betting the next Korg PAX will have a larger screen with less icons per page. At the moment it's rather cluttered and the only reliable way to use the PAX is to use the back of your finger nail.
The Roland G70 touch screen is nicer & easier to use and nearer what is required from a touch screen.

Hi,

in my experience, in studio and on stage, my Pa1X touch works fine.

I saw a lot of new applications of the touch in the real world like:
- ticket point at the railway station,
- bancomat
- info point at museums, fairs, etc.

This seems a good feedback to understand how this technology looks intuitive and foolproof. If this has never happened you will never had applications like the mentioned before, that is targeted to really different people around the world.

The only counterpart (see also another topic) is problems that arise for visually impaired or blind people: I saw a solution, with alternative keys around the touch screen, only in the case of bancomat, not for the other two (sorry).

Just my 0,01%.

Regards.

This is a touch screen keyboard rig I currently use at some of my gigs. The touch screen is a Music Pad Pro which several of us in this forum use. I am using it both for music display and backing MP3 file playback. By good fortune it happens to lock onto the metal music stand of the Kawai ES4 piano so it's rock-solid and I can use it easily. The audio output of the MPP routes through the internal speaker system of the piano. I had hoped that one day a manufacturer would get the idea of making a truly large screen touch display was big enough for displaying full-page music in this fashion but this is probably the only way to get what I wanted anytime soon.

Functionally the touch pad works fine... it's the OS that could stand refinement and be a little easier to use on stage, but it works. As a bonus it lights me up a little at night when I play.

Esh. That's very good I did not realise the Music Pad Pro was as large as that.
You never know a manufacturer may see your setup and get ideas.

[This message has been edited by Graham UK (edited 05-09-2006).]

Why does the text in this topic exceed the width of the page area, thereby having to scroll back and forth? Is there a fix?

Renig,

it's because of the pictures size.
To fix the problem you have to resize the picture which only Esh can do.

Eric

[This message has been edited by Eric, B (edited 05-09-2006).]

Okay, thanks EricB.

I own both a G-70 and a PA1X and totally agree with you on this. The Roland's touch screen is excellent to use in just about every respect. The Korg's is far less satisfactory. Poor use of colour and contrast, too cluttered, poor response when pressed (sometimes have to have two or three goes to get items near the bottom of the screen to trigger).

I think Korg may have put too much effort into making the screen visuals "serious and professional" looking, rather than putting the emphasis on actually making them easy to use. Same sort of reasoning that produced many "must be all black, have tiny unmarked buttons, no speakers and a completely impossible operating system - otherwise it must be a kids toy" approach that has given us so many unneccesarily innaccessible keyboards over the years.

Don't get me wrong - of these two I think the PA1X is the better keyboard in most respects. However the Roland has it beat hands down for general ease of use and the touch screen design in particular.

Regards - Mike


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I have voiced my opinions about the touch screens many times before, but since this thread was specifically started to talk about the touch screens, I am going to put in my $.02.

It is true that touch screens are used in many different applications - photo copiers, bank machines, etc. So are the screwdrivers. Yet very few of us need to use a screwdriver in our gigs. That is the case because the screwdriver is a tool, and a very useful one for an appropriate job. The same is true of the touch screens. They are flexible, have no moving parts, and easy to program (as well as cheaper than the systems using a screen AND buttons). Yet, you will have a hard time using a flat screwdriver on a Phillips screw. I believe that using a touch screen as the ONLY means of navigation of an instrument are equally inappropriate.

My company (where I have my day job) manufactures control systems for industrial plants, and were probably the first ones to use touch screens in large-scale applications. I have spent years as a software engineer leading development of user interfaces using such touch screens. So I base my opinion on experience and feedback of thousands of users, and not only my own interpretation.

Despite the advantages that the touch screens have (we all realize what they are), they have a number of shortcomings, which make them detrimental to the use in live, time-critical situations.

One problem with the touch screens is one does not know where to touch it until the screen is repainted. If you have to select a particular sound by pressing a button for bank and a button for individual selection, you know exactly the position of the button to press for each, and can anticipate where to position your fingers for the second press even before the first button is pressed. This is not the case selecting on a touch screen – you have to press the bank button, wait for the screen to display the list of individual selections, and only then position your finger to make the individual sound selection.

The second problem is that a screen does not provide a tactile feedback to you. After making a selection on a touch screen, the ONLY way you would know that you have indeed touched the correct “virtual button” is if you look on the screen. This is not so with the buttons – you can feel that the button has been pressed without looking. Even Roland recognizes this problem, which is why they have now included the click for screen actions (though it is useless if you are using headphones, or are on stage with enough sound around you).

Some touch screens are better than other in their implementation (sensitivity, response, and layout of touch targets). Korg is an example of a design with the targets that are too small for many users' fingers, while Roland works better for folks with large fingers. However, the hand-eye coordination issues are not solved, but aggravated by making the size of the touch screen larger.

The screen is inherently a “serial” device – you can only select things one step at a time, and after each selection you wait for the screen to redraw before making the next part of your selection. You also need to lift your finger to complete the initial selection action, before proceeding. That is why most users end up using a single finger to select things on screen. Those of you who had a Roland E70/86 or the i-series Korgs will scoff at that – we were able to press the selection buttons almost like playing the keyboard, using several fingers at almost the same time. Even if you say that today’s arranger has way too many functions to not use a screen, the hard physical buttons are a better approach than the touch screen. This is why Roland had fitted their “professional” board – Fantom – with the large screen controlled by the buttons compactly arranged in a row below. Why did they not use the same system for their arranger? I don’t think they consider arrangers as “professional” instruments, but intend them for home (or studio) use. This often comes across in their promotional literature (the RUG “magazine” will never mention a performer using an arranger in the act, but a number of past articles had detailed how musicians used them in the studios). That’s just too bad.

I am not arguing that the touch screens have no place in the keyboards – they can be useful for things which are not time-critical, such as setting MIDI modes, color of the wallpaper, etc. But the reason that many of us who perform live have our gigs is because we can (or supposed to be able to) better spontaneity and variability than the canned tunes played by a DJ or a karaoke machine. It is important that the users be able to quickly make changes, and the physical buttons are much superior for that than the touch screen.

When you first used Microsoft Word, you went to the Edit Menu to find and use Copy and Paste function. However, all of the proficient users with even a little bit of experience with Windows will routinely use Ctl-C /Ctl-V key combinations for these same functions. We do this because the needs of the proficient users are different from those of a novice user – the first one needs to access functions quickly, while the novice must be able to find the function (without looking in the manual). The touch screens (or most any screen based OSes) make it easy to find functions for novice users, but not to access them efficiently – for that you need dedicated buttons. All of today’s keyboards fall into either one extreme (easy to find, but not very fast – Ketron, Roland), or quick to get to if you know where it is (Ketron). I believe that Yamaha is the only one that makes an effort to address both groups of users.

The bottom line is that for quick access you need buttons, and a touch screen is not a substitute.

Regards,

But of course, the problem has become that, with today's multi function keyboards, with hundreds of functions, and thousands of sounds, where you gonna put all them buttons??

You STILL have to spend a fair amount of time staring at the buttons, trying to figure out which bank of functions the buttons are in NOW, and you don't get the benefit of a different backdrop and overlay to quickly let you know you are about to select a Bass sound, NOT select a Rhumba! You usually have to find some little LED to tell you what you are about to do, not easy in daylight or strong stage lighting (whereas my G70 can be read in both)

I'll keep my G70, thank you very much.......... by FAR the most intuitive, easy to use touch screen out there.

Diki,

if you like your G70 (or PA1X)- good for you. However, I believe that the keyboard manufacturers can do better, which is why I have (and will probably continue) to voice my opinion when I see things that where not done right or could be done better.

There is indeed a lot of information that must be accessible, but not all of it needs to be accessible in real time. In your G70 there are thousands of sounds, but they are layered in the banks to support legacy MIDI files (the SC55, SC88, SC880, etc.). I bet you only use a few dozen sounds in your music (if you are playing live), and if not, you could probably get away with this many.

In Windows applications, better programs provide all functions through the menus, but also alternate access for the frequently used functions (either with right-click menus, or key combinations, or both). This stems from the understanding that there is a subset of functions that is more important than others. The same is true for the keyboards. Regrettably, Roland and Korg choose to ignore this fact.

When someone does things poorly and you tell them, they may or may not improve in the future. But if you don't talk about it, they will for sure not improve.

For this reason it is important for us to let the manufacturers know when they missed out in addressing our needs.

Hi Abacus

Very good post, in my opinion. I think the section I have quoted above sums up the issue very well. My own feeling is that the combination of a good touch screen plus a large number of well deigned, sized and placed physical buttons is the best way to go for an arranger.

The screen is excellent for dealing with actions that are more likely to be carried out whilst not actively playing in the middle of a song. Examples would include many actions that you would undertake whist setting up the instrument to play a brand new number (selecting a reverb type, choosing a drum kit, etc) or selecting a song from a large playlist.

The hard buttons suit actions that need to be carried out quickly and accurately and be right-first-time, such as triggering a drum fill, or anything else that you would reasonably do in the middle of performing a song in front of an audience.

Certain actions are best accomplished with a mixture of physical controllers used together with the touch screen. I'm think of things such as where a combination of a screen display, together with some physical sliders and a rotary encoder can make a very effective "virtual mixing desk" within the instrument. This type of functionality is great for getting the overall mix between the various style and live keyboard parts sorted out when first preparing a new song. It lends itself well to this type of function where you would be likely to save the finished result as some kind of user patch for later recall, rather than expecting to be doing this type of operation on-the-fly in the middle of performing.

Interestingly, I think Roland may have provided the two most extreme examples to date of how to do "touch-screen-plus-physical-buttons" right, and how to do it wrong.

Their current G-70 generally strikes a very good balance between functions that use buttons (or other physical devices) and functions that use the touch-screen. It also makes good use of the two interface types together. The touch screen section itself is well done and the whole makes for a generally very intuitive design. The overall result isn't perfect, but the overall control surface that ensues is generally pretty good and it is an exceptionally easy instrument to manage because of this. The G70s main failings in this regard are more to do with the size and positioning of the physical buttons, rather than any fundamental shortcomings in interaction and integration between physical controls and screen.

In contrast, their previous VA series must be the worst thought out arranger ever to hit the market from this point of view. It was so reliant on the touch screen for almost every function, as to make it all but unplayable in any reasonable sense. This was doubly frustrating, because the touch screen implementation itself was actually quite good. The instrument simply had nowhere near enough physical controls to be usuable in any realistic scenario. Judging by the major change of approach represented by the G70, Roland have at least appeared to learn from this earlier ergonomic disaster and have made big steps forward in user friendliness with their more recent designs.

One further observation I would add, is that I get the impression that many arranger users are maybe making life harder than it needs to be by making less use than they might of "user presets" or "user one touch" settings (terminology will vary with instrument). It often seems to be the case that they are trying to change things on the fly in the middle of performing a song that would be better set up as two separate patches, A & B, that would allow instant switching between the two conditions required. An example may be where they are trying to call up a different tone to play a "solo" by using the tone select fuctions, rather than already having the alternate sound previously set up and stored under a different user patch.

I suspect that their reasons for doing this may come down to the old argument where the supposed need for infinite flexibility on a gig is used as an excuse for not setting up a song adequately first, rather than that they don't understand the functionality that is available (that last comment might provoke some argument ;-) ).

Regards - Mike



[This message has been edited by MikeTV (edited 05-17-2006).]