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The Sensel Morph trackpad is a digital creative's dream
Our computers have become indispensable creation tools, but let's face it: The decades-old keyboard-and-mouse combo aren't the best way to edit video, draw or play music. That's where the Sensel Morph comes in. It's a pressure-sensitive touchpad that lets you swap in multiple overlays and instantly switch gears between video editing, painting, music creation, gaming, coding and other tasks. There are already a number of media controllers out there, and I've tested a couple, including the Palette Gear and the Loupedeck. But after using the Sensel Morph for a couple of days, I have to say that it really stands out from the pack. It's the most clever and versatile device I've tested, and though it's a bit expensive at $299, plus more for extra overlays, it's worth it for artists, musicians and editors, especially if you wear more than one of those hats.
Palette's Lego-like controls made me a faster video editor
Until robots take over video editing, you'll still have to fiddle with cuts, colors and sound levels. A keyboard is not always the best tool for that, and many control surfaces, like Loupedeck, are strictly targeted at Lightroom users. So what's a video editor to do? One of the more interesting controllers on the market is Palette Gear -- it's expandable, flexible, programmable and looks cool. As I discovered, if you're willing to spend some timing learning and programming, it can make you a faster and better editor, too.
Loupedeck's hands-on controls make you better at Lightroom
Adobe's Lightroom can do wondrous things to photos, but fiddling with a mouse can impede your speed and creativity. This is where a product called Loupedeck comes in. It's a control panel designed especially for Lightroom that lets you adjust white balance, contrast, exposure and many other settings by twiddling dials and pushing buttons instead of a mouse. It easily met its crowdfunding goals and is now a hit in retail, so I decided to try it out and see why it caught on with the photo crowd.
Vivace portable music studio features multitouch interface, loads of style
It was not too long ago that we were lusting over OpenLabs' attempt to bring us a dedicated digital audio workstation as a single device, and now it looks like the ante's been upped yet again. Sure, the Vivace is but a mere concept at the moment, but designers Young-Shin Lee and Hae-Jin Jung clearly know what we want. This guy has the same form factor as a laptop, but instead of a keyboard features a second multi-touch display. On the downside, we can't imagine that playing a "keyboard" on a smooth surface would give one anywhere near the control of honest-to-goodness keys. But on the upside? This thing looks really, really sweet. Check out the gallery below for some more mouth-waterin' pics.[Via SlashGear]
OpenLabs DBeat blends computer, audio control surface into amazing
We've seen plenty of crazy audio gear in our day, but nothing's ever prompted as much drooling and downright lust as OpenLab's DBeat, a monster of a rig that blends a full-bore 3GHz Core 2 Duo and 12-inch capacitive multitouch LCD screen with tracking controls, a DJ-oriented MIDI controller, iPod dock and a high-quality 4-in/6-out audio interface all into one integrated unit. Spec-wise you're looking at 4GB of RAM and a 320GB drive, as well as a dual-layer burner -- stuff we'd generally want to keep far, far away from our audio interface, but we're overlooking that right now, because we're in love. Harder to ignore? The $3,999 price tag. Ouch. We'll be looking in the couch cushions if you need us.
