here's what I'm thinking about:
Came up with this idea the other day and going to start working on it in the next couple weeks. 8 channel firewire interface (eventually 16) into mainstage setup as a virtual mixer like a lot of people have done...and then using touchosc on the iphone/ipod touch as my wireless control surface to control the live mix. then using the 2 of the outputs on the interface for the mains, and then having 4 independent monitor mixes for each musician using powered monitors on stage. This method will hopefully allow me to save presets for each song.
http://www.hack2learn.org/wp-content/gallery/touchosc-vdmxinterface/TouchOSC-Int erface%20006-wText.png
touchosc is program on the iphone that is basically an interface that allows you to put whatever- buttons/faders/rotary knobs/pads/eqs/x-y grids/ect -that you want on up to 4 pages...if you google it you'll get some ideas of what all you can program on it...the iphone then connects to your computer over a wireless network and sends OSC signals to the computer...then use a program like osculator that converts those signals to midi signals that can be sent to mainstage...then use the learn function to map all of your parameters..and thats basically it. You would think that there would be latency going over wifi, but i hooked this thing up to ableton to use it like a small MPC beatpad, and there was no latency at all. Of course i created a direct wireless network from my mac to my iphone..that might have helped...
now obviously an iphone or ipod touch is small, but imagine doing all of this on an IPad? yes? I'm really excited about the IPad for this one reason almost...the idea of controlling the live sound "wirelessly" with a 10inch touch screen device from any part of the room...It theoretically sounds doable, but gonna have to go through some major testing before i rely on it.
the one part i havn't figured out yet is to be able to run a headset with built in mic into the IPads headphone jack to use for monitoring and as a talkback mic to the stage. If only the IPad could run multiple programs at a time.
