M-Audio just released a control surface for use with GarageBand. It’s called the iControl and it looks pretty cool.

iControl gives you total tactile control over GarageBand. You get dedicated transport buttons and jog wheel, eight rotary encoders for track functions like volume or pan, or effects parameters in GarageBand’s EQ or any other AU plug-in. You also get dedicated mute, solo and record-enable buttons. Automatically recognized by GarageBand.

I don’t have a copy of GarageBand, but this caught my eye, as I am always interested in what companys are doing to interface the real world with the digital world.

In these days of digital production and digital audio consoles, and the plethora of other gadgets used in audio, interface design has become an even bigger project than it used to be. In the days of analog gear, the controls were all there because they were part of the electronic circuit. Some of the layout was “designed”, but some of it was the way it was because it had to be for the electronics to work correctly.

Now, designers of interfaces have a different set of choices to make. To take a conception of what is possible in the digital world and translate that to a useable, intelligent tactile control surface, can be maddening. Especially when a particular piece of equipment crosses between different markets and uses.

M-AUDIO:iControl