The UK dance press recently reported techno visionary Richie Hawtin's interest in touch-screen interface technology to control his Ableton Live setup. Hawtin, who has played a role in the design of new Allen & Heath products and who apparently is an investor in Beatport, the successful on-line download platform, is once again displaying a thirst to be a groundbreaking innovator and visionary once again.

Richie Hawtin has made known that he's currently looking into touch-screen interface technology so that he can control software program Ableton Live more efficiently. He has been using this program during many of his recent gigs, as well as in the production of his recent DE9 Transitions album, which essentially is a mixing and production hybrid.

As 365Mag reported recently, the Paris based Jazz-Mutant company has released the first fully programmable touch-screen based midi-controller onto the market, which makes for a cool and fully customizable DJ experience, if you can afford it. As Hawtin argues " the biggest problem we are all faced with as artists is finding interesting and creative ways to interface with all the technology and software that's presented to us".

As the new controller supports using multiple fingers at the same time, essential for performing real-time, the era of the touch screen is finally upon us. Fact is that integration with many software packages is still lacking. Hawtin continues: "I am looking at having it 'talk' to Ableton so I can have further control. The thing that holds us back these days is not ideas or inspiration. The software is there also and the hardware. We just need ways of connecting things together more efficiently".

Keep an eye on 365Mag for a full interview with the man himself in the weeks to come.