Audio software specifically designed for small Metro tablets might make for a decent experience but if you try to use DAW software made for (multiple) large desktop screens you're gonna have a bad time.

It only has one USB port so with an audio interface there's nowhere to plug in an external hard drive if you need the space or to offload audio streaming from the system drive (and hooking your AI and HD to a hub ain't going to cut it either).

It's the screens that interest me more than the actual performance of the hardware. Being able to build custom interfaces for the touch screen and sending that data over network MIDI to a "real" powerful PC is so much fun but now that you mention it I can see third parties building specialized covers for controlling music software. A 25 key synth sized keyboard with pads, buttons and sliders on top would be great. They could have LED strips embedded in them like the touch strips on the Tempest drum machine or the new Akai Pro MAX 49 controller.

But, like I always say, Windows developers don't seem to care much about audio and rarely have a clue as to what MIDI is.

3 hours ago, Ian2 wrote

Assuming latency isn't a problem (I don't think it will be on the pro in any event) I hope some third party comes up with a music oriented cover (ie piano style keyboard and lots of function keys  / pads for mapping to midi.  That could also be interesting.

1 hour ago, DCMonkey wrote

A couple of problems I see:

Audio software specifically designed for small Metro tablets might make for a decent experience but if you try to use DAW software made for (multiple) large desktop screens you're gonna have a bad time.

It only has one USB port so with an audio interface there's nowhere to plug in an external hard drive if you need the space or to offload audio streaming from the system drive (and hooking your AI and HD to a hub ain't going to cut it either).

The new Surface tablets look very interesting.  I can think of several things it would be good for.  But Pro Audio is not one of them. You have to use the right tool for the job.  

I have a desktop computer (6 core CPU, 16GB RAM, 27 inch monitor) for my audio work.  Why would I want to use a tablet?  That just silly.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

23 minutes ago, Heywood_J wrote

*snip*

The new Surface tablets look very interesting.  I can think of several things it would be good for.  But Pro Audio is not one of them. You have to use the right tool for the job.  

I have a desktop computer (6 core CPU, 16GB RAM, 27 inch monitor) for my audio work.  Why would I want to use a tablet?  That just silly.

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

Well, either device could still be useful for lightweight or mobile recording, say a band practice or even hooked up to the mixer at a live show (assuming the storage is adequate). But it would definitely need apps designed for the form factor to be anything more than "because you can".

I recall one relatively famous band having a live concert tour where there were just 4 guys standing behind laptops staring at them and not playing anything. (of course the music was going but for all you knew they were playing it from cd)

You can always bounce it back to your serious TDM system with uber DSP plugins later. If you spend a few days with NanoStudio on an iPad, you'll see that it's very powerful (not quite a DAW replacement though). I've heard some world-class tunes composed, mixed and "mastered" 100% in NanoStudio.

My dream though, would be to run Ableton Live on the Intel Surface with full multi-touch. It's going to be a very good time to be making music in the coming years.

2 minutes ago, itsnotabug wrote

My dream though, would be to run Ableton Live on the Intel Surface with full multi-touch. It's going to be a very good time to be making music in the coming years.

Running Ableton Live on an Intel based Surface would probably work fine because people have run it on Ultrabooks already. Live's interface isn't designed for a 10.6" multitouch display though.
It will be interesting to see how well it works with ASIO4ALL for people who want to avoid using an external audio interface just to use decent buffer sizes.

Another thing people seem to not realise is that most of the time, with electronic music, computers aren't used to "record" audio. They're used to "create" audio with virtual instruments controlled by MIDI. I've only used the inputs on my audo interface once and I don't own a microphone.

There are almost too many very well made music programs for iOS so there's no reason why it wouldn't be possible on a tablet that runs a full version of Windows 8. Anything that works in Win7 64bit should work fine.