Let Airturn do the page turning for you
My day job as a sound engineer allows me the opportunity to play with a lot of really cool and expensive toys. One of my favorite things to do is try and figure out how to integrate mobile technology such as my tablet into what I do everyday. Now there are a ton of tablet related accessories in the professional audio world, but most of them are not anything that most people that aren’t in that field would want. Things like iPad holders that attach to mic stands and apps that allow you to control your DMX lighting rig. You’re most likely reading this and going you’re right, that’s nothing I would want. Well today I came across something that I could see being used in a lot of other fields. It is the Airturn BT-105. Hit the jump to find out more, and for a video demonstrating its use.
The Airturn BT-105 is a Bluetooth page turner. It is designed to be used by musicians to give them a hands-free way to turn their music pages while playing. Most musicians need both hands to play their instrument, and turning pages can be a real pain. If you ever watch a symphony orchestra you will most likely see all the musicians have a partner. It is usually the junior member of that pair’s job to turn the page on their music that is shared between the two of them. That way you always have one musician still playing the piece for the few seconds that the second musician stops to turn the page. The Airturn makes it so you can turn pages with the tap of a foot pedal.
There are two pedals that come with the Airturn, and you can choose to use one or both. If you only use one you are limited to only turning pages in one direction, either forward or backward. Using both pedals gives you the ability to turn pages both ways. There aren’t a whole lot of things to be setup on the Airturn, and it’s supposed to be pretty easy to setup. The Airturn is also compatible with PC and Macs, and the hardest part of the setup involves making sure you are either in tablet or PC/Mac mode.
The Airturn costs $130 US, so it’s not something most people would buy just to play with. You’d have to know that you would use it regularly. There is a whole list of compatible apps on the Airturn website, and I’m sure there are a lot of other apps that it would be compatible with as well. The list includes both Android and iPad apps. I could see this as being useful for teachers or other presenters who use their tablets to control presentations, or maybe in a lab where you need both hands to do something and still need to follow instructions. There could be lots of other opportunities for this nifty device to get used that I’m not even thinking of, or you budding musicians might want one to make it easier to practice and keep all your music digital. What would you use it for?
[Airturn]
