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Lemur EOL, removal from app stores in September

WindcryMusic

Senior Member
Quoting from Liine’s Facebook pages:

Lemur development has stopped and the app will be removed from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store on 01 September 2022.
It was a difficult decision to make but one for which the time had come.
Collectively our team have been working with Lemur in its various iterations since as far back as 2005 when the original multitouch hardware version was released, before the birth of the iPhone and when touchscreens could only track a single touch. Bringing the Lemur to iOS and Android and helping to democratise and make affordable this kind of advanced music control via touch was a dream that we were thrilled to accomplish. From watching Daft Punk in the pyramid to witnessing the first ever live jam between Earth and orbit, working with Lemur has been full of inspiring firsts. The list of notable artists and performances featuring Lemur in one of its incarnations is simply too numerous to list here. It's a tool which has facilitated and inspired and we are constantly humbled by the tens of thousands of users who continue to use Lemur in their daily sound design, composition and performance practice.
Unfortunately, the realities of business mean that Lemur was always a labour of love and we’ve reached a point where this is simply no longer sustainable. In recent years the core partners have been focussing on their new journeys and taking care of Lemur became something we did in our spare time. Now we must move on. We wanted to bow out as gracefully as possible so, in this final year, we strove to update Lemur to full compatibility with the latest versions of iOS and MacOS. We hope that this will allow as many of our users as possible a generous margin of time to transition to their next control setup. If you wish to continue using Lemur please be sure to update the app before we take it off the store. Once Lemur is removed from the store, there’s sadly no way we can help you update.
Of course, we would be delighted if Lemur found yet another way to live on and any serious inquiries can be directed to us by email at [email protected]. For now though, It’s been an honour serving this community of musicians and creators and we must bid our marsupial friend of studio and stage farewell.
Thanks,
Liine team

https://liine.net
 
This hurts me, as I don’t know of any alternative that can replace what Lemur does in my studio. Pushed by this announcement, I’ve finally downloaded the recent 5.4 update referred to in their post this morning and have confirmed that my rather extensive studio control program still appears to work in all respects with the latest version, so that’s good news for now. But the five year old 12” iPad Pro that currently runs Lemur in my studio isn’t going to last forever, and when it eventually dies, it will now take much of my studio’s functionality with it, because I won’t be able to get Lemur onto a replacement. So … a sad day.
 
I was so sad to see this as well, though I figured it was coming at some point as Lemur has been barely supported for several years, though the recent update gave me some hope I guess it was more of a last gasp. I do find it sort of surprising that since it’s in wide use they can’t find someone to carry it forward. Anyway, yes super sad. What are our collective options: Touch OSC?
 
I was so sad to see this as well, though I figured it was coming at some point as Lemur has been barely supported for several years, though the recent update gave me some hope I guess it was more of a last gasp. I do find it sort of surprising that since it’s in wide use they can’t find someone to carry it forward. Anyway, yes super sad. What are our collective options: Touch OSC?
When I’d reviewed the manual for the new version of TouchOSC around the time of its release, I had concluded that although it had come a long way, it still didn’t provide some of Lemur’s capabilities that I rely upon in my studio controller software. However, not everyone has a controller program as complex as mine, so I imagine TouchOSC would be able to do the job for a good many people. In fact I purchased TouchOSC just this morning in order to start working with it, in case I lose Lemur through device failure in the near future and have no choice but to get by within its limitations … at least then I’ll have had a head start with it.

But I’m first going to try to extend the life of my Lemur controllers for as long as possible.

(I’d been thinking about making one or more videos demonstrating my Lemur setup, because I think it does some neat stuff … but now that the Lemur app is going away, I tend to think there’s no longer any point in doing so.)
 
This is painful for me. I ran 2 of the original hardware Lemurs and still run the iPad app. Jazzmutant and I have been through some shit together LOL.
 
I’ve looked further into TouchOSC and have been pretty disappointed at how many things are still missing from it in comparison to Lemur. It’s worse than I feared, and I don’t see any way I could even come close to doing the same kind of controller with it that I have done in Lemur.

So even though I really can’t afford it, I’m biting the bullet and getting another iPad to install Lemur on before the month ends, so that I can make Lemur last as long as possible. (I simply won’t upgrade the OS on it, since running Lemur will be its main job … I just have to hope that the hardware lasts a long time.)
 
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Sad, but support essentially ended years ago.
True, but even without said support, the app still worked for most users and was still able to be installed on new devices. It has continued to serve me very well … and I can only hope will continue to serve me well for at least another 5+ years. But now I’m forced to hope I can keep alive my devices that have Lemur installed, whild hoping that some capable replacement app or other solution comes along before those devices eventually fail.
 
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Sad, but support essentially ended years ago.
Nevertheless it is the most reliable software I use in my studio. On Mac and Windows. Never caused any headaches after it was set up. Given that I still use an at least 8 year old ipad for it I can imagine even after it is officially gone it will continue to work for some years if I install it on my latest ipad. And on Windows which I migrated to lately it's usually not such a big deal to work with old software. At least this is what I hope for.
The better solution would be someone capable takes over and continues the business. Why not someone like Spitfire or Steinberg? Even if they don't make millions out of it it would be a priceless benefit and service for us customers. And it could well be that a reliable support would create a lot of new users.
 
Metagrid Pro can fulfill many of the functions that Lemur did.

I’m sorry to have to say that “many” is an overstatement. For the simplest control templates (i.e., the kind for which Lemur would have been overkill anyway), sure, but a review of the documentation suggests that Metagrid Pro has less capability than even TouchOSC v2, much less Lemur. Metagrid Pro isn’t even within shouting distance of being able to support most of the features of my Lemur studio control setup.

I wonder if I should go ahead and make a video about my Lemur control setup despite the app being taken down, just to make it clear what Lemur could do that these other apps cannot? (Maybe it would inspire a competing app to add some of the missing functionality … or someone to buy the Lemur source code and continue its development?)
 
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I use Open Stage Control :

I don't know if it does more or less than Lemur, but I find it very powerful (at least paired with Cubase). But at the price to code yourself your customized UI and features...
 
I use Open Stage Control :

I don't know if it does more or less than Lemur, but I find it very powerful (at least paired with Cubase). But at the price to code yourself your customized UI and features...

I agree that this will probably be the best option once Lemur is out of the picture. But it is limited by the capabilities of the web browser that must be used to operate it. That, plus the need to do more programming than is necessary with Lemur (as you mentioned), and the need to have a separate computer for the web server (because I wouldn’t want my DAW‘s CPU burdened with the need to simultaneously run a web server) are what will likely keep me using Lemur up until the day it is pried from my cold, dead hands … er, hardware.
 
I agree that this will probably be the best option once Lemur is out of the picture. But it is limited by the capabilities of the web browser that must be used to operate it. That, plus the need to do more programming than is necessary with Lemur (as you mentioned), and the need to have a separate computer for the web server (because I wouldn’t want my DAW‘s CPU burdened with the need to simultaneously run a web server) are what will likely keep me using Lemur up until the day it is pried from my cold, dead hands … er, hardware.
You mentioned OSC won't be able to keep up the same functionality of your LEMUR template. I'm just curious of what kind of features you wouldn't be able to transport to OSC?

I have a fairly elaborated LEMUR template and I'll be exploring options as well, so i'm curious of what major features we would be missing as lots of composers use OSC (Trevor Morris being one of the biggest examples) and i would imagine it will do most of the basic film scoring stuff. For example, one feature I'm thinking is my XY pad on Lemur which is very useful. It does have some fancy programming (automatic movement with attraction, friction, etc) but most of it is not essential.
 
You mentioned OSC won't be able to keep up the same functionality of your LEMUR template. I'm just curious of what kind of features you wouldn't be able to transport to OSC?

I have a fairly elaborated LEMUR template and I'll be exploring options as well, so i'm curious of what major features we would be missing as lots of composers use OSC (Trevor Morris being one of the biggest examples) and i would imagine it will do most of the basic film scoring stuff. For example, one feature I'm thinking is my XY pad on Lemur which is very useful. It does have some fancy programming (automatic movement with attraction, friction, etc) but most of it is not essential.

I don‘t have any direct experience with OSC. But web browsers still can’t provide the same level of UI flexibility and responsiveness that a dedicated app can, and my understanding is that the user interface to OSC is through a web browser. That’s the source of my belief that the UI functionality would necessarily be more limited. For example, Lemur provides physical characteristics to how controls like sliders act, characteristics that can nicely emulate the behavior of things like pitch wheels, and I’d be very surprised and impressed if the same could be achieved via a web browser. The same goes for the weight and inertia of controls like those XY pads you mentioned.
 
I wonder if I should go ahead and make a video about my Lemur control setup despite the app being taken down, just to make it clear what Lemur could do that these other apps cannot? (Maybe it would inspire a competing app to add some of the missing functionality … or someone to buy the Lemur source code and continue its development?)
Sounds like a great idea! I am also curious to what Composer tools is going to do now as I to use this daily https://www.midikinetics.com/products/composer-tools-pro/
 
But the five year old 12” iPad Pro that currently runs Lemur in my studio isn’t going to last forever, and when it eventually dies, it will now take much of my studio’s functionality with it, because I won’t be able to get Lemur onto a replacement. So … a sad day.
I guess what you can do [and I've done this with several products that I knew would eventually die, is buy a used good condition iPad Pro (same model number)], but I guess that may come with lasting battery issues, etc.
 
I guess what you can do [and I've done this with several products that I knew would eventually die, is buy a used good condition iPad Pro (same model number)], but I guess that may come with lasting battery issues, etc.

That’s why I just bought a brand new iPad Pro 12.9” to get Lemur installed on it while I still could. My current 12” iPad in the studio is five years old and going strong, but of course it won’t last forever, so at least now I’ve got one fallback device that isn’t equally as old.

But it goes to show that the Lemur team misunderstood their users. They could have easily built a new version of Lemur with just a couple more features and charged another $50 for it (or $100 for that matter), and that still would have been less than 10% of the cost I just incurred to try to preserve Lemur in my studio for a few years longer, so I would gladly have paid them for such a new version.
 
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