[linux-audio-dev] OSC vs MIDI

[Dave Robillard]

On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 04:52, Steve Harris wrote:
> I dont really think OSC needs to replace MIDI, if your doing 12 tone,
> limited polyphony, bandwisth etc. stuff, which most people are, its fine.
> 
> - Steve

Sure, but the control issue is a nuisance, even for 'most people' -
assigning numbers to things just sucks - this is 2004, not 1974 :)

It'd be nice if (when) OSC has service discovery for a synth to just
dump all it's parameters (valid commands), so something like a sequencer
could have a drop down list of what control you want to use - all with
nice names that actually make sense.  "Controller 79" doesn't help much.

Then we're at a stage where any device (computer, synth, whatever) can
just plug into the switch on your network, and all of a sudden your DAW
knows exactly what just showed up on the network, what it can do, and
how to control it.  That's a few orders of magnitude cooler than
Controller 79 :)

It's also much easier, users don't have to figure out what Alsa seq
ports to connect, or just guess by looking at the patch bay what the
app's audio ports are, it can all be just magic.  As an example; In MuSE
you could just select a running soft synth (not a plugin!) from a
dropdown on a track and have everything automatically work, the
sequencer can figure out the I/O and control stuff itself and hook it
all up.

Speaking of service discovery Steve, I saw in the liblo TODO that you
were looking at implementing it (with howl), but with low priority.  Is
that a couple months low priority or 2009 low priority?  Peronally I
think it'd be a huge step forward..

-DR-