[linux-audio-dev] OSC vs MIDI

[Dave Robillard]

On Fri, 2004-09-03 at 02:52, Jens M Andreasen wrote:
> On ons, 2004-09-01 at 21:26, Dave Robillard wrote:
> > On Wed, 2004-09-01 at 07:48, martin rumori wrote:
> > > On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 11:31:01AM +0100, Steve Harris wrote:
> > > > On Wed, Sep 01, 2004 at 10:03:18 +0100, Dave Griffiths wrote:
> > > > > so if I'm writing a osc sequencer, is the best plan to leave the
> > > > > mapping open for the user to modify?
> > > > 
> > > > I would say so yes, its possible that an OSC schema spe will be
> > > > standardised at soem point that would make it easier.
> > > 
> > > not to mention the microtone-capabilities of your osc sequencer and
> > > the sophisticated envelope control functions, which are hard to cover
> > > with pure midi...  :-))
> > 
> > Imagine a sequencer where, instead of little straight bars representing
> > notes, the 'piano roll' just allowed you to draw a line to represent
> > frequency.. with any angle, straight or curved (bezier), etc.  Wow..
> > 
> > Control could be like that too, with overlay and everything, but having
> > that for pitch would be amazing.. has something like this ever been done
> > before?
> > 
> Isn't this very similar to drawing the midi-pitchbend? EditTrack did
> that in the 80's. You could also draw values for volume and controllers
> if you wanted sophisticated envelopes.

Way, way, way too tedious to be practical.  It's of course possible to
do pitchbends, but it's not the same.

> IIRC mouse-dragging in the piano-roll would "spray paint" notes all over
> the place ... Combine that with a synth patch with very closely spaced
> notes and we are getting pretty close to what you are talking about.
> Perhaps with a bit of portamento to smooth out the rough edges

Not really at all... like you said, it would be a whole whack of "spray
painted" notes, not one continuous note.  The point was it would be nice
to be able to break out of the limitations of MIDIs notes.

You could write a MIDI sequencer that abstracts this and uses noteons
and pitchbend to do it of course, but it doesn't exist right now (in the
free world anyway) AFAIK

-DR-