[LAU] OSC - where to start?

Ken Restivo ken at restivo.org
Thu Jan 27 06:24:55 UTC 2011


On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 09:28:09PM +0100, Arnold Krille wrote:
> On Wednesday 26 January 2011 17:51:41 James Morris wrote:
> > Quite a lot of different replies. But which would be the best place to
> > start for someone who doesn't know any of python, supercollider,
> > csound, chuck, algoscore, etc etc?
> > 
> > Why is OSC support not more widespread?
> 
> It is relatively wide spread. However due to its nature, it neither defines a 
> standard way of detecting "remote" apps with osc interface, nor does it 
> provide a standard way to introspect. So for example a pair of apps that do 
> gui->backend split will work because both written by the same author(s) know 
> how to detect and talk to each other. For apps written by different authors, it 

Yes, this lack of introspection is a significant obstacle. It was a huge PITA to figure out what parameters of various DSSI synths were available and how to control them. I ended up having to use write/adapt an OSC sniffer (http://restivo.org/projects/oscsniff) in order to figure out WTF was going on between the GUI and the synths.

> gets difficult. And its basically impossible to write any "generic osc sender 
> tool"...
> 
> > For instance, could/should there be an OSC tab in QjackCTL?
> 
> If osc was a protocol that has a centralized distribution like jack does for 
> audio and midi and alsa-midi does for midi. But most osc usage happens over 
> udp, that is network. That is fine to have gui and backend on different machines 
> but completely incompatible with qjackctl providing a "central patchbay" (not 
> that this concept would make any sense for osc).
> 
> In general it would be possible to send osc over jack-ports. Jack supports 
> generic port types and osc isn't actually fixed on using udp. But the problem 
> is: when app A sends osc across a jack-osc-connection, who guarantees that app 
> B can actually do something useful with it? osc just defines a way messages are 
> sent. It doesn't care about specific messages, it doesn't care about answers, 
> it doesn't care about the transport...
> 
> BTW: For entry into osc, python and its liblo-interface should give you a good 
> start.
> 
> Have fun,
> 
> Arnold



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