[LAU] Open Sound Control: Is it still a thing?

[Will Godfrey]

On Fri, 30 Apr 2021 17:25:18 -0600
Paul Davis <paul at linuxaudiosystems.com> wrote:

>On Fri, Apr 30, 2021 at 5:10 PM robertlazarski <robertlazarski at gmail.com>
>wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Going forward, I have more hope in OSC support in hardware compared to
>> MMC/MTC. If each OSC server defines its own payload format, for example,
>> it's still an improvement as I see it compared to a midi device that has
>> nothing but midi clock to sync on (all my gear).
>>  
>
>I don't see that as much of an improvement. I think you're basically saying
>"nothing will ever change in hardware that doesn't support X, but new
>products might support OSC instead".
>
>
>> The only hardware recorder I know of that supports MMC/MTC is the Joeco
>> blackbox. The only new hardware sequencer that supports MMC/MTC is the
>> Cirklon - with a 1 year waiting list.  Using my Korg Oasys to send midi
>> note data to my Jomox 999 drum machine, for example, requires me to
>> implement my own code with a note_map_t,
>>  
>
>I can't imagine why anyone would make a hardware sequencer that responded
>to MTC. The timebase is completely non-musical. MMC start/stop commands
>have some sort of semantic sense, but many others still use video-derived
>time that has no role in a hardware sequencer.
>
>
>
>>
>> With control voltage for 1 volt per octave pitch and zero to +5VDC for
>> gate on/off, every analog piece of gear I own supports it. Every analog
>> sequencer will accept and send the same gate signal or can be adjusted to
>> do so.
>>  
>
>but like OSC, it has no semantics at all, and unlike OSC, "zero syntax".
>that means that the semantics are defined by the patching, and nothing
>else. This is not possible for digital signals., because at the very least
>they all have syntax, and most of them have semantics too.
>
>>
>>  
From my point of view, the greatest weakness of OSC is that (as far as I can
tell) it has no default set of common controls, so everything has to start from
scratch - both ends. What made the original MIDI implementation so popular was,
(for its time) a very full and useful set of such control messages, as well as
the ability to then define specialist ones as well. To some degree they've kept
this with MIDI 2, in that there is a fall-back to MIDI 1 if a negotiation is
not achieved.

-- 
Will J Godfrey
https://willgodfrey.bandcamp.com/
http://yoshimi.github.io
Say you have a poem and I have a tune.
Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song.