[Ardour-Dev] Ardour-Dev Digest, Vol 134, Issue 1

Patrick.Gilles Maillot patrick.maillot at gmail.com
Fri Jun 5 12:18:33 PDT 2015


Paul, John,

 

I have been using the X32 for some time now, and managed several gigs with it. The fact the console is entirely remote controllable using a wired or wifi connection, handling multiple simultaneous clients (i.e. sound engineer, stage musician, etc.) and now has several clients on android, iOS, Linux, Mac and PC is pretty damned good. I don’t think this would have been possible without the adoption of OSC. Nevertheless the initial documentation for it was quite … thin and it took serious effort to get access to all that was coded there.

 

It now sounds like several manufacturers are following that path.

 

It is also true OSC is a protocol format [only] standard. The contents of the data exchanged between clients and server (the console) is not forced/imposed, which is good and bad. Some will find it good because it enables manufacturers to develop their own stuff (quite standard practice in the music electronics industry), while others would prefer to have a single language for all, ensuring interoperability between devices. I am not trying to debate here.

 

OSC is simple to code, easy to operate and quite effective (speed), thanks to fast networks; I found it quite reliable too.

 

X32Reaper which I initially developed for my own studio needs is using OSC, and is acting as a middle man between the X32 and REAPER, based on the standard REAPER config file specifying what REAPER expects and sends in terms of OSC. The latest port runs great even on a Raspberry Pi (old version) enabling to the 32 channels of the X32 to control REAPER tracks, and vice versa: changes made at the audio workstation program are reflected on the X32. Easy to use and quite user friendly.

 

I was just hoping to find something similar (better in fact) from Ardour “probably one of the most OSC-controllable audio applications around”. While this may be the case from Ardour to its clients, the other way around doesn’t seem so (i.e. what is the receiving port for Ardour?).

 

-Patrick

 

From: Paul Davis [mailto:paul at linuxaudiosystems.com] 
Sent: vendredi 5 juin 2015 20:23
To: John Emmas
Cc: ardour-dev mailing list
Subject: Re: [Ardour-Dev] Ardour-Dev Digest, Vol 134, Issue 1

 

 

 

On Fri, Jun 5, 2015 at 1:32 PM, John Emmas <johne53 at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

On 05/06/2015 14:54, Paul Davis wrote:


There's not much point testing OSC support with the X32 without the active support of a developer working directly on OSC code. [...] OSC is a useful protocol but because it is completely non-standardized, both ends of the OSC exchange have to understand the same set of messages, and there is no standard set of messages.


Hmm...  that seems like a pretty major drawback!  Is OSC effectively a dead protocol now?  I took a look at the Issue Tracker but there've been no posts for nearly 4 years!!

 

The notion of a standardized message set isn't part of the design spec or goals for OSC. People seem to completely misunderstand what OSC is. It is really just a specification of a message *format*. Not the mesage contents, or even the transport protocol. The messages consist of strings, with the first string being a set of 1 or more slash-separated words, optionally followed by arguments also passed as strings

   /this/is/a/valid/message

   /so/is/this 12 abd 19.78

   /1871/akk1/a91991/a/  soIsThis

   /whatever/the/hell/you/want/to/use/it/is/ok/with/OSC

OSC doesn't specify anything else, really. So unless to two ends of the connection understand that /foo/bar/baz means "stop the transport", then it is meaningless.

 


Patrick - what gives you the impression that OSC is better for your purposes?  For example, is X32Reaper based around OSC perhaps?

 

the X32 OSC protocol specification does allow some stuff that isn't possible with generic MIDI. but to use it you need something that understands the X32 OSC messages.

 

 

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