OSC

[Davidmk]

I'm a big user of MIDI at the moment but OSC looks set to provide a simpler and more versatile replacement an looks as though it is generating some interest in the community.

Obviously this forum is the place to share ideas and experiences but...

• How many of us are interested?
• What are people hoping it will do for them?
• Is anyone already using MIDI but hoping to replace it with OSC?

To kick it off: I have a post elsewhere describing my use of MIDI in some detail, with a show file, but briefly I use a couple of 64 button MIDI controllers sending Notes commands to set colours, gobos, positions and run effects on LED pars, LED moving head washes and moving spots. It's very convoluted using Notes to trigger single cue PBs that then use cue macros to trigger other cues in cue stacks. It works but it takes 6 pages of PBs and it's quite inflexible taking hours to modify and days to set up from scratch. I also have to carry around and connect up the MIDI controllers and the box that converts from USB to proper MIDI. I anticipate OSC will fit into a single page of PBs, use a cheap Android tablet & a small portable router and have some potential to make limited changes on site.

Come back with questions, ideas, whatever.

[KWR88]

Hi David,

Thanks for sharing that, all feed back is very welcome.

 

[Davidmk]

@KWR88You're welcome

@kgallen Further to my PM regarding OSC out and triggering external things from the desk (rather than the desk from external things)

 

Consider this... TouchOSC (this is the only app I've found so far) can send any OSC message to any or all of the OSC devices on a network. It can send different messages to different devices from the same control action and messages can be MIDI if that is what you want (though it can't send MIDI to FLX unless you have a MIDI output device plugged in, probably not a practical option on a tablet) so a TouchOSC control could be used to trigger a desk and a sound device at the same time (well very nearly).

 

I can't (at the moment) see how a TouchOSC go/next cue button could trigger specific sounds to accompany specific cues in a stack but I'm pretty sure you could trigger a single cue (as in go/cue number) and it's accompanying sound from the same TouchOSC control. TouchOSC is a bit of a challenge - the original version (TouchOSC Mk1) was easier (and free) but more limited - its still available (and still free) though.

 

Hopefully the powers at Z88 will spot the marketing potential of OSC out and keep it near the top of the ToDo list - would be nice if that included feedback to OSC controls as well. In the mean time I'm planning to investigate all the options I can for what we have so far.

[mikeb]

Hi David

This is what I tried to create "Go next" for a playback;

  The value is the playback number

[Davidmk]

@mikeb Had trouble replying to you here, updated the errors thread and now this is working.

Not sure what you are asking/telling me in your post - it looks like you are doing sensible things with TouchOSC Mk1 but are they working as you expected. In particular, are the fader controls working?

[mikeb]

@davidmk

I don't have any fixtures attached to the DMX output of the FLX but watching the output screen, the intensities increase/decrease as per the OSC script. Also, moving the fader within TouchOSC varies the intensity of the associated playback as expected

 

[Davidmk]

1 hour ago, mikeb said:

moving the fader within TouchOSC varies the intensity of the associated playback as expected

I'm mildly (but pleasantly) surprised by this - using a fader means sending - and therefore processing - a lot of messages in quick succession and I would not have been surprised if the desk was overwhelmed by it. Good news in deed.

[Edward Z88]

On 4/30/2023 at 4:50 PM, Davidmk said:

I'm mildly (but pleasantly) surprised by this - using a fader means sending - and therefore processing - a lot of messages in quick succession and I would not have been surprised if the desk was overwhelmed by it. Good news in deed.

There are indeed a lot of messages when sending fader movements over OSC. However, this is very similar to how ZerOS processes "real" fader movements - each level change is reported as an individual message. This can be seen in Event Monitor.