Live 9 Open Sound Control Implementation?

[aspsa]

Am I correct in stating that Ableton Live 9 currently does not support Open Sound Control (OSC)? While one can control Live 9 via Lemur, for instance, communication occurs over MIDI. I think Logic 9 now natively supports OSC.

I know Cycling '74 MAX 6 natively supports OSC, and this raises an interesting question. Does Max for Live support OSC while running within Ableton Live 9?

[trevox]

Yes. There's some nice Max externals here:

http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/downloads

But essentially, have a look at the help for udpsend and udpreceive built in to Max - you can use it in M4L patches too.

[aspsa]

Thank you, trevox.

[birthday boy]

Ableton's lack of native OSC is really is dissapointing. My two cents.

[Machinate]

I used to think so too. That I somehow needed direct OSC support from Live.

It turns out I only needed api access, like we have now. The OSC is being handled by m4l devices, so we're translating between the api and OSC, just like a native OSC layer would be doing.

So now I'm not disappointed that I don't have OSC, I'm actually quite pleased with the API implementation, which goes deep enough, while still remaining relatively accessible. I've come across very few api things that I'd like to do, but can't, and plenty of things I'd thought were impossible, that totally are possible.

[aspsa]

> So now I'm not disappointed that I don't have OSC, I'm actually quite pleased with the API implementation, which goes deep enough, while still remaining relatively accessible.
Granted, the M4L Live API is robust, but I am approaching this from a somewhat different angle. Clearly, M4L is a great capability; no arguments here. However, a Live native OSC implementation would allow the following luxuries:

1. A direct line of communication with Live Objects via OSC conveyed through the ubiquitous TCP/IP network protocol. MIDI communication is arcane when compared with OSC, both through its limited word lengths and through the inherent latency built into the MIDI hardware chain. I suppose MIDI enabled over a higher bandwidth protocol mitigates this problem, but how many end-users are generally set up for this? Well, yes, there is MIDI communication over USB, but not typically with external MIDI-enabled devices. Besides, regardless of the underlying hardware and the transport mechanism, MIDI's 7-bit and 14-bit word lengths and its sequential processing is limiting. That said, it has its place, but OSC offers a better choice when controlling data-intensive control parameters in real-time. Hence, OSC used in conjunction with tablets controlling multiple parameters simultaneously via gestures is incredibly useful.

2. M4L and MAX in general has a learning curve. I am not a programming novice, and the MAX data-flow programming environment is a highly useful paradigm. Still, there is a learning curve to be met.

> I've come across very few api things that I'd like to do, but can't, and plenty of things I'd thought were impossible, that totally are possible.
If I may ask, do you use Lemur or any other OSC-enabled tablet-based control environment? Also, setting aside OSC for the moment, are there any particular categories of capabilities that you find are presently lacking in the M4L API?

[Machinate]

MIDI communication is arcane when compared with OSC, both through its limited word lengths and through the inherent latency built into the MIDI hardware chain. I suppose MIDI enabled over a higher bandwidth protocol mitigates this problem, but how many end-users are generally set up for this? Well, yes, there is MIDI communication over USB, but not typically with external MIDI-enabled devices. Besides, regardless of the underlying hardware and the transport mechanism, MIDI's 7-bit and 14-bit word lengths and its sequential processing is limiting. That said, it has its place, but OSC offers a better choice when controlling data-intensive control parameters in real-time. Hence, OSC used in conjunction with tablets controlling multiple parameters simultaneously via gestures is incredibly useful.

OSC is great, of course - that's why I do OSC straight into m4l. I only use midi when mapping directly to live, which I try to avoid, for the most part.

2. M4L and MAX in general has a learning curve. I am not a programming novice, and the MAX data-flow programming environment is a highly useful paradigm. Still, there is a learning curve to be met.

I've yet to come across an OSC-enabled anything that didn't have a learning curve.

> I've come across very few api things that I'd like to do, but can't, and plenty of things I'd thought were impossible, that totally are possible.
If I may ask, do you use Lemur or any other OSC-enabled tablet-based control environment?

yep. Lemurs and iPads. Have used such tech for many years now. Would LOATHE to not have a software layer inbetween, I've seen too many people suffer at the hands of lemur-scripting...!

Also, setting aside OSC for the moment, are there any particular categories of capabilities that you find are presently lacking in the M4L API?

Off the top of my head I think just some of the new Push functionality is still shrouded in obscurity. Apart from that I can't come up with anything that I'd need now that I can't get out of the system. You? A while back some where complaining that you couldn't get far enough into sub-racks and such with the path system, but I think you can now?

[regretfullySaid]

yeah it seems like you can just keep going with devices ? chains ? devices ? chains ? devices ? chains ? etc

[Hielo Patagonia Sounds]

Have just updated from Live 8 w/ m4l to Live 9 w/ m4l. I'm actually working on updating a couple of m4l devices for the use of Lemur and OSC protocol. Here is a small screenshot of the hps-OSC control device, which can map 6 OSC messages to 6 Live parameters:



Will follow then hps-OSC matrix control, hps-OSC vector mix, hps-OSC vector matrix and hps-OSC nodal mix. All of them will share the same OSC message nomenclature and will have an automatic detection of the iPad/Lemur. Most of the devices are already done but I have to update them to Live 9 / Max 6.



Hédi K.

[Hielo Patagonia Sounds]

hps-OSC Tools [Live 9 + m4l + Lemur] are now available ! -> http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=195503