The transmission and management of data, parameters and more generally of information within a system or between multiple interactive systems, represent the first problems that electroacoustic musicians and composers have to face. The problem was so relevant that it affected the nature and genesis of the work itself; as always happens, important technical questions radically intervene in the compositional processes.
In this series of articles, we will try to trace a path that describes the most important steps in the history of data transmission means and protocols. It will start from Voltage Control then move on to the birth of MIDI protocol, we will mention other protocols that have tried to counter its hegemony (endorsed by the musical instrument industry) such as SKIN, the ZIPIA, FUDI (specific for Pure Data). Finally, we will deepen and dwell at length on the latest born among the data transmission protocols: theCSO - Open Sound Control. A lot of attention will be paid to the OSC since it is not a simple antagonist of MIDI, but a real revolution in the field of interaction between systems comparable in importance to that which occurred when we passed from Voltage Control (analog domain) to MIDI (digital domain).
Conclusions and considerations
We have analyzed the OSC from a technical, programming and its own point of view
applications. You can now try to make a comparison with MIDI without trying to
decree which is the better of the two: a controversy in which the two organizations themselves
they fell. A paper was published in 2007 on the official OSC website entitled "Open
Sound Control - A flexible protocol for sensor networking"(Freed, Schmeder,
Zbyszynski) in which the accent is placed on some alleged performance limits of MIDI in the
comparison with OSC. The response is not late on the site www.midi.org where they are denied
such assumptions. It is up to us to actually draw the right conclusions. Protocols are born with
different assumptions, for different environments and needs and still today are to be considered
both effective. The real question is not "which is the best?"But"What I have to do?".
I simply need to connect two or more systems or make them interact with each other? Furthermore,
where the two systems are located? On the same machine? They are integrated into a network?
The system uses custom or commercial software or hardware? These are the
questions to be asked from time to time to then decide which is the most efficient protocol in
on a case by case basis.
MIDI is undoubtedly the most efficient if you simply have to "interface" two or more
equipment, especially when it comes to commercial products. This is the case, for example, where yes
it simply requires standard data transmission (e.g. note number, amplitude,
etc.) which will then be managed by software integrated into commercial equipment. There
baud rate is essentially the same between the two protocols being it
dependent on the medium and not on the protocol: at present the ports USB they are the means
most used. It is useless to use OSC for simple applications of this type, in
some cases it is even inadvisable being forced to use other software for
interfacing. We recall the particular addressing system organized in
"paternal address”Of OSC, with tree structure and thought of as a network address; in
environments not organized in this way it is necessary to make a conversion. In
Commercial equipment design also reaches out to using MIDI as well
for this reason it still appears to be the most used in general. But how do we
said, it is a closed and protected protocol copyright. Its customization is
complicated: it would actually be possible to build custom MIDI messages but the
mechanism turns out to be very complex. To tell the truth we also believe rather
useless, since they are mainly commercial sound production systems and therefore
also usually closed and limited in their possibilities by the design of his
producer. If the needs fall into this case, MIDI is absolutely more
practical and efficient.
If, on the other hand, you need to make two or more systems "interact" with each other, the whole of which is from
consider itself a network, where the behavior of each element varies according to the state
or the behavior of the other elements of the network, where the elements of the system are
built and designed according to specific needs, then undoubtedly the most protocol
efficient is OSC. This protocol is also a winner for simpler systems as long as they are
organized as a network. Musicians and composers with the evolution of technologies
IT now have the opportunity to regain the freedom of expression and composition
designing and building their own work tools, as was the case at the dawn of
electronic music. We are no longer limited to using so-called "closed" commercial products
both hardware and software; programming environments (many "open source") and systems
DSP programmable (cheap but very efficient) type Arduino, give the freedom to create
so-called systems embedded. In these areas OSC is very effective. Plus the trend
general in the design of new technologies is to pay close attention to the connection
and to the "interaction / integration”Of them in a network: and OSC was designed
specifically for working with computer networks. They are described, in fact, in the paragraph
previous several systems interacting via OSC protocol organized in one
network that also expands for several kilometers.
It is now necessary, confirming the trend of recent years, to mention the birth of
artistic movement called "Net Art". This term defines a created work
specifically for the internet and respecting all or most of the following
features:
• It is created with programming languages and software;
• The artistic / aesthetic intention to connect more multimedia contents;
• Interactivity as an essential but not always necessary element;
• Global usability. Access to a work of Net Art it must be possible from
any Internet connection;
• Being open source and editable in some cases by anyone.
We wanted to dwell at length on the concepts of "interaction" and simple "connection",
inserting them in our historical discourse concerning the technology of communication between
sound production systems. In fact, I consider them fundamental concepts for understanding
and awareness of the means and possibilities available to the
researcher / composer. And again, I've often talked about lack of freedom from
part of the composer / researcher and of the possibility of having a so-called relationship
"Artisanal" with the tools and methods of their research. Possibility and freedom
had at the beginning of the electroacoustic adventure (period of voltage control), where i
means were practically non-existent and all to be (re) -invented, but which have come
largely limited to large-scale industrialization by tools
musical (period from MIDI onwards). Up to get them back (if the composer's intention)
through the use of information technology where the composer / researcher can
build their own technology thanks to programming languages (OSC period and
Open Source forward). All this is to be connected to the talks made on connectivity, on
interaction between the machines and the choice of using MIDI or OSC as appropriate.
At this point it is useful to bring back two important points of the thought of Otto
Shoot:
1. The techniques are at various levels dependent on each other and that is not an invention
it never works alone.
2. Western man has transformed the tool of his doing (technology) into
environment of his living.
Hence the need to have efficient technologies that allow the connection (i
communication protocols) among other technologies (computers, audio synthesis generators,
software and so on) and that the latter are equipped with efficient interfaces.
But what is meant by an efficient interface? Here is a focal point of ours
discussion. The task of the interfaces is to simplify and make the
relationship between man and technologies. Second Bordieu, the man to improve his
performance needs, given its nature, to have elements that define its
times and spaces (interfaces). Who is it then who designs and builds these interfaces? There
specificity of an interface, as we have seen, is also capable of influencing the choice
the type of communication protocol to use. If you leave it to the tool industry
music the task of making them, the consequence is that you are automatically limited
in acting from a design made by others, according to the interests of the latter
(primarily economic). You are automatically relegated to the role of a simple "user-
consumer "and the only way to originality is that of an improper and forced use of
this technology. Relying on this type of interfaces we are almost always
forced to have the only possibility to connect technology. And as we have seen the use of the
MIDI in these cases proved to be the most used choice and, in fact, also the most convenient in
practical terms. However, we are certainly moving away from the many times mentioned, and second
we necessary, freedom of the researcher / composer.
Quoting Shoot we wanted to highlight that our living is completely today
integrated in a technological environment where the various technologies are dependent on each other
on the other hand, the interaction between them is therefore (or at least should be) a necessity.
Let us remember once again that by interaction we mean a condition in which the
technologies change their state and / or their functioning according to the state and the
operation of the others to which they are connected. Then the solution is to design and
realize its own technology and its related interfaces, finding a valid tool
in programming languages and especially in those Open Source, In
consequently, the OSC with its address pattern system and its total programmability
turns out to be the ideal communication protocol.
Through a formalistic and empirical approach it is possible to analyze and optimize the
results of your programming work and carry out research in a real freedom of
action by freeing ourselves from the role of user-consumer, we are able to experiment
various solutions to the problems (constructivism). Through empiricism they can
look for new possibilities and then let oneself be influenced by them in the search for new ones
artistic situations, of unexplored circumstances (weak determinism). The technological means
and the environment in which its action takes place are never neutral, but "inter-act"
(they act within), they leave their mark on the choices of doing, they make themselves felt
within the sound choices of a composer, they impress a characterizing mark
within a listening experience, therefore the composer / researcher is obliged to keep
account of these aspects. By further abstracting the discourse, we can elect MIDI and
the OSC to symbols of these two diametrically opposite attitudes of placing oneself in front of the
technological problem: associating MIDI with the typical vision of technological determinism e
to the OSC that of constructivism and technological indeterminism.
