Diving Deep into OSC
Our new flagship controller, the CVA is being installed in more sites. Constant hardware revisions, software updates, and product evolution are making for an incredibly flexible product. The past few weeks have focused on Ethernet connectivity, specifically OSC protocol support.
The OSC protocol so far supports iPad based tuning controls (magic tuner, diatonic/chromatic advance/reverse, stop control, couplers), expression shade control, remote control of the sequencer (record/play), ability to remotely press a piston, ability to remotely reversible action a stop (even if it doesn’t have a reversible assigned to it), and a new concept called User Variables.
Each site is unique, and some organs have special features that would be handy to be able to control using an iPad. These can be assigned as Pizz values, Reit values, tremolo speeds/depths, slider motor timers, sleep timers, etc.
The biggest difficulty we encounter with this feature is a difficulty also encountered with the tuning feature - because each application is different, it becomes necessary to have a custom OSC layout defined in the OSC app of choice for each instrument.
We have solved that by allowing the console to send the labels into the iPad. This allows the configuration file to label each control as it is configured. We will provide a generic TouchOSC layout to interested clients that is “ready to go.”
Because OSC is an open protocol and because we are publishing our implementation of it, any user can create any OSC client to interact with the instrument. Custom desktop applications, custom iOS/Android apps are just the beginning. Layouts in any OSC-compatible layout software can be created and linked back to the CVA. An on-board source controller learns the IP address of the remote devices and supports multiple devices connected at once, so you don’t have to have just one iPad linked to the controller - multiple units can be doing multiple things at once (for example, while one person is tuning, another can be adjusting swell shades while another sets slider motor timings).
This is just the tip of the iceburg, many more things are in the works - watch this space for more details!