[nutate]

One could argue that it places necessary limitations on musical expression that allowed it to flourish. Defining scales, etc in the protocol left some issues w/ microtonal stuff. The timing protocol is a bit squidgy for beat matching, but if you look at OSC everyone creates their own namespace and instead of one protocol you have a bunch of devices with different mapping conventions.

I would say the 0-127 range of controls hurts midi more than anything, if someone just bumped midi to osc's range most people would be happy. HD MIDI does that and may end up usurping OSC before OSC even gets traction: http://www.midi.org/aboutus/news/hd.php

[BFay]

I think you really nailed that - OSC is a useful protocol, and it's definitely been used important in computer music (Supercollider for example uses OSC as the protocol for messages from the language to the server).

But the beautiful thing about MIDI is how plug-and-play it is, because of the one standard. You can plug one keyboard into another and boom, you have an instant controller. I can't see that functionality in OSC's future.

0-127 is really limiting though - I've tried using faders where 0 is no volume, and 127 is max volume, and it just doesn't feel like there is enough resolution to fine-tune things.

[magnusson]

Re the 0-127 range, you may be familiar with this, but many devices are capable of sending 14-bit MIDI messages by combining 2 different MIDI CCs, allowing for much finer control. 106.js supports both 7 and 14-bit messages.

[nutate]

Wow, looking at that it looks like my old (lost?) Peavey PC-1600 could send 14 bit messages. In the end I think a lot of the problem is also fixable with better interpolation and mapping, but I've definitely ended up sitting in the range I want on a synth mapping, but getting clicks when I touch a knob. Pretty interesting to think 14 bit midi has been around for so long but it hasn't really taken off. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRPN whenever I go into the midi standard I end up finding neat stuff. These days USB MIDI and bluetooth MIDI have also kept it alive while OSC is still lost in a web of standards all different, great for communicating when one dev is on the send and receive side, but bad for easy interop.

[JonnieCache]

I love how its so simple you can bit bang it, but yeah, 128 values ain't enough. 14 bit midi is a dodgy hack. When you get used to turning knobs on analog gear, using midi to control complex modern digital synths feels barbaric.

(TBF if I think 14 bit midi is a hack then I should really be against OSC)