Ohm Studio - Open for everybody (beta)

[darsho]

How Do I send MIDI to my hardware synthesizers and MIDI Clock to my Drummachine ?

Ist this possible at all, or is this only a programm for VSTi plugins, so to speak ?

[pljones]

MIDI currently stays inside. It's on the list, AIUI.

[darsho]

I see.
Well it's a beta after all

I will take another look at it, once it can actaully sequence my gear.

[Red_Force]

Well, I am a bit on track again with Ohm Force, as it seems. Now consider everything I say as even more suspicious and biased !

Also : first cohmunity event. Want to have fun ? This may be a way.

[robogone]

Got to say that as with many other people the lack of an offline mode seems very limiting. Good idea though.

[Red_Force]

Got to say that as with many other people the lack of an offline mode seems very limiting. Good idea though.

I am curious about this. Considering the angle of OS is to fulfill the need for a collaborative platform, on line connexion seems like an unavoidable requirement. Now I understand the need to use one and only one sequencer and the Ohm Studio is entirely designed to be an edible candidate to this, as I think it's fair to say the core features host wise are pretty solid. I for myself am always connected because I am making music on a desktop. But I get it's not everyone's case. Why is the mandatory connexion so limitating to you ? Do you use a laptop ? Do you use a weak wifi ? Do you cut internet when you compose usually ? Something else I am not even thinking about ?

[LawrenceF]

How about the net connection going down? I wouldn't compose seriously in (as a goto) anything that required a working net connection just to open my songs.

The collab thing is cool though... but no offline kinda defeats the purpose of composing in it directly instead of composing elsewhere and dropping in stems.

How often do I personally lose my Internet connection? About 2-3 times a year... for up to 3-4 days at a time or more... depending on how bad the storm was that knocked everything out.

[Red_Force]

That's interesting. Where we live the connection kind of never fall down. So we need to get this kind of feedback to remind us how big this world is. Thank you !

[rlahalla]

Do you cut internet when you compose usually ? Something else I am not even thinking about ?

The problem you guys will constantly run into is that a lot of people are not going to want to spend the time learning a new host, with an abundance of feature and workflow related changes from their normal routine, with no way of accessing projects offline. No reason to learn another host just for social music making, which seems kind of gimmicky IMHO. It becomes more of a distracting activity than an efficient way of collaborating. Obviously this is all my own opinion, which I'm sure many will disagree with.

[robogone]

Considering the angle of OS is to fulfill the need for a collaborative platform, on line connexion seems like an unavoidable requirement.

I agree, but it's limiting to not be able to work offline. What about laptop users who don't have a permanent connection? There will be times when there is no wireless available so it means no work can be done.

Would be good to use it like any other DAW i.e. anywhere at any time.

[Red_Force]

There will be times when there is no wireless available so it means no work can be done.

Yes but if you speak about anything collaborative, even with no connection requirement the desync in itself is not easily standable. Desync = good chances of version conflict. i.e. You work on your side, your buddy on the other, and then everything is broken when you try to re glue both of your docs.

That's not to say it's an impossible thing. I am actually all in for it if this can be done - it even was the initial plan. But it really isn't a simple matter. Neither technically, nor from a design perspective : how to make it handy, simple, reliable, working ?

[robogone]

Desync = good chances of version conflict. i.e. You work on your side, your buddy on the other, and then everything is broken when you try to re glue both of your docs.

That's where version control comes in. There's no reason you can't have multiple mixes of the same piece of music. Version control is usually designed to synch up offline work, so it shouldn't be an issue.

[UncleAge]

But it really isn't a simple matter. Neither technically, nor from a design perspective : how to make it handy, simple, reliable, working ?

That's fair.

Yes but if you speak about anything collaborative, even with no connection requirement the desync in itself is not easily standable. Desync = good chances of version conflict. i.e. You work on your side, your buddy on the other, and then everything is broken when you try to re glue both of your docs.

This is not how I work if/when I collaborate. Very seldom will I work on the same instrumentation as another person. However, my experiences may be atypical.

Let me state that I am no longer against the idea of things being entirely online. But if you do consider some sort of offline experience then maybe you could just setup a few guidelines that might make things easier.

1. Each party, when working in offline mode, could only add/clone tracks (thus variations to existing tracks). All offline tracks would be uploaded upon the next connection to the project, however all would exist as temporary tracks until approved.

3. Tempo and time signature changes can only be made by the project owner(s).

2. The project has an owner and that person(s) is responsible for giving the final ok to any version conflicts and also making any temp tracks permanent.

Its not perfect but it seems as though it might create a bridge to offline usage. Just throwing stuff out there really...

[Red_Force]

Desync = good chances of version conflict. i.e. You work on your side, your buddy on the other, and then everything is broken when you try to re glue both of your docs.

That's where version control comes in. There's no reason you can't have multiple mixes of the same piece of music. Version control is usually designed to synch up offline work, so it shouldn't be an issue.

You can, but it's not costless. Keep in mind that you have several sets of constraint that are working at the same time here : first there is a multi user production work, with all issues with version conflicts : how to avoid them, how to solve them. If every time you work without a connection you then have to spend 20 minutes exporting, importing, resychning audiofiles, score and patches, you'll quickly avoid doing off line work by your self, even with a connection.

So to deal with that you could have a way to manage : clone a project to an offline one - at least this way the version conflict while still there doesn't instantly break everything. But the conflict would still be there, and everyone would think to "online collab" as something difficult. At least withe mandatory connection we can make sure a world of problem never happen to user. Which they don't see, but still

Then you have... the cohmunity requirement. Cohmunity is link. When someone follow your progress on a track, we don't want him to get lost because you've switched to another version and didn't tell. If there's a "like" counter (there was on in the closed beta, and it may come back) it's meaningless if there start to be systematically several node/URL/version of one track.

And then there's the hidden requirement, the technical one. How much project proliferation can the servers handle without shaking, how much traceability can you efficiently get from version to version, etc.

There are generally at least one, or more solutions to all of those issues, but what's tricky is to find something one that deals with everything, that's simple from user's perspective, etc. We didn't give up yet. We're watching what people are doing, what they're not needing after all. We're asking you questions here Maybe we'll find a way. I certainly hope so !

[Red_Force]

@ UncleAge

Guidelines is an option but there are several things that cripples it

- first each time you create a set of artificial constraint to deal with a real one, you have to find a way to educate the user about it and get his/her approval. If you fail, he/she go use something else. So if you create constraint like "you can just touch this track", you have to make it understandable right from the UI, you have to make sure this constraint never pops up without a good reason, etc. Tricky.

- second, any rule that relies on "just owners can do this" doesn't work because there can be several owners. And it's needed, would it only be to reflect real implication in a project : sometimes that's really a dense mix of talents to make a track.

- BTW, version conflicts doesn't require 2 people on the same track. 2 people making arrangements (put that break here vs let's make the chorus twice as long) are enough to entirely screw things up, and that would happen all the time.

I am thinking maybe a "clone to local" could go somewhere. An online project is online forever, and offline is offline forever, but you could create one out of the other (both ways) by duplication. That is not solving everything, by far, but right now it's my best shot.