[Om-synth] issues with om

[Atte André Jensen]

Hi

I thought a lot about if I should post this or not. I really hope this 
is taken in a good spirit, cause that would be the best for om and it's 
small but growing community. I realize that Dave being the (almost?) 
only developer of om has lot's of other things fighting for his time.

First let me start by saying that I really like om and I'd hate to leave 
it. I find it's quite fast to work in and the high number of ladspa 
plugins make is easy to make sounds the way I want them.

Let me then summerize the technical aspects of my system: I run 
debian/unstable with the low latency kernel (2.6.12-3-multimedia-686) 
from demudi. My computer is a 2.4Ghz P4 laptop with 512mb ram. I control 
om from three evolution usb keyboards live. I manage setups with lash.

Then a bit about what I mainly use om for: I'm in a (amongst others) a 
rockband where I spice up the hard edged rock with "strange sounds", 
sweeps, bleeps, pads with resonance, stuff like that. I normally need to 
use quite a few sounds in the same tune, something like 5 or 10.

Here are a few of my problems:

1) When I load alot (one tune has 7 sounds for instance) of medium 
complex sounds un-nice things start to happen: Audio breaks up 
(sometimes, not all the time), even though top only shows om using < 70% 
cpu.

2) Sounds randomly load with an error like (this happens with with 
loading from lash and from om_gtk, and it also happens under very light 
load):
ERROR: Unable to make connection 
/lo_bass_intro_01.om/product_iaic_oa_3/Product Output -> 
/lo_bass_intro_01.om/product_iaic_oa_5/First Input
ERROR: Unable to make connection 
/lo_bass_intro_01.om/product_iaic_oa_5/Product Output -> 
/lo_bass_intro_01.om/product_iaia_oa_3/First Input
ERROR: Unable to find port /lo_bass_intro_01.om/product_iaic_oa_5/Second 
Input

3) Most of the time patches loads with modules thrown a few modules 
thrown randomly over the canvas. Mostly product modules and audio output 
modules. This is not a huge problem, but it's very anoying.

4) Om (as mentioned in a previous post) doesn't seem to handle very 
standard stuff like sustain (or hold) pedal.

5) Not exactly om's problem, but specimen doesn't connect from lash. I 
mention this because I often need to play a few samples as well. 
Sampling static sounds from om into specimen would also potentionally 
lighten the load on my cpu. I also mention this because I need some kind
of additionally software to play samples since this is not supported in 
om (tried the simple_sampler, but it crashes when I change the root pitch).

So, what are my options? I can think of a few:

1) Buy a faster computer. This doesn't really solve the problem, since 
additional load will bring hat system down too. The loading errors + 
sample playpack issues would remain.

2) Buy a mac, and run some unflexible, propritaty software.

3) Buy a NordModular.

4) Investegate into my kernel. There might be some performance gain 
here, but again this will come back with heavier load.

5) Switch back to csound (or look in other directions, supercollider 
comes to mind). Although I program much slower in csound and I'm not too 
fond of it's ancient language, it's rock steady, very fast, has dynamic 
voice allocation and plays back samples.

So here's my point:

I realize that om is free software and I get what I paid for (actually 
quite a lot more). And I'm in no way critizising the programming effords 
put into om. But the project would be alot more usable in a real-world 
situation if:

1) Attention was paid to efficiency. This both means optimizing om 
itself, but also implementing things like dynamic voice allocation.

2) Stability was a main consideration in the development model. This 
might mean putting new features on hold, and doing what we all hate: 
testing and fixing bugs. This might also include making official 
releases more often. This also means that that cvs should always be usable.

I might be missing quite a few points here, so please enlighten me. But 
these were my thoughts...

--
peace, love & harmony
Atte

http://www.atte.dk