From the creator of TouchOSC, Protokol is a perfect tool for monitoring MIDI, Open Sound Control (OSC), and gamepads – with more on the way. And not only is it free, but it runs on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, desktop and mobile. Build 105 gets some nice updates, and it’s a good excuse to remind you of this utility.
You can run it for troubleshooting on your computer. You can stick it on a Raspi – and even make your own monitoring device. You can put it on your phone. New in the latest build, you get the ability to forward received OSC messages to another host/app “and some other little OSC niceties.” Added:
- Improved OSC connection preferences
- Added OSC message forwarding
- Added option to disable zeroconf advertising
- Added local network interfaces info dialog
- Updated code signing certificate
- Fixed first run UI scale on high DPI displays
- Updated game controller mapping database
- Minor bug fixes and improvements
Protokol is a must for OSC and gamepads especially, but it may still be your favorite choice for a full log of MIDI messages in the conventional way. For a more structured approach, there’s another free cross-platform tool we’ve covered previously – I’ll be keeping both. That’s ShowMIDI (which I think has gotten still more updates since):
Protokol is a gem, though, and I’m intrigued on the visual side by some of what could be coming. (Hexler notes things “in the pipeline” – but asks about whether you might want ArtNET, DMX, or MQTT.)
One to watch: