Boneless
March 17th, 2009, 06:19 PM
Hi everyone,
I'm new to this forum, I'll start straightaway with a question to ask you.
I play in a band, and I am using zynaddsubfx as main synth of choice at the moment.
I must say that there are very nice synths on Linux, really, many of them commercial-grade.
Now, I was thinking of building a tiny (let's say rackmount) PC to use as a synth or as a music machine in general.
I'd get a small case or a rack unit, insert a tiny motherboard in it, a old, but fairly powerful CPU (maybe a laptop one), not much RAM really (it is not really necessary for synthesizing stuff, maybe more if I'm sampling stuff), let's say 1GB, a reasonable PCI audio interface (single stereo channel as well, although I'd like a decent input), a small solidstate HD, let's say 4GB, a small power supply and maybe a laptop battery.
I'd also put a MIDI in and a MIDI out port, 4 USB ports (but 2 can do), a VGA port, an Ethernet port and ideally, a very small LCD screen and a touchpad.
Then:
- I'd install a very lightweight distro, ie Xubuntu, with most daemons turned off.
- I'd be looking to a very fast startup time, let's say 30 secs.
- I'd plan to use a single-user setup, it is really not necessary a multi-user setup for this "thing".
- I'd plan in extensively using LASH, so I wouldn't need to do all the stuff I usually do (open JACK, open Zyn, connect MIDI and audio, open other synths, ie. ghostess with sineshaper, nekobee, hexter, whysynth, etc. or, with a higher RAM amount, do everything in Rosegarden or a similar sequencer, preferably something that would work on a small LCD).
I know that a laptop would probably do the job (I actually use a laptop at the moment), but I'd like to have MIDI ports, and a small, durable and reliable box to use just for this. I'd use an EeePC, but they come with Atom CPUs, which I think are underpowered for what I need.
Do you think it's possible to do something like this?
The nicest thing would be a coder that would collaborate with me to do a GUI that would work for the small LCD screen, and I'd release the project specs and everything, but I'm probably asking too much :D
I'm new to this forum, I'll start straightaway with a question to ask you.
I play in a band, and I am using zynaddsubfx as main synth of choice at the moment.
I must say that there are very nice synths on Linux, really, many of them commercial-grade.
Now, I was thinking of building a tiny (let's say rackmount) PC to use as a synth or as a music machine in general.
I'd get a small case or a rack unit, insert a tiny motherboard in it, a old, but fairly powerful CPU (maybe a laptop one), not much RAM really (it is not really necessary for synthesizing stuff, maybe more if I'm sampling stuff), let's say 1GB, a reasonable PCI audio interface (single stereo channel as well, although I'd like a decent input), a small solidstate HD, let's say 4GB, a small power supply and maybe a laptop battery.
I'd also put a MIDI in and a MIDI out port, 4 USB ports (but 2 can do), a VGA port, an Ethernet port and ideally, a very small LCD screen and a touchpad.
Then:
- I'd install a very lightweight distro, ie Xubuntu, with most daemons turned off.
- I'd be looking to a very fast startup time, let's say 30 secs.
- I'd plan to use a single-user setup, it is really not necessary a multi-user setup for this "thing".
- I'd plan in extensively using LASH, so I wouldn't need to do all the stuff I usually do (open JACK, open Zyn, connect MIDI and audio, open other synths, ie. ghostess with sineshaper, nekobee, hexter, whysynth, etc. or, with a higher RAM amount, do everything in Rosegarden or a similar sequencer, preferably something that would work on a small LCD).
I know that a laptop would probably do the job (I actually use a laptop at the moment), but I'd like to have MIDI ports, and a small, durable and reliable box to use just for this. I'd use an EeePC, but they come with Atom CPUs, which I think are underpowered for what I need.
Do you think it's possible to do something like this?
The nicest thing would be a coder that would collaborate with me to do a GUI that would work for the small LCD screen, and I'd release the project specs and everything, but I'm probably asking too much :D