[LAD] hard realtime performance synth

David McClanahan david.mcclanahan at gmail.com
Sat Jan 23 22:32:55 UTC 2010


Hi,

Where to start? I have a Dell 7000 laptop and I'm wondering if it can be a
music synthesizer(something like a Minimoog). If not, why not?

I know there are much more powerful machines out but that's beside the
point. If the goal is a dedicated performance grade synth(as in it sounds
good and doesn't cut out or lock up on a whim) is there some intrinsic
reason why such hardware cannot be utilized. The distributions(Ubuntu
studion, PureDyne etc) typically have a heavy footprint and stuff that many
times seems superfluous. If one starts trying to cut pieces out of
distribution(via the standard packaging mechanisms) you end up with slightly
to very crippled systems.

On the other hand, I have a Roland JV1010 tone box that is relatively stable
and I doubt has faster or more sophisticated processing than in the Dell.

Part of the reason I'm asking is I'm wondering if the following would be
viable

1. Implement a synth on a hard real time platform. RTAI or RTLinux. Such a
system would boot up as a dedicated synth aka cut out stuff unnecessary for
other than sound control/production

2. Characteristics of  a synth could be set while in a normal Linux
environment.

 sorry bout the slight ramble but that's enuff to start off

david
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