[LAU] Help finding parts for building a hardware system

[Mike McGonagle]

Thanks, Jonathan, the description of your system sounds nice...

It also appears that I should give a bit more of a background
description on what I am trying to put together. While I would like to
be able to use this machine live, I am mostly thinking of it as a
production system. Most of the things I am interested in seem to
require too much synthesis for my Mac to handle in realtime (doing
some granular synthesis with about 64 grains going at one time). I am
also interested in Computer Generated music for real musicians.

Currently, I am using PD as a "gui" building system, while I am doing
the audio stuff in other programs linked up to PD. I tried to use PD
for the audio stuff, but it requires static objects for each "voice"
(and the 64 grains I mentioned, really bogs down my Mac). While I have
not tried PD on a Linux machine, I have heard that it runs much faster
than it does on a Mac.

I am also looking to build a controller interface using Arduino and a
multi-touch tablet of some sort, but that is down the road. The first
thing that I need to do is get an idea of what I want for the computer
hardware, and what software I am going to run. I am planning on some
version of Linux, and most likely it will be Ubuntu. But, that is also
part of the things that I am looking for some advice on.

I did find an interesting site that allows you to put together your
own system, and it gives you an idea of what those things will cost,
but I also imagine that those prices are what THEY would charge if
they put the system together for you. At least it could be used to fit
all the things together, and then you can price them else where... The
website is http://www.pugetsystems.com/

Mike

On Sat, Jul 10, 2010 at 4:22 PM, Jonathan E. Brickman
<jeb at joshuacorps.org> wrote:
> My personal PC is my live musical instrument and DAW; perhaps my thus-fars
> will help.
>
> 1.  I was pondering laptop, but I don't like the heat-sensitivity,
> price-point, repairability, upgradeability, nor tweakability.  I do lots of
> high-CPU software synthesis using Yoshimi, so heat would be a terror on a
> laptop.  I am using an all-black tower with a GearGrip.com harness, and a
> black screen onstage.  If I do more stage work I'll eventually get a 9" LCD,
> but for now I'm fine using a very old 14" CRT.  It gets lots of startled
> looks, and Yoshimi produces such profound tones to match.
>
> 2.  The tower (AMD64 9950 quad, 2.6GHz, 4G midrange RAM) cost me $350 from
> directron.com , those people have done much good for me.  I added the
> GearGrip separately, and also later added two laptop SATA hard drives from
> Hitachi, the laptop hard drives are far more resistant to vibration.  The
> latter has been a just-in-case so far, my very old 110M IDE is still running
> in the box as a backup.  I am probably going to do RAID-1 eventually, but am
> also probably going to wait for BTRFS for this.
>
> 3.  I don't do graphics beyond the occasional personal YouTube or mpeg or
> whatnot, so I am using the motherboard (nVidia chipset) graphics.  I have to
> disable the nouveau driver manually in some distros, but Fedora 13 went
> right in.
>
> 4.  Sound card.  This was a very difficult decision for me.  But the
> decision was helped a lot by mechanics, pricepoints, and recent industry
> impressions.
>
> a.  I started out using my motherboard audio.  Worked great, 2.something ms
> latency.  But as I thought would happen, the 1/8" stereo output jack wore
> out on the front within six weeks.  So while using the back jack, I hunted
> for something better.
>
> b.  I spoke about it with our sound guy (I do run sound at need, but he has
> the dedication and the muscles), running through options, and he suggested
> RCA jacks.  I was shocked, I had never heard of RCA jacks on the back of a
> PC, but I had to admit it made sense.  They are mechanically far stronger
> than anything else appropriate in size, they are spring-held and so don't
> create jiggle-static, and are extremely reliable in general.
>
> c.  But I had never ever seen an RCA jack on a PC sound card before, and a
> great many Google searches weren't getting me anything.  After a large
> amount of Googling I found just one or two PC casemod suppliers who could
> (at amazing expense) supply me with difficult do-it-myself parts to use my
> motherboard audio or a header off a PCI sound card, with new external RCA
> jacks; but I didn't want a complex and possibly fragile build; I wanted
> something built of stock replaceable parts.
>
> d.  I found RCA jacks on USB and Firewire devices first.  Firewire was just
> too expensive.  The reports I received about USB 2 seemed to indicate
> kludginess and compatibility issues, and a Windows setup job I had done two
> years before tended to agree.  PCI-E was new and expensive in sound cards
> then.  So I decided to look for PCI.
>
> e.  I did a large number of Google searches.  Found zero.  This didn't make
> sense to me, because I had just visited a local gamer-oriented PC store, and
> had seen an under-the-TV PC box shaped like a thick VCR which had RCA jacks
> for audio.  So I decided that I had to go beyond Google.  I first checked
> the Creative Labs web site's full line, and although RCA jacks weren't in
> any description (!), they were visible (!!!!) in two of the
> pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.  So I knew they existed.  As with most things
> Creative Labs which are not cheapies, the ones I found there were rather
> expensive.  So I did some research using past reports on Linux Audio lists,
> found a make appearing to do very well (AudioTrak), found a model with RCA
> jacks using the photographs of cards, found a very good supplier
> (floridamusicco.com) of my chosen card (AudioTrak Prodigy HD2), put it in,
> and found that it works beautifully.  Not only does it work beautifully, but
> the quality of its electronics are visibly extraordinary.  I have been
> working off and on in hardware since 1981, and this card reminds me of some
> of the real beauties made years ago.  DIP sockets for op-amps.  Thick sturdy
> board, white in color to expose any issues.  Big strong capacitors, no
> cheapies.  And the price is very good considering its capability.  The card
> can do 192 kbps :-)  I don't use it at more than 96 kbps, and usually 48
> kbps, because more takes up CPU!
>
> 4.  The CCRMA RT kernel registers crash errors on my F13 a lot.  (I imagine
> it's just one of the four CPUs crashing.)  I don't use it anymore.  I'm
> using the just-updated stock F13 kernel, with Jack2 in realtime+soft mode.
> This combination used to not work at all, but under F13 on this hardware it
> runs rather nicely.
>
> 5.  Jack2.  I find that jack2 (the optional jackd package at version 1.9.5
> in F13 right now) in synchronous mode (-S on its command line in qjackctl)
> gives by far the best results on this hardware.
>
> On Sat, 2010-07-10 at 15:25 -0400, Mike McGonagle wrote:
>
> In continuing my search for information on building a computer, I
> found this website ( http://www.build-gaming-computers.com/ ). While
> this site says it is about building a gaming system, I would imagine
> that the information is applicable to building a system for using as a
> Digital Audio Workstation, too.
>
> I guess I should move on to other questions that are more related to
> specifics about a DAW system. Things such as how the software would
> take advantage of a multiple processor machine. Would something like
> that require a custom compile for that particular machine? Or are
> there builds that already exist? How about the system kernel? Would
> that require a custom build for these things to be advantageous?
>
> I would be interested in hearing anyone's experiences in putting
> together their own systems, and how they decided what things to
> include, AND exclude, and why?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mike
>
> On Thu, Jul 8, 2010 at 8:02 PM, Mike McGonagle <mjmogo at gmail.com
>> wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I recently have started having some issues with my current computer,
>> an old Mac OSX laptop, so I want to build a computer (desktop or
>> otherwise) to replace this older system. I pretty much have a list of
>> some specs that I would like in this machine, but in starting a search
>> for these things online, I feel I am getting nowhere fast.
>>
>> I am looking to building around some Linux distro, but I am not
>> "married" to any particular system. My only hardware requirements are
>> the ability to connect up my USB midi interface. I would also like to
>> be able to capture digital audio from my external synths.
>>
>> If anyone could possibly give me a handle on some direction of where
>> to start looking, it would be greatly appreciated. It just seems that
>> there is so much information out there, and Google doesn't seem to be
>> helping sort out the things I would need.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Mike
>>
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