[LAU] outfitting a computer for songwriting in linux?

[Karen Lewellen]

Hi,
The card choice is settled.  i am hunting for the m-audio card Fred 
suggested.
Additionally, I followed enough  of that USB midi discussion to decide I 
will pass.
I am not the sort of computer user to decide that I am aiming for the next 
best upgrade.  I choose for stability, like a pencil.
I have no reason for example to pub wifi on this box, Ethernet is just fine.
Thanks for your take,
Karen


On Sun, 26 Jul 2015, Len Ovens wrote:

> On Sun, 26 Jul 2015, Karen Lewellen wrote:
>
>>  Hi,
>>  I would much prefer the pci option than using USB for this, yes.
>>  second  I am going to put the computer together for this purpose, meaning
>>  nothing has been chosen.  Laughs on  the soundblaster idea, but I am new
>>  to this not realizing what good pci cards are supported by debian in
>>  general.
>
> As you are only interested in MIDI, and audio is not needed. The old ensoniq 
> audio pci cards are one of the best solutions (using the "game port") and 
> they are known as one of the best quality 16bit cards. However, PCI is not a 
> forward looking solution so this and the delta1010 really are obsolete. It is 
> possible to find a computer with pci slots still, but it does take some work. 
> Almost all newer keyboards come with a USB port as one of their outputs. Some 
> are better than others I don't know if anyone on the list can point to one 
> that is better than just having a hw midi to USB inside as a keyboard that is 
> USB direct from CPU would be better.
>
> The computer side: Use an Intel CPU. The person setting it up should be 
> willing to find out which of the USB ports on the computer should be used for 
> this (have their own irq) and which usb ports should therefore never be used 
> for anything else (often two usb ports are on an internal hub).
>
> I have assumed so far the keyboard has it's own audio section (creates sound) 
> and the computer will not do so. But probably it may be nice to continue 
> working on the computer even if the keyboard is not available. So the distro 
> should be fitted with a lowlatency kernel. Your tech will have to find out 
> which other things need to be turned off for glitch free sound (some wifi 
> setups for example... many are just fine)
>
> Probably any of the core series cpu will work just fine if you are using just 
> a GM softsynth for the user to hear their work. For just listening, latency 
> is not an issue, but you ever decide to play the keyboard and hear audio from 
> the computer's softsynth, it is a must. As you do not want any external 
> boxes... you are left with PCIe cards if the Intel internal audio is not 
> satifactory (generally audio output is quite good, audio input is not good 
> enough for anything other than skype).
>
> --
> Len Ovens
> www.ovenwerks.net
>
>
>