[LAU] Building an Open Source keyboard rig

[Len Ovens]

On Fri, 4 Mar 2016, Ben Bell wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 03, 2016 at 08:15:46PM +1100, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
>> If you don't need a visual environment then you can run without X. I have
>> servers online running this way. They don't even have sound cards and use
>> jack -dummy instead. Everything can be controlled by external hardware
>> and/or command line fu.
> This is definitely more what I had in mind. I don't want to be dealing with
> a computer, I want it to feel like an instrument. So controlled by MIDI and
> maybe something like Arduino-powered controllers and feedback (display,
> LEDs).
>
>> If you want to save yourself time and hassle buy a prebuilt manufactured
>> solution.
> Do you mean a prebuilt audio PC of some sort, or did you just mean a normal
> off the shelf workstation synth keyboard?

The only prebuilt audio PC I can think of is the MOD. Midi controlable, 
high quality i/o, Runs synths out of the box (some may even be pre 
loaded).

Rather than a NUC, I would tend to one of the atom boards. Gpu used to be 
not open (don't know about new ones), but then, headless for stage work so 
who cares? Runs on 12v, no fan needed, lots of USB built in, no fan 
needed, good latency performance. Worked successfully in the previous beta 
style MOD.

For a controller... quickest is any USB keyboard. Each key assigned one 
function... or each key assigned a midi event to send to the synth. 
Displays with serial in might be enough for user feedback.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net