[LAU] Building an Open Source keyboard rig

[Len Ovens]

On Sun, 6 Mar 2016, Patrick Shirkey wrote:

> On Sat, March 5, 2016 6:56 am, Ben Bell wrote:
>> got experience of the NUC stuff?
>>
> The low end NUC is reliable and fully supported in ubuntu. I had some
> issues with debian driver support when I first set it up ubuntu had them
> sorted at the time. It does occasionally overheat and lock up but it seems
> to be a video driver issue and might already be fixed if I upgrade the
> drivers.

...

> I would go for the i7 model if I was using it as a live performance
> workhorse.

I would not pick the i7 for this use for anything other than experimental 
use. The thing to remember is that these are not desktop processors, they 
are mobile processors. The i7 mobile... is two core only.

The whole thing with mobile intel cpu is heat. Heat limits what can be put 
on the chip to two cores with ht. Heat limits what performance you can get 
out of what chips are on the board too.

So to pick out the best NUC for a workhorse stage box.... look at power 
rating of the chips vs. speed. The last .1 or .2 Ghz speed may up the 
power use by as much as 25% (don't even look at Boost speed because for 
audio work you will not ever use it)

Understand that for live work you might want to turn HT off and loose that 
as well. (test first though) Do test with a cpu hog what temperature the 
CPU gets to after 10 minutes and see if you are getting xruns due to speed 
cuts for heat. In the end you may need to set the CPU Governor to 
UserSpace rather than performance so highest temperature a CPU hog gets 
you is right around 60-65C just to be sure stage work is not over heating 
things. While it is true audio will never use 100% cpu (without a really 
bad sound :)  ) Stages can be warm places... particularely places a little 
box like the nuc might get stuffed.

I would definately run a temperature logger.

The NUC has a nice box, but do not be fooled, this is not made for stage 
work, it is not designed for outside use, or to be thrown into a box when 
packing up, being stepped on, kicked, or otherwise abused. It's connectors 
(as discused in other similar threads) are not road worthy. A larger box 
that allows extending the i/os to better connectors on the box would make 
sense to me. A box made of metal... or 3/4 ply. Personally, I would tend 
to a slightly bigger MB at the same time with more options. I would see if 
I could get a true 4 core CPU like an i5 which generates a lot less heat 
than an i7. and build it for the road.

What no one else has said, building ones own road kit will cost more than 
a prebuilt solution. One has to be aware of this going into the project. 
If cheap is the main reason... that says something about how much one 
cares about their performance too. I think putting together an open source 
kit is wonderful, but not to save money. It should be about being able to 
bring a better performance to your audience.

--
Len Ovens
www.ovenwerks.net