17 Feb
2004
17 Feb
'04
5:11 p.m.
I'm still very new to Linux Audio Workstations
(I've been a Cakewalk/Sonar/SoundForge user for
years), so please forgive me if the question seems
very basic...
I'd like to build a computer to take with me for
live gigs that can replace sound module racks (do
softsynth/sample playback, multi-timbral,
polyphony, etc.). In other words can it replace
an Alesis QSR, a Kurzweil K2000RS and a Korg TR?
Can I do this and still have great
sounds/synth/samples?
So the question is can a Linux DAW do this? If
yes, what are the specs for such a machine?
CPU? RAM? Motherboard? Sound card (very
important, eh)?
Thanks to all who post!
--
===========================================================
Richard K. Ingalls
Director of Information Technology
Glenwood R-8 School District
West Plains, MO
email..ringalls(a)glenwood.k12.mo.us
web....glenwood.k12.mo.us
ph.....417.256.4849
fax....417.257.2567
"Glenwood R-8: home of the mustangs!"
===========================================================
17 Feb
17 Feb
6:34 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 03:06:38PM -0600, Richard K. Ingalls wrote:
I'm still very new to Linux Audio Workstations
(I've been a Cakewalk/Sonar/SoundForge user for
years), so please forgive me if the question seems
very basic...
I'd like to build a computer to take with me for
live gigs that can replace sound module racks (do
softsynth/sample playback, multi-timbral,
polyphony, etc.). In other words can it replace
an Alesis QSR, a Kurzweil K2000RS and a Korg TR?
Can I do this and still have great
sounds/synth/samples?
So the question is can a Linux DAW do this? If
It can do some of that. Exactly how much depends on how much effort youre
going to put into setting it up.
yes, what are the specs for such a machine?
CPU? RAM? Motherboard? Sound card (very
important, eh)?
For soundcards RME and M-Audio are youre best bet, avoid USB if you can.
The processor doesnt really matter, but you probably want something with
decent floating point performance, so a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP. You want
512+ MB of ram.
VIA C3's are tempting for this kind of job (very small, low power
motherboards), but in my experience they are a bit too slow.
- Steve
6:52 p.m.
For soundcards RME and M-Audio are youre best bet,
avoid USB if you can.
The processor doesnt really matter, but you probably want something with
decent floating point performance, so a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP. You want
512+ MB of ram.
This is interesting... What would be a solution for a laptop where
PCMCIA is not available?
I'm tempted to purchase a 12" G4 Powerbook soon, mainly for portable
recording, but the only way to get audio into the thing would be via USB
or FireWire.
I'm looking to use a Jack/Alsa, Ardour, Muse, Fluidsynth setup in
Linux. 2 channels is fine, but 4/6/8 would be nice.
Does anybody know of a solution to this?
Dan
7:16 p.m.
On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 09:47:29AM +1100, Dan Harper wrote:
Get someone to support one of the many firewire devices under ALSA ;)
- Steve
For soundcards
RME and M-Audio are youre best bet, avoid USB if you can.
The processor doesnt really matter, but you probably want something with
decent floating point performance, so a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP. You want
512+ MB of ram.
This is interesting... What would be a solution for a laptop where
PCMCIA is not available? 
18 Feb
18 Feb
4:33 a.m.
On Wednesday 18 February 2004 00.12, Steve Harris wrote:
On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 09:47:29AM +1100, Dan Harper
wrote:
Get someone to support one of the many firewire devices under ALSA ;)
This is something I'm looking forward to __greatly__. Access to firewire
devices would accelerate my own usage computers in a live situation (and
recording for that matter). I'd like to help but it looks like no one really
knows in which direction we shall proceed.
I guess mLan is the answer, though I'm not sure about the question :)
/Robert
For
soundcards RME and M-Audio are youre best bet, avoid USB if you
can. The processor doesnt really matter, but you probably want
something with decent floating point performance, so a Pentium 4 or
Athlon XP. You want 512+ MB of ram.
This is interesting... What would be a solution for a laptop where
PCMCIA is not available?
4:56 a.m.
On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 09:27:46AM +0100, Robert Jonsson wrote:
A good start might be for the ALSA developers to ask for Firewire 410
specs from M-Audio - assuming they have the time and inclination to work
on firewire drivers ontop of everything else they do.
Get someone to
support one of the many firewire devices under ALSA ;)
This is something I'm looking forward to __greatly__. Access to firewire
devices would accelerate my own usage computers in a live situation (and
recording for that matter). I'd like to help but it looks like no one really
knows in which direction we shall proceed. I guess mLan is the answer, though I'm not sure
about the question :)
mLan could be the answer, but sadly there are a lot of non-standard
firewire audio interfaces, and all the mLan ones are quite expensive
AFAICT. We do now have an offer of (complete) mLan specs from yamaha, and
they may have someone working on it allready (they weren't clear on that).
- Steve
17 Feb
17 Feb
9:50 p.m.
Hallo,
Dan Harper hat gesagt: // Dan Harper wrote:
USB is not that bad. It's broken by design, but still it works rather
well. No one with a sane mind would buy a RME PCMCIA card just for
stereo or 4 channel output. But avoid M-Audio USB devices. Many of
them don't work at all on Linux.
ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
For soundcards
RME and M-Audio are youre best bet, avoid USB if you can.
The processor doesnt really matter, but you probably want something with
decent floating point performance, so a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP. You want
512+ MB of ram.
This is interesting... What would be a solution for a laptop where
PCMCIA is not available? 
10:03 p.m.
Frank Barknecht wrote:
Hallo,
Dan Harper hat gesagt: // Dan Harper wrote:
USB is not that bad. It's broken by design, but still it works rather
well. No one with a sane mind would buy a RME PCMCIA card just for
stereo or 4 channel output. But avoid M-Audio USB devices. Many of
them don't work at all on Linux.
If you have some time and don't mind doing a bit of work with the alsa
developers team then I would go for a firewire device. They are getting
very good feedback.
--
Patrick Shirkey - Boost Hardware Ltd.
Http://www.boosthardware.com
Http://www.djcj.org/LAU/guide/ - The Linux Audio Users guide
Http://www.djcj.org/gigs/ - Gigs guide Korea
========================================
Apparently upon the beginning of the barrage, the donkey broke
discipline and panicked, toppling the cart. At that point, the rockets
disconnected from the timer, leaving them strewn around the street.
Tethered to the now toppled cart, the donkey was unable to escape before
the arrival of U.S. troops.
United Press International
Rockets on donkeys hit major Baghdad sites
By P. MITCHELL PROTHERO
Published 11/21/2003 11:13 AM
For
soundcards RME and M-Audio are youre best bet, avoid USB if you can.
The processor doesnt really matter, but you probably want something with
decent floating point performance, so a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP. You want
512+ MB of ram.
This is interesting... What would be a solution for a laptop where
PCMCIA is not available?
18 Feb
18 Feb
4:31 a.m.
On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 10:57:05AM +0900, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
If you have some time and don't mind doing a bit
of work with the alsa
developers team then I would go for a firewire device. They are getting
very good feedback.
Under linux? I wasn't aware there was any support at all yet. If there is
thats very good news.
As Frank pointed out most USB devices will /work/, I said "avoid USB if
you can" because theres not much point using USB if you have PCI slots
free.
- Steve
5:40 a.m.
Steve,
Steve Harris wrote:
As Frank pointed out most USB devices will /work/, I
said "avoid USB if
you can" because theres not much point using USB if you have PCI slots
free.
It's true that many PCI soundcards have better capabilities than their
USB counterparts. And at certain levels (multichannel in particular),
the throughput exceeds USB 1.0 and you would need a USB 2.0 high-speed
USB sound device to match that.
However, besides the obvious portability advantage of USB devices, there
is one other interesting feature of USB audio, which is to isolate the
A/D and D/A converters outside the generally noisy computer case, and
this can provide higher audio quality than an internal PCI device. But
only the higher-end USB devices would really have that advantage. I have
used some low-end ones that were just as noisy as the first ISA
Soundblaster 1.0 (Edirol UA-1A if you must know).
6:06 a.m.
Hallo,
Julien Pierre hat gesagt: // Julien Pierre wrote:
However, besides the obvious portability advantage of
USB devices, there
is one other interesting feature of USB audio, which is to isolate the
A/D and D/A converters outside the generally noisy computer case, and
this can provide higher audio quality than an internal PCI device.
I don't think, this is really true anymore. This was true, when there
were cables running from the sound(blaster)card to the CD-Rom drive,
which acted like a kind of antenna to collect electrical noise and
induce it into the soundcard. But modern soundcards even in the 20
Euro sphere aren't affected by electronic smog inside a computer at
all. They might have bad converters or microphone jacks, but e-smog
generally isn't much of an issue.
Good PCI cards like the many with ice1712 chips even are much cheaper
than equivalent USB boxes. So there really is little reason for using
a USB card with a stationary machine. This shouldn't stop anyone to
use one with a laptop though, in fact USB is the only affordable
solution there for most cases (that don't require a HDSP).
ciao
--
Frank Barknecht _ ______footils.org__
7:41 a.m.
Frank,
Frank Barknecht wrote:
I don't think, this is really true anymore. This
was true, when there
were cables running from the sound(blaster)card to the CD-Rom drive,
which acted like a kind of antenna to collect electrical noise and
induce it into the soundcard. But modern soundcards even in the 20
Euro sphere aren't affected by electronic smog inside a computer at
all. They might have bad converters or microphone jacks, but e-smog
generally isn't much of an issue.
I don't know about that. It's still an issue for many sound devices. Try
plugging headphones into the back of a current model Apple PowerMac G4
(SMP box). You'll hear every mouse movement you make, hard drive, etc,
right into the headphones, during playback and recording. Extremely
annoying, just like the original SB card.
Other Apple users have also complained in those same machines that even
with a high end card like the Delta 66, there was interference. I owned
one of those Macs for about 6 months until I sold- it was driving me
crazy. Apple has serious quality control for their overpriced boxes,
that was my first and last Mac ... See www.g4noise.com for more info
(and it's not just the outside fan case noise, but internal noise too
for people into audio/video).
I have a Dell P530 at work with a built-in analog devices AC97, and it
suffers from the same problems. Not to mention it blue screens Win2K
when doing playback of WAV / MP3 (again, it's an SMP machine, dual Xeon,
and audio + SMP + Windows appears to be a consistent recipe for disaster
!). Fortunately I can still listen to CDs through the passthrough Analog .
Basically, my experience is that the computer noise interference issues
are far from extinct.
Good PCI cards like the many with ice1712 chips even
are much cheaper
than equivalent USB boxes. So there really is little reason for using
a USB card with a stationary machine. This shouldn't stop anyone to
use one with a laptop though, in fact USB is the only affordable
solution there for most cases (that don't require a HDSP).
I would agree for laptops USB is the way to go.
There can be other reasons for wanting to use USB with a desktop. Some
slim machines have limited number of PCI slots (1 or 2) and they may be
best used for things that really need the bus speed, such as a SCSI
controller. So going with an outboard USB sound device can still make sense.
10:42 a.m.
On Wed, Feb 18, 2004 at 11:01:30AM +0100, Frank Barknecht wrote:
Hallo,
Julien Pierre hat gesagt: // Julien Pierre wrote:
I think the problem has been improved, but not eliminated.
Check the noise specs for Delta-66 vs Delta-1010 - the 1010
is several dB quieter.
That said, the 66 is pretty darn quiet in my pc.
--
Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
Look! Up in the sky! It's HONKY THARGIAN-TERMINAL!
(random hero from isometric.spaceninja.com)
However, besides the obvious portability
advantage of USB devices, there
is one other interesting feature of USB audio, which is to isolate the
A/D and D/A converters outside the generally noisy computer case, and
this can provide higher audio quality than an internal PCI device.
I don't think, this is really true anymore. This was true, when there
were cables running from the sound(blaster)card to the CD-Rom drive,
which acted like a kind of antenna to collect electrical noise and
induce it into the soundcard. 
8:26 a.m.
Julien Pierre wrote:
However, besides the obvious portability advantage of
USB devices, there
is one other interesting feature of USB audio, which is to isolate the
A/D and D/A converters outside the generally noisy computer case, and
this can provide higher audio quality than an internal PCI device. But
only the higher-end USB devices would really have that advantage. I have
used some low-end ones that were just as noisy as the first ISA
Soundblaster 1.0 (Edirol UA-1A if you must know).
The UA-1A is bus-powered, and so picks up any noise on the +5V line.
The noisiness of that depends partly on the mainboard, but mostly on
the power supply unit. On my system with an Asus P4P800 MB and an
Enermax PSU, I don't hear any noise, while on another system with an
Intel TE430VX OEM board and a noname PSU, there is noise.
In the latter case, the CPU is powered by the +5V line, too, and the
noise can be reduced greatly by running distributed.net/SETI@Home/
whatever in the background to prevent the CPU from switching to idle
mode.
Regards,
Clemens
4:39 a.m.
On Wednesday 18 February 2004 02.57, Patrick Shirkey
<...>
If you have some time and don't mind doing a bit
of work with the alsa
developers team then I would go for a firewire device. They are getting
very good feedback.
Do you imply there could be something in the works wrt Firewire audio devices?
/Robert
17 Feb
17 Feb
11:51 p.m.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 10:29:53PM +0000, Steve Harris wrote:
I don't understand why an SMP configuration is not recommended. You're
always going to have critical kernel tasks that have got to have cycles
when they need them. If you have an extra processor or three available
to handle those requests, aren't your applications needs going to be
satisfied better than with a single processor? Have any benchmarks
been performed to answer this question?
--
May the LORD God bless you exceedingly abundantly!
Dave Craig
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"'So the universe is not quite as you thought it was.
You'd better rearrange your beliefs, then.
Because you certainly can't rearrange the universe.'"
--from _Nightfall_ by Asimov/Silverberg
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 03:06:38PM -0600, Richard K.
Ingalls wrote:
yes, what are
the specs for such a machine?
CPU? RAM? Motherboard? Sound card (very
important, eh)?
For soundcards RME and M-Audio are youre best bet, avoid USB if you can.
The processor doesnt really matter, but you probably want something with
decent floating point performance, so a Pentium 4 or Athlon XP. You want
512+ MB of ram.
18 Feb
18 Feb
4:40 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 10:47:13PM -0500, David L. Craig wrote:
I don't understand why an SMP configuration is not
recommended. You're
always going to have critical kernel tasks that have got to have cycles
when they need them. If you have an extra processor or three available
to handle those requests, aren't your applications needs going to be
satisfied better than with a single processor? Have any benchmarks
been performed to answer this question?
Yes, SMP systems are generally good for linux audio, but:
1) extra heat is hard to remove quietly
2) less well tested, so sometimes there are latency / stability problems
3) this guy wanted something for gigs, so size/weight is an issue
4) cost
If the obove are not an issue to you, then SMP is great. I'm upset that
theres nothing to replace the PIII that had SMP as standard and led to
cheap, reliable, desktop SMP motherboards.
- Steve
5:05 a.m.
Steve,
Steve Harris wrote:
If the obove are not an issue to you, then SMP is
great. I'm upset that
theres nothing to replace the PIII that had SMP as standard and led to
cheap, reliable, desktop SMP motherboards.
There are Athlon SMP solutions that are not very expensive. Not the
latest technology for sure, but they work. Dual Athlon MP motherboards
can be had for about $250, and an Athlon MP 2800+ chip can be had for
$170. They will take standard DDR, but ECC is preferred. I am using an
Asus A7M266-D myself, with a pair of Athlon MP 1500+, built just over 2
years ago. I would say it's an excellent motherboard for Linux, not good
for windows at all though. My Athlon MP system actually can't record
audio properly in Windows with any soundcard (tried the built-in AC97,
SB Live, Delta 66). It just gets about 30 clicks and pops per second in
all recordings under Win2K. I think it's a problem with the Win2K SMP
kernel. Never got a chance to install the uni Win2K kernel - the install
doesn't give me a choice since it detects SMP support in the BIOS. I am
however able to do clean recordings in OS/2 and Linux (both with SMP
kernels), using the SB Live, but still the ADC isn't the greatest and
it's only 16 bits 48 kHz max. I sold my Delta 66 recently to help pay
for my dedicated Roland DAW (VS-2400CD), which I find more powerful than
software available for OS/2 and Linux currently. I'm still toying with
the idea of using Linux for things the Roland won't do, like MIDI, but
again there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of applications, so I might
go for a hardware sequencer instead also. I'll go through any reasonable
expense to meet my needs and not have to run Windows code ...
3:55 p.m.
[OT]
Julien Pierre wrote:
Steve,
Steve Harris wrote:
in case you want to track this one down, there is a boot.ini option
that accomplishes this:
/onecpu
or alternatively
/numproc=1
for more details about the dark side of kernel parameters, see
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/tmcd2/BootIni.htm
--
The handles of a craftsman's tools bespeak an absolute simplicity,
the plainest forms affording the greatest range of possibilities for
the user's hand.
That which is overdesigned, too highly specific, anticipates
outcome; the anticipation of outcome guarantees, if not failure, the
absence of grace.
- William Gibson, "All Tomorrow's Parties"
Jörn Nettingsmeier
Kurfürstenstr 49, 45138 Essen, Germany
http://spunk.dnsalias.org (my server)
http://www.linuxaudiodev.org (Linux Audio Developers)
If the obove are not an issue to you, then SMP is
great. I'm upset that
theres nothing to replace the PIII that had SMP as standard and led to
cheap, reliable, desktop SMP motherboards.
There are Athlon SMP solutions that are not very expensive. Not the
latest technology for sure, but they work. Dual Athlon MP motherboards
can be had for about $250, and an Athlon MP 2800+ chip can be had for
$170. They will take standard DDR, but ECC is preferred. I am using an
Asus A7M266-D myself, with a pair of Athlon MP 1500+, built just over 2
years ago. I would say it's an excellent motherboard for Linux, not good
for windows at all though. My Athlon MP system actually can't record
audio properly in Windows with any soundcard (tried the built-in AC97,
SB Live, Delta 66). It just gets about 30 clicks and pops per second in
all recordings under Win2K. I think it's a problem with the Win2K SMP
kernel. Never got a chance to install the uni Win2K kernel - the install
doesn't give me a choice since it detects SMP support in the BIOS. 
17 Feb
17 Feb
8:58 p.m.
On Tue, 2004-02-17 at 13:06, Richard K. Ingalls wrote:
I'm still very new to Linux Audio Workstations
(I've been a Cakewalk/Sonar/SoundForge user for
years), so please forgive me if the question seems
very basic...
I'd like to build a computer to take with me for
live gigs that can replace sound module racks (do
softsynth/sample playback, multi-timbral,
polyphony, etc.). In other words can it replace
an Alesis QSR, a Kurzweil K2000RS and a Korg TR?
Can I do this and still have great
sounds/synth/samples?
I was using a Dell CPXj 650mhz with Fluidsynth, USB Midisport 2x2, etc.
The soundcard was incidental...Fluidsynth is soundfont based so whatever
soundfonts you can get yer hands on...Just like Livesynth Pro in Sonar.
Also, using a cheap SB Live (also soundfont based) I was able to get
fairly tight latency. But I' not a keys player...
I have recently been using the same laptop for live FX processing on my
PA. Used it last Sat eve and it worked like a charm! Ardour, Jack and
LADSPA plugs. Freeverb was the reverb of choice for this night. Warm and
smooth. It worked rock steady all night!
I too have been a Sonar XL user for 2 years. I'm just starting to find
my way around in Mandrake Linux...These folks on this LAU group ROCK!!!
They are very helpful. I'm largely using Sonar for playing midis in my
Duo. I like the CW format as it easily saves all mix data and I can pull
it up from a "playlist" and roll thru the set with minimum of fuss. I'm
starting to think about what Linux based apps might work. Rosegarden and
Muse are nice looking but I have not had great luck with them in
previous versions. Also the fact that I use Roland VSC as my
softsynth...well, it helps a bunch to get GS sounds without the
expensive hardware. Now if Fluidsynth could load a GS soundfont set and
respond to GS format midi messages....
So the question is can a Linux DAW do this? If
yes, what are the specs for such a machine?
CPU? RAM? Motherboard? Sound card (very
important, eh)?
Thanks to all who post!
18 Feb
18 Feb
1:36 a.m.
On Tue, 17 Feb 2004, Richard K. Ingalls wrote:
I'd like to build a computer to take with me for
live gigs that can replace sound module racks (do
softsynth/sample playback, multi-timbral,
polyphony, etc.). In other words can it replace
an Alesis QSR, a Kurzweil K2000RS and a Korg TR?
Can I do this and still have great
sounds/synth/samples?
So the question is can a Linux DAW do this? If
yes, what are the specs for such a machine?
CPU? RAM? Motherboard? Sound card (very
important, eh)?
Yes, but you have to build it yourself. There's no application or package
that you can drop in to get the exact functionaly of any of the hardware
you mentioned. There are however a large amount of small tool that when
combined can do what thesew pieces of hardware do. Correct me if I'm
wrong.
Also, the word great is very subjective when it comes to music. I've never
been able to understand exactly how any piece of audio gear can make
something sound "great", despite when the dude at Guitar Center keeps
telling me.
Currently for live, I'm using an Athlon 1.8Ghz CPU with an m-audio 1010-lt
card as the processor and a Powerbook G3 running Apple's X11 as the screen
and a cat-5 crossover cable to connect the two.
-lee
7586
days inactive
7587
days old
linux-audio-user@lists.linuxaudio.org
20 comments
13 participants
participants (13)
-
Clemens Ladisch -
Dan Harper -
David L. Craig -
Frank Barknecht -
Joern Nettingsmeier -
Julien Pierre -
lee＠fallingforward.net -
Patrick Shirkey -
Paul Winkler -
Richard K. Ingalls -
Robert Jonsson -
Russell Hanaghan -
Steve Harris