small/cheap devices that can run jackd?

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Alessandro Preziosi (licnep)

24 Oct 2011 24 Oct '11

7:23 p.m.

Does anybody have any idea for a device (smartphone/tablet/netbook/mini-pc...) that could run jackd and thus be used as an effects processor or synth module? I really don't know where to look, but the idea intrigues me. It should probably be something with a usb port, in order to connect midi stuff or an external audio card. Any idea?

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Brett McCoy

24 Oct 24 Oct

7:28 p.m.

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) <lsnpreziosi(a)gmail.com> wrote:

...

Just about any mini pc, notebook or netbook should be capable of running Linux and jackd. Be careful of something that's underpowered, like a netbook, they could choke on a lot of DSP. -- Brett W. McCoy -- http://www.electricminstrel.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "In the rhythm of music a secret is hidden; If I were to divulge it, it would overturn the world." -- Jelaleddin Rumi

david

25 Oct 25 Oct

8:10 a.m.

Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) wrote:

...

Most any netbook would do it. In fact, I believe one of the list members performs with a netbook for his synthesizer. I think the Nokia N900 can run JACKD and QSynth, don't know what else it might be able to do. I understand there is a MIDI-controlled synthesizer app for iPhone. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Jeremy Jongepier

9:59 a.m.

On 10/24/2011 07:23 PM, Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) wrote:

...

Hello Alessandro, A netbook is probably your best bet. I'm using a cheap Packard Bell myself as a guitar effect unit or as a synth module. Took some time to set it up but it works remarkably well. Best, Jeremy

david

10:10 a.m.

Jeremy Jongepier wrote:

...

On 10/24/2011 07:23 PM, Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) wrote:

Hello Alessandro, A netbook is probably your best bet. I'm using a cheap Packard Bell myself as a guitar effect unit or as a synth module. Took some time to set it up but it works remarkably well.

And if you set it up so it's running either no GUI or a very light desktop environment, and turn off things like wireless, it should work reasonably. I believe the person on the list who uses a netbook for synthesizer uses linxusampler loading a 4GB piano aoundfont on a 2GB netbook without any problems. An audiophile friend of mine had an audio PC set up on his network to play music into his stereo setup. He was using a compact PC with an M-Audio Audiophile card in it. He replaced it with a netbook, and reports that there's no audible difference between the netbook's onboard Intel audio and the Audiophile card. I now have his old compact PC sitting here, trying to figure out what I want to do with it ... maybe add a small LCD and keyboard/pointer device and use it as a synthesizer box. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Jeremy Jongepier

10:20 a.m.

On 10/25/2011 10:10 AM, david wrote:

...

And if you set it up so it's running either no GUI or a very light desktop environment, and turn off things like wireless, it should work reasonably.

True. I've set up the netbook to disable all services and unload all drivers I don't need when booting with a realtime kernel. And it runs a light DE, rtirq and CPU scaling is set to performance. Also make sure your audio device isn't sharing an interrupt with something else. In my case the onboard soundcard shares an interrupt with a USB controller. I need to unbind the controller otherwise CPU load on the tasklets will quickly rise. Best, Jeremy

Renato

10:50 a.m.

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:20:18 +0200 Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy(a)autostatic.com> wrote:

...

True. I've set up the netbook to disable all services and unload all drivers I don't need when booting with a realtime kernel.

for doing this you simply run a script which figures out the running kernel with "uname"?

...

And it runs a light DE, rtirq and CPU scaling is set to performance. Also make sure your audio device isn't sharing an interrupt with something else. In my case the onboard soundcard shares an interrupt with a USB controller. I need to unbind the controller otherwise CPU load on the tasklets will quickly rise.

what do you mean exactly by unbinding the controller? physically removing it? cheers, renato

Louigi Verona

10:52 a.m.

I would also love to hear how to unload unneeded stuff. I thought using OpenBox would help, but I do not see any improvement in performance, although OpenBox allegedly does not load many things by default. Louigi.

david

10:56 a.m.

Louigi Verona wrote:

...

I choose Fluxbox when I want a low memory footprint but still have an X GUI running. AFAIK, Fluxbox loads nothing itself. Of course, if you then start a GNOME or KDE app, that app may start up whatever it considers necessary GNOME or KDE services. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

david

10:58 a.m.

Renato wrote:

...

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:20:18 +0200 Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy(a)autostatic.com> wrote:

True. I've set up the netbook to disable all services and unload all drivers I don't need when booting with a realtime kernel.

for doing this you simply run a script which figures out the running kernel with "uname"?

what do you mean exactly by unbinding the controller? physically removing it?

I think he means blacklisting the module that handles USB on that controller? Have no clue how you might load the module for some specific USB controller but not for others ... -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Jeremy Jongepier

11:11 a.m.

On 10/25/2011 10:44 AM, Renato wrote:

...

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:20:18 +0200 Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy(a)autostatic.com> wrote:

True. I've set up the netbook to disable all services and unload all drivers I don't need when booting with a realtime kernel.

for doing this you simply run a script which figures out the running kernel with "uname"?

Hi Renato, Yes: if [ $(uname -r | cut -d "-" -f 3) = "realtime" ] then /path/to/startstudio fi And the 'startstudio' script looks like this: #!/bin/sh modprobe -r ppdev modprobe -r lp modprobe -r uvcvideo modprobe -r videodev modprobe -r ath9k modprobe -r r8169 modprobe -r btusb /etc/init.d/bluetooth stop & /etc/init.d/cups stop & /etc/init.d/networking stop & /etc/init.d/network-manager stop & /etc/init.d/ondemand stop killall modem-manager killall wpa_supplicant modprobe snd-hrtimer echo -n performance > /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor TASKLETPR=76 ps -eLo pid,cmd | grep tasklet | grep -v grep | awk '{ system("chrt -f -p '$TASKLETPR' " $1)}' echo -n "0000:00:13.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ohci_hcd/unbind

...

what do you mean exactly by unbinding the controller? physically removing it?

No, writing the ID of the controller to an unbind file, it's the last line in the startstudio script.

...

cheers, renato

Best, Jeremy

Luke Peterson

12:09 p.m.

I'm one of the folks performing through a netbook. A dell latitude 2100 -- the rubberized primary-school edition, 2gb ram and one of the atom chipsets. Maybe now in the $300 range? I use fluidsynth and bristol with alsa and jackd, setting various patches across 8 midi channels, playing through an m-audio usb sound processor, with one or sometimes two usb midi devices as controllers. I custom-compiled a very lightweight rt kernel. I still use gnome, but turn off networking to prevent memory usage spikes not related to music... and keep a close eye on the available system memory and cpu while playing. Also no holding bristol chords with more than 5 notes. :) I could probably get up to 7 if I lost gnome, but I prefer the minimalist musical approach to avoiding xruns. And I like to be able to use the dell's touchscreen to flip through scanned charts in pdf when I forget what I'm supposed to be playing! Cheers, Luke ----- Luke Peterson - sent via mobile device - On Oct 25, 2011 5:11 AM, "Jeremy Jongepier" <jeremy(a)autostatic.com> wrote:

...

On 10/25/2011 10:44 AM, Renato wrote:

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:20:18 +0200 Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy(a)autostatic.com> wrote:

True. I've set up the netbook to disable all services and unload all drivers I don't need when booting with a realtime kernel.

for doing this you simply run a script which figures out the running kernel with "uname"?

what do you mean exactly by unbinding the controller? physically removing it?

No, writing the ID of the controller to an unbind file, it's the last line in the startstudio script.

cheers, renato

Best, Jeremy _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user

Renato

2:52 p.m.

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:11:42 +0200 Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy(a)autostatic.com> wrote:

...

On 10/25/2011 10:44 AM, Renato wrote:

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:20:18 +0200 Jeremy Jongepier <jeremy(a)autostatic.com> wrote:

True. I've set up the netbook to disable all services and unload all drivers I don't need when booting with a realtime kernel.

for doing this you simply run a script which figures out the running kernel with "uname"?

Hi Renato,

Hi, your scripts have some nice tips for performance :)

...

echo -n "0000:00:13.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ohci_hcd/unbind

so what does this exactly do? how do I figure out a similar command for my system? but now that I think of it by usb controller with lowest IRQ shares it with the video card, so I guess I can't do anything in this case...? you should consider putting those scripts on some wiki! they're cool cheers, renato

Jeremy Jongepier

3:31 p.m.

On 10/25/2011 02:50 PM, Renato wrote:

...

Hi, your scripts have some nice tips for performance :)

> echo -n "0000:00:13.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ohci_hcd/unbind

You can check ID's and their IRQ's of USB2 controllers with for instance: #!/bin/sh # USB2 controller ID and IRQ check for a in $(ls /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/ | grep 0000) do echo -n ID $a has IRQ: cat /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/$a/irq done If you want to figure out ID's for USB1 (OHCI) controllers replace 'ehci_hcd' with 'ohci_hcd' (of course you could also create a more sophisticated script). With top or htop you can monitor the different tasklets if you're using a realtime kernel or a >= 2.6.39 kernel with the threadirqs kernel option.

...

you should consider putting those scripts on some wiki! they're cool

Thanks and will do.

...

cheers, renato

Best, Jeremy

fred

7:44 p.m.

...

You can check ID's and their IRQ's of USB2 controllers with for instance: #!/bin/sh # USB2 controller ID and IRQ check for a in $(ls /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/ | grep 0000) do echo -n ID $a has IRQ: cat /sys/bus/pci/drivers/ehci_hcd/$a/irq done If you want to figure out ID's for USB1 (OHCI) controllers replace 'ehci_hcd' with 'ohci_hcd' (of course you could also create a more sophisticated script). With top or htop you can monitor the different tasklets if you're using a realtime kernel or a>= 2.6.39 kernel with the threadirqs kernel option.

Hi Jeremy, not sure to understand all ATM, but it gives an idea : Would it be possible to run a system with a >=2.6.39 + threadirqs kernel, and all services you like when don't make music, and then run a script to killall everything unrelated to music and play ? Please let us know where you put your great tips ! Thanks, Fred

Jeremy Jongepier

26 Oct 26 Oct

8:12 a.m.

On 10/25/2011 07:44 PM, fred wrote:

...

Would it be possible to run a system with a >=2.6.39 + threadirqs kernel, and all services you like when don't make music, and then run a script to killall everything unrelated to music and play ?

Hello Fred, Yes, that's possible, see the 'startstudio' script I posted earlier. Best, Jeremy

fred

7:32 p.m.

Le 26/10/2011 08:12, Jeremy Jongepier a écrit :

...

On 10/25/2011 07:44 PM, fred wrote:

Would it be possible to run a system with a >=2.6.39 + threadirqs kernel, and all services you like when don't make music, and then run a script to killall everything unrelated to music and play ?

Hello Fred, Yes, that's possible, see the 'startstudio' script I posted earlier.

Hi Jeremy, thanks for this good news, I was not sure if you run the script during the boot or when the system is already started ! Next step will be to adapt your script to the hardware here, I'll see that and tell to the list the DSP% saved. Thanks again, Fred

fred

8:26 p.m.

Hi again, just a little question about the using of the script Jeremy send in this topic : when you run this script, are the changes you made available at next boot, or do you have your system in the state before run the script ? I think the second option, but like to be sure ! Thanks, Fred

Jeremy Jongepier

8:55 p.m.

On 10/26/2011 08:25 PM, fred wrote:

...

when you run this script, are the changes you made available at next boot, or do you have your system in the state before run the script ? I think the second option, but like to be sure !

Hello Fred, Second option. Bear in mind that you have to run the script as root when you want to use it when you're logged in. In my case it runs at boot time. Best, Jeremy

fred

9:23 p.m.

Le 26/10/2011 20:55, Jeremy Jongepier a écrit :

...

On 10/26/2011 08:25 PM, fred wrote:

when you run this script, are the changes you made available at next boot, or do you have your system in the state before run the script ? I think the second option, but like to be sure !

Hello Fred, Second option. Bear in mind that you have to run the script as root when you want to use it when you're logged in. In my case it runs at boot time.

Hi again Jeremy, thanks to confirm. I'm not comfortable enough with boot stuff, so sudo 'your script' will be ok here ;-) But before that, a little time is necessary to ask this 70 modules their "identity card" !! Thanks, Fred

Jeremy Jongepier

10:18 p.m.

On 10/26/2011 09:22 PM, fred wrote:

...

But before that, a little time is necessary to ask this 70 modules their "identity card" !!

Automate the identification ;) (super quick example script) #!/bin/sh for a in $(lsmod | cut -d " " -f 1) do echo module name: $a modinfo $a | grep description echo done Best, Jeremy

fred

10:57 p.m.

...

But before that, a little time is necessary to ask this 70 modules their "identity card" !!

Automate the identification ;) (super quick example script) #!/bin/sh for a in $(lsmod | cut -d " " -f 1) do echo module name: $a modinfo $a | grep description echo done

Wow ! You just save my night, mate !! Let me say you are the...

...

Best, Jeremy

Many many thanks !! Fred

Josh Lawrence

25 Oct 25 Oct

11:39 p.m.

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 3:10 AM, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

...

nd if you set it up so it's running either no GUI or a very light desktop environment, and turn off things like wireless, it should work reasonably. I believe the person on the list who uses a netbook for synthesizer uses linxusampler loading a 4GB piano aoundfont on a 2GB netbook without any problems.

If my memory serves me correctly, that was Ken Restivo. -- Josh Lawrence FSF Member #10023 903-490-3700

Folderol

26 Oct 26 Oct

12:45 a.m.

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:39:50 -0500 Josh Lawrence <josh(a)joshlawrence.me> wrote:

...

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 3:10 AM, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

If my memory serves me correctly, that was Ken Restivo.

mark hadman

2:24 a.m.

I use an EEE PC 701 for live performance (Pure Data or Supercollider on Pure:Dyne). The internal sound (1 in, 2 out) is quite satisfactory. Latency is 46ms in/out combined - although you could probably do a lot better, especially with Jeremy's scripts. As it is I have to disable wifi for stability. On 25 October 2011 23:45, Folderol <folderol(a)ukfsn.org> wrote:

...

On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:39:50 -0500 Josh Lawrence <josh(a)joshlawrence.me> wrote:

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 3:10 AM, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

If my memory serves me correctly, that was Ken Restivo.

I hope so, cos that's who I remember using a netbook :) -- Will J Godfrey http://www.musically.me.uk Say you have a poem and I have a tune. Exchange them and we can both have a poem, a tune, and a song. _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user

pod

8:40 a.m.

really depends what you are doing. last time i looked @ anandtech charts, netbooks were about 1/8th the computing power of normal laptops for sampling it may be fine. heck for demodulating 10 channels of SSB it may be. but for a bunch of multiband compressors and analog-emulating synths and 512-tap IIR EQ plugins and awful 'eye-candy GUIs' churning out pixels you may have a problem imo biggest problem on netbooks is GMA500 video. Alan Coxs driver at least means the resolution is right now, but its about as fast as watching paint dry

Ken Restivo

29 Oct 29 Oct

6:36 a.m.

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 10:10:13PM -1000, david wrote:

...

Jeremy Jongepier wrote:

On 10/24/2011 07:23 PM, Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) wrote:

Hello Alessandro, A netbook is probably your best bet. I'm using a cheap Packard Bell myself as a guitar effect unit or as a synth module. Took some time to set it up but it works remarkably well.

That would have been me, I think. I gigged more or less constantly with this for over 2 years. Circa 2008 era Asus EEE 1000, 1.2Ghz Atom, with SSD drive, 2GB RAM. I ran, simultaneously, LinuxSampler, several FluidSynth instances, MonoSynth, Beatrix, several Jack-Rack instances packed with LADSPA stuff, a mixer app, some homegrown daemons in c and pythin, and some other stuff I can't remember right now. Live. All night long. This was of course with an Ingo RT kernel. Worked great. I'd recommend netbooks for Linux audio live performance. -ken

david

11:12 a.m.

Ken Restivo wrote:

...

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 10:10:13PM -1000, david wrote:

Jeremy Jongepier wrote:

On 10/24/2011 07:23 PM, Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) wrote:

Hello Alessandro, A netbook is probably your best bet. I'm using a cheap Packard Bell myself as a guitar effect unit or as a synth module. Took some time to set it up but it works remarkably well.

Thanks, Ken, thought it was you. The newer netbooks (my wife's is about 6 months old) runs a dual-core, 1.6GHz Atom. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

Ken Restivo

16 Nov 16 Nov

1:29 a.m.

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 11:12:06PM -1000, david wrote:

...

Ken Restivo wrote:

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 10:10:13PM -1000, david wrote:

Jeremy Jongepier wrote:

On 10/24/2011 07:23 PM, Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) wrote: > Does anybody have any idea for a device > (smartphone/tablet/netbook/mini-pc...) that could run jackd and thus be used > as an effects processor or synth module? > I really don't know where to look, but the idea intrigues me. It should > probably be something with a usb port, in order to connect midi stuff or an > external audio card. > Any idea? Hello Alessandro, A netbook is probably your best bet. I'm using a cheap Packard Bell myself as a guitar effect unit or as a synth module. Took some time to set it up but it works remarkably well.

Thanks, Ken, thought it was you. The newer netbooks (my wife's is about 6 months old) runs a dual-core, 1.6GHz Atom.

I should note, IIRC mine isn't dual-core, but it lied and said it was, it using some weird hyperthreading thing. It crashed the Ingo RT kernel, so I turned it off in the BIOS. It's a single-core machine, and shows up as a single-core machine, and all is well. -ken

david

7:39 a.m.

Ken Restivo wrote:

...

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 11:12:06PM -1000, david wrote:

Ken Restivo wrote:

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 10:10:13PM -1000, david wrote:

Jeremy Jongepier wrote: > On 10/24/2011 07:23 PM, Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) wrote: >> Does anybody have any idea for a device >> (smartphone/tablet/netbook/mini-pc...) that could run jackd >> and thus be used as an effects processor or synth module? I >> really don't know where to look, but the idea intrigues me. >> It should probably be something with a usb port, in order >> to connect midi stuff or an external audio card. Any idea? > Hello Alessandro, > > A netbook is probably your best bet. I'm using a cheap > Packard Bell myself as a guitar effect unit or as a synth > module. Took some time to set it up but it works remarkably > well. And if you set it up so it's running either no GUI or a very light desktop environment, and turn off things like wireless, it should work reasonably. I believe the person on the list who uses a netbook for synthesizer uses linxusampler loading a 4GB piano aoundfont on a 2GB netbook without any problems.

Thanks, Ken, thought it was you. The newer netbooks (my wife's is about 6 months old) runs a dual-core, 1.6GHz Atom.

Egor Sanin

18 Nov 18 Nov

5 p.m.

I just thought I'd add by saying that I've recently been looking into Micro ITX form factor fanless systems. You can get a mobo/processor combo for less than $100. Nettops may also be a viable device. I have recently come to the conclusion that these systems offer a very similar level of portability and much better performance for perhaps less money than even netbooks. Granted they are by default headless, but you can always ssh into it from your not-for-music laptop and get at the graphics that way. On 11/16/11, david <gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

...

Ken Restivo wrote:

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 11:12:06PM -1000, david wrote:

Ken Restivo wrote:

On Mon, Oct 24, 2011 at 10:10:13PM -1000, david wrote: > Jeremy Jongepier wrote: >> On 10/24/2011 07:23 PM, Alessandro Preziosi (licnep) wrote: >>> Does anybody have any idea for a device >>> (smartphone/tablet/netbook/mini-pc...) that could run jackd >>> and thus be used as an effects processor or synth module? I >>> really don't know where to look, but the idea intrigues me. >>> It should probably be something with a usb port, in order >>> to connect midi stuff or an external audio card. Any idea? >> Hello Alessandro, >> >> A netbook is probably your best bet. I'm using a cheap >> Packard Bell myself as a guitar effect unit or as a synth >> module. Took some time to set it up but it works remarkably >> well. > And if you set it up so it's running either no GUI or a very > light desktop environment, and turn off things like wireless, > it should work reasonably. I believe the person on the list > who uses a netbook for synthesizer uses linxusampler loading a > 4GB piano aoundfont on a 2GB netbook without any problems. That would have been me, I think. I gigged more or less constantly with this for over 2 years. Circa 2008 era Asus EEE 1000, 1.2Ghz Atom, with SSD drive, 2GB RAM. I ran, simultaneously, LinuxSampler, several FluidSynth instances, MonoSynth, Beatrix, several Jack-Rack instances packed with LADSPA stuff, a mixer app, some homegrown daemons in c and pythin, and some other stuff I can't remember right now. Live. All night long. This was of course with an Ingo RT kernel. Worked great. I'd recommend netbooks for Linux audio live performance.

Thanks, Ken, thought it was you. The newer netbooks (my wife's is about 6 months old) runs a dual-core, 1.6GHz Atom.

Yah, the Intel processors offer hyperthreading, which is supposed to give them the ability to run multiple threads at the same time on a single-core. -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user(a)lists.linuxaudio.org http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user

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participants (15)

Alessandro Preziosi (licnep)
Brett McCoy
david
Egor Sanin
Folderol
fred
Jeremy Jongepier
Jeremy Jongepier
Josh Lawrence
Ken Restivo
Louigi Verona
Luke Peterson
mark hadman
pod
Renato