Re: [LAU] Hardware synths

On Tue, Dec 04, 2007 at 10:00:08PM -0500, Rob wrote:
> On Tuesday 04 December 2007 21:39, David Olofson wrote:
> > Be warned though; those VIA Cx and AMD Geode CPUs found on most
> > fan-less boards aren't anything like workstation CPUs. Incredible
> > power *per Watt* - but you'd need to run one at several GHz to get
> > anywhere near the slowest Socket 775 Celeron you can find.
>
> I was running the Vaz analog synth simulator and some Yamaha or Roland
> software GM synth on a Pentium 100 almost a decade ago. The Via and

Hell, I was recording and mixing 6 tracks of audio on a 75Mhz PowerPC Mac 10 years ago.

> Geode chips are pretty weak, and I'm sure Jack and various Linux
> background tasks add some overhead, but is Fluidsynth really that
> much more CPU-intensive?
>

If I went that route-- a headless, fanless "box" synth running Linux-- it'd be all samples and a couple LADSPA effects, no synthesis. Just fluidsynth and a 2GB SD "drive", really.

> And for what it's worth, you can get micro-ATX boards that take
> Celerons and Athlons. I'd stay away from that Via stuff myself if I
> were doing anything other than a web surfing terminal.
>

I'd guess that anything capable of DVD and MP4 video recording and playback would be plenty good for Linux Audio. In other words, if it can run MythTV, why couldn't it run 64studio instead?

-ken
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Received on Wed Dec 5 12:15:01 2007