Re: [LAU] Synths for live use

IIRC, Ken Restivo on this list ran linuxsampler live on a netbook with
great results.

On 11/18/2012 01:26 PM, James Stone wrote:

> Any thoughts on running linuxsampler live on a netbook? Would this be
> pushing things too hard?
>
> On Nov 18, 2012 9:43 PM, "Luke Peterson" wrote:
>
> On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Louigi Verona
> <louigi.verona@email-addr-hidden <mailto:louigi.verona@email-addr-hidden>> wrote:
>
> Fluid Synth is VERY difficult to work with in a live situation,
> even as QSynth. I tried it many times and I don't advice it.
>
>
> For years, I regularly used Fluidsynth+qsynth in parallel with
> Bristol, live at shows running off a netbook with an Atom chipset.
> Dell Latitude 2100.
>
> (Somewhat outdated, but conceptually accurate) details here:
> http://lukepeterson.com/2010/02/07/arriving-midi-keyboard-live-rig/
>
> The trick was to set Bristol up as my hammond emulator on midi
> channels 1 and 2, then various patches including a Rhodes, a D6, a
> piano, a few other things up on channels 3+ ... I set up Bristol to
> listen to the knobs and sliders on my keyboard (M-Audio Axiom 61),
> and then could change patches by flipping the global channel for
> that keyboard up and down. It took me half a dozen shows to work out
> all the bugs in performance -- for instance, I'd run into trouble
> every now and then if I'd change channels while holding a key.
>
> The most overloaded this rig ever got was a show where I had my
> X-Box keytar running through a M-Audio MidAir wireless midi unit,
> fixed to channel 1 on a high-distortion D6 patch, my Axiom 61 as a
> multichannel workhorse playing any patch I wanted with the knobs and
> sliders set to the hammond, and my old Yamaha P80 which was a pain
> in the ass to change the channel on set to channel 4 for my piano
> patch. So 3 controllers in total.
>
> Our encore was Baba O'Riley, for which I created a QArp arpeggio on
> the D6 that mimicked Pete Townshend's Lowrey autoarpeggio intro.
> After our set, I ran a shell script to kick off QArp to control
> channel 1, and then started the song from the crowd in front of the
> stage on my wireless keytar. It worked great until I made my way
> back to stage and tried to hold the arpeggio on the keytar while
> also then playing the first 3 piano chords on the P80. The
> five-fingered piano chord along with the arpeggiating D6 overloaded
> the memory on my little netbook and sent a ton of nasty artifacts
> through the venue's PA, and then I had to kill a bunch of processes
> and re-load the rig. But it was pretty f--ing cool right to that
> point. The sound tech and the rest of the band covered as best they
> could and we did a fairly exciting trainwreck of an encore, which we
> medleyed into something else. God bless beer and 2am crowds!
>
> Anyway, I guess my point is, if you are just looking to play a fixed
> fewer-than-16 patches and don't need to change any of their settings
> mid-show, QSynth should be a fine solution. Pre-load each onto its
> own channel and just change the channel on your controller to switch
> from patch to patch.

-- 
David
gnome@email-addr-hidden
authenticity, honesty, community
http://clanjones.org/david/
http://dancing-treefrog.deviantart.com/
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