Re: [LAU] outfitting a computer for songwriting in linux?

Hi,
The card choice is settled. i am hunting for the m-audio card Fred
suggested.
Additionally, I followed enough of that USB midi discussion to decide I
will pass.
I am not the sort of computer user to decide that I am aiming for the next
best upgrade. I choose for stability, like a pencil.
I have no reason for example to pub wifi on this box, Ethernet is just fine.
Thanks for your take,
Karen

On Sun, 26 Jul 2015, Len Ovens wrote:

> On Sun, 26 Jul 2015, Karen Lewellen wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> I would much prefer the pci option than using USB for this, yes.
>> second I am going to put the computer together for this purpose, meaning
>> nothing has been chosen. Laughs on the soundblaster idea, but I am new
>> to this not realizing what good pci cards are supported by debian in
>> general.
>
> As you are only interested in MIDI, and audio is not needed. The old ensoniq
> audio pci cards are one of the best solutions (using the "game port") and
> they are known as one of the best quality 16bit cards. However, PCI is not a
> forward looking solution so this and the delta1010 really are obsolete. It is
> possible to find a computer with pci slots still, but it does take some work.
> Almost all newer keyboards come with a USB port as one of their outputs. Some
> are better than others I don't know if anyone on the list can point to one
> that is better than just having a hw midi to USB inside as a keyboard that is
> USB direct from CPU would be better.
>
> The computer side: Use an Intel CPU. The person setting it up should be
> willing to find out which of the USB ports on the computer should be used for
> this (have their own irq) and which usb ports should therefore never be used
> for anything else (often two usb ports are on an internal hub).
>
> I have assumed so far the keyboard has it's own audio section (creates sound)
> and the computer will not do so. But probably it may be nice to continue
> working on the computer even if the keyboard is not available. So the distro
> should be fitted with a lowlatency kernel. Your tech will have to find out
> which other things need to be turned off for glitch free sound (some wifi
> setups for example... many are just fine)
>
> Probably any of the core series cpu will work just fine if you are using just
> a GM softsynth for the user to hear their work. For just listening, latency
> is not an issue, but you ever decide to play the keyboard and hear audio from
> the computer's softsynth, it is a must. As you do not want any external
> boxes... you are left with PCIe cards if the Intel internal audio is not
> satifactory (generally audio output is quite good, audio input is not good
> enough for anything other than skype).
>
> --
> Len Ovens
> www.ovenwerks.net
>
>
>
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Received on Sun Jul 26 20:15:03 2015