| StoreTags: old computer, linux, osc, os
Viewed 1608 times. 7 people liked this blog. You can rate it below if you haven't already.
-->
So I've got all these old machines at home. I know that the standard thing to do is to throw em away and buy a shiny new Vista or OS X machine but I don't want to do that for several reasons, mostly financial of course but also because it just seems so damn wasteful. There's enough electronic junk in landfills and I would rather feel that I'd rescued these machines and put them to good use.
Is there some breed of Linux/POSIX that's super pared down and made just for getting the most out of old machines in regards to audio? Or is this something where I'd just have to roll my own, starting with learning C and playing with minimal Linux builds?
Cos it seems like you could do some amazing stuff with even an old machine using OSC and a handful of PCI SBLive cards. The weak link would probably be the buss of the motherboard, not the processor.
I mean what's the difference between a Pentium 2 and the DSP chips in my Micro Modular of the same vintage?
Heck, Renoise is running pretty well on my 500mHz laptop. I wasn't expecting any miracles but I can get a few tracks and effects going and I can even apply effects in realtime to incoming audio. The latency isn't too bad.
Anywho, all thoughts are appreciated. | |
Comments
08/05/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
license
nagrom, that's sort of what I'm thinking, at least to start with. I'm pretty sure there's a CSound for Linux but PD is probably easier.
08/05/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
eyesnine
its called 98lite. for a sampler you can't do much better than 98lite + reaktor4. thats what i'd be doing (but i'm kind of a reaktor nut). other alternatives: buzz, audiomulch, old versions of cubase, whatever. i think there are vst2 hosts for win98, so pretty much any old vst you can run on it (halion, machfive). windows just has more, higher quality software.
if you just want to run supercollider, pd or csound then linux is probably better... i'd warn against csound, it really wasn't designed for realtime usage and its not very stable / efficient in my experience (on windows). its really good for generating in non realtime tho!
08/06/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
eyesnine
the company that makes 98lite also makes EMBEDDED windows9x! how's that for a solution!?
their website claims they have a win98 build that installs at about 9mb. and boots to desktop in 3 seconds. no typo: 9mb. 3 seconds. with explorer GUI. i was running 98lite years ago and it worked great for music, they've obviously taken it to the next level since i stopped using it. i doubt the 9mb version would be much good for music, i think there's some windows components you need to leave in to get your software working. depends on the software though, i guess.
08/06/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
eyesnine
98micro is the one you'd be interested in. under 70mb. looks good to me!
08/06/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
gamatam
I've been using some music software on linux:
seq24 - lightweight midi sequencer (interface takes a while to get to know)
qsynth - for sound fonts
synaddsubfx - software synth
ardour - daw
hydrogen - drum machine
aeolus - organ emulator
mx44 - soft synth
rakarrak - guitar rack
specimen - sampler
freecycle - well, like recycle, like (bit buggy)
freewheeling - fun live looping amazing software
Some that look good, but I haven't tried yet
qsampler -
traverso
qtractor
I've got about 30+ sound apps on my machine (after a purge) that I don't need to pay for.
The thing a love about linux audio is jack, all the above programs use jack for audio which is similar in concept to rewire, but way more fun. Open any program in any order and connect it to any other application connected to jack, just start chaining music programs together. There are loads of free plugins too (like VST: effects etc) that can be used with most applications because the libraries are all open and anybody can use them. It also comes with its own transport, so all applications are synched. There is also a new project started to be able to save project state for all applications in one place.
Thats the good, the bad:
The biggest downfall is that to get everything up and running and playing nicely with each other without being interrupted you need to go through pain on a normal linux installation. Basically you might need to compile some of the programs on your system. I'm a programmer by trade, I've been running linux as my desktop environment for 10 years, I've recompiled my kernel quite a few times and even tweaked some applications, but getting music running on my distribution has been a horrible experience.
I would suggest getting a distribution that has been built specifically for multimedia, there are a few out there: link
link
This screen shot looks pretty cool: link
08/06/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
nagrom
"i'd warn against csound, it really wasn't designed for realtime usage"
I've read that it's quite suitable for real-time use these days, but still you're right to say that it's not 'designed' for it. License, if/when you get something working, be sure to write a detailed blog about it! I'm curious to see what you come up with.
08/06/08
+
PM |
QUOTE |
PERMALINK |
REPORT
nagrom
this guy used to hang out on em411: link I believe he's best known for SpiralSynth.
Huh, he works with Foam (cousin organization with one I work with). Small world.
Register / login
|
^
EM411 is Copyright 2001-2008 EM411.com
All rights reserved. | Contact | RSS
|
