Btw, the J1900 Quadcore has 1.99 GHz, but Pianoteq shows CPU Frequency 2900 MHz.

Hi Mossy,
I wrote that 2014 and that cosmetical display-problem has gone meanwhile with the updates. The 'CPU Frequency' shown by Pianoteq bursts dynamically up to 2.4 GHz on that system, right.

Btw, the J1900 Quadcore has 1.99 GHz, but Pianoteq shows CPU Frequency 2900 MHz. That is not the fault of Pianoteq, the current cpu-frequency reported by my kernel is around this value (don't know why), and PTQ seems just to read from there.

With the latest CPUs, /proc/cpuinfo no longer shows accurate results -- especially for CPUs with turbo burst option.  I've found cpufreq-aperf is accurate even when detecting turbo burst but I'm not sure if every distro has this package available.

The J1900 can burst to 2.4ghz so I'd expect to see that periodically.

There are open-source synths.  You could easily add SynthAddSubFx and Fluidsynth + an open-source soundfont -- put add some icons/shortcuts on the desktop to switch between the 3 packages to have nearly unlimited voices.

The remote-control via the touchscreen works. - Being just a PoC, I didn't focus on security, so the next thing to do would be to encrypt and authorize all used connections.

I had time again to continue with it. The mini-PC with Pianoteq is an "autonomous system" now with just a wireless connection to its user. With the help of an USB WLAN-adaptor the unit has become a Wifi Access-Point (AP). Every wireless laptop or tablet around ist now able to connect to it and to remote-control the Pianoteq-session on the mini-PC.

But those display-frontends are not "a must". After power-on, the mini-PC starts with the last pianoteq-session and is instantly playable. Pressing the power-button again shuts the PC down cleanly to deep sleep (S5, no power-consumption).

Well ... not every user is allowed to connect, just those, who know the WPA2-Passphrase for the AP (traffic-encryption) and the password for the VNC-Remote-Desktop (authentication). Both credentials can be stored as usual on the user's tablet or laptop, if one doesn't like entering them everytime).

There just was to add one option to the VNC-server to secure it with a Password-Login:

/usr/bin/x11vnc -display :0 -forever -shared -rfbauth $HOME/.vnc/passwd

At the moment I am using an external WLAN-Adaptor (Edimax) as shown on my photo, because with my available internal mini-pcie WLAN-Card I wasn't able to get a *stable* WLAN-AP.  Eventually I will try a mini-pcie-module of another vendor later and hope for better luck.

The AP-software I'm running is 'hostapd' together with 'isc-dhcp-server'. I set the speed to 802.11g/54mbps, which is more than sufficient to remote control my new "Pianoteq-Soundmodule".

cheers

GRB wrote:

Perhaps Pianoteq could license them just a single voice for the basic model.

I bet it'll happen soon. Why single voice? They could sacrifice organs and strings and just have the whole Stage engine inside with electric pianos, marimbas, harpsichords, etc.

Well I was just  thinking that they could continue to control the show by licensing just a single voice and then selling the Pro Version as an accessory. Buyers could start out with something good, and pay up to something more versatile.

First I had to make the Mini-PC to autostart Pianoteq just by the push of the powerbutton. I already had a KDE Desktop-Environment on it, so I could use its 'Auto-Login without password' feature to start a user-environment for Pianoteq.

In the KDE-Autostart-folder of this user I placed a script, that autostarts Pianoteq after autologin ...

#!/bin/sh
/home/alice/Pianoteq\ 5/amd64/Pianoteq\ 5 &
/usr/bin/x11vnc -forever -display :0

... and also the nice VNC Server 'x11vnc', which makes the display remote-controlable by any remote VNC viewer.

On the Android Tablet I chose to install the free 'VNC Viewer' App from RealVNC. With one finger-tap on the tablet and after entering the PCs IP once (it is saved afterwards), the tablet connects to my remote Pianoteq-PC. The following picture shows the result:

Tablet:

The remote-control via the touchscreen works. - Being just a PoC, I didn't focus on security, so the next thing to do would be to encrypt and authorize all used connections. Should be no problem, x11vnc is very well documented on Linux.

cheers

Perhaps Pianoteq could license them just a single voice for the basic model.

I bet it'll happen soon. Why single voice? They could sacrifice organs and strings and just have the whole Stage engine inside with electric pianos, marimbas, harpsichords, etc.

thanks for your interest. I'll try to answer your questions.

@Jake Johnson

The board has 4 USB-Ports on the backside, one of them is USB 3.0. The SilverStone case came with two further frontside USB-Ports, that I connected to the board. So I have 6 Ports in total.

I just use the onboard Intel i915 graphics and don't know the external solutions. In the BIOS I saw an option to select between onboard and something with PCI.

Yes.

Just Pianoteq and a Mixer applet. For more parallel activies I would route everything through 'jackd'.

@stamkorg

I use a power supply I already had from an older HP Notebook. 19 VDC is very common and every other universal notebook-power-supply for around 20 EUR should work. In the manual three example power adapters are listed. 

It is passive cooled (fanless) like in the link I posted. I have around 40°C while playing.
 

Absolutely noiseless.

cheers

groovy wrote:

It would find it challenging to embed a Thin Mini-ITX Board like Q1900TM-ITX:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Q1900TM-ITX/

Inexpensive, passive cooled and it should be compatible with Linux Audio.

... for another project I bought this board now and had the chance to test it with Piantoteq 5.1.1 trial on Debian (jessie) with KDE-Desktop. Works absolutely flawless! Performance index ist 22 while playing with 48kHz, 256 max. polyphony, 64 samples (1.3 ms). The onboard soundchip is ALC892, which I use with ALSA directly to "hardware device without any conversions" in stereo.

The board is very flat and I think it would fit in some keyboards. But for now I build it into a small SilverStone metal-case. The case comes with two VESA brackets, so I could mount it to the wooden bottom of my Kawai ES3, if I like to.

Btw, the J1900 Quadcore has 1.99 GHz, but Pianoteq shows CPU Frequency 2900 MHz. That is not the fault of Pianoteq, the current cpu-frequency reported by my kernel is around this value (don't know why), and PTQ seems just to read from there.

cheers

PS: The few performance tweaks that I made were the same I described in another thread, search for "bay trail", if interested.

Hello,

It's very nice and very very interesting.
May I ask you:
- What kind of power supply do you use?
- What type of cooling? Is it integrated with the mother bord?
- Is it noiseless?

Thanks

Some obvious questions:

How many usb ports for a sound card, keyboard, mouse, midi, etc?
A half-size video card?
Will a wireless wifi card fit into that case, along with everything else?
What other software are you running? One of my worries about Linux has always been with vsti hosts, sound editing software, etc. I know that these types of programs are available for Linux, but I've neer investigated them enogh to know what limitations they might impose.

It would find it challenging to embed a Thin Mini-ITX Board like Q1900TM-ITX:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/Q1900TM-ITX/

Inexpensive, passive cooled and it should be compatible with Linux Audio.

... for another project I bought this board now and had the chance to test it with Piantoteq 5.1.1 trial on Debian (jessie) with KDE-Desktop. Works absolutely flawless! Performance index ist 22 while playing with 48kHz, 256 max. polyphony, 64 samples (1.3 ms). The onboard soundchip is ALC892, which I use with ALSA directly to "hardware device without any conversions" in stereo.

The board is very flat and I think it would fit in some keyboards. But for now I build it into a small SilverStone metal-case. The case comes with two VESA brackets, so I could mount it to the wooden bottom of my Kawai ES3, if I like to.

Btw, the J1900 Quadcore has 1.99 GHz, but Pianoteq shows CPU Frequency 2900 MHz. That is not the fault of Pianoteq, the current cpu-frequency reported by my kernel is around this value (don't know why), and PTQ seems just to read from there.

cheers

PS: The few performance tweaks that I made were the same I described in another thread, search for "bay trail", if interested.

Also a hollow space in the back/underneath for a power strip.  That way you can plug in amp, laptop, DP "inside" and have only a single cable going out to the power outlet.  Avoid the cable rat-nest.

I like that idea. Just leave everything plugged into the strip, and then there's just one plug to worry about.

I can imagine it working two ways. Both would include a place to house an external sound card. Both would let the player attach something to the back of the open notebook so that it did not look like the back of an open notebook, but instead a music stand.

1. Just an open, rectangular, indentation in the middle of the keyboard, with perhaps a bar that could be lifted and then be put down down to lock the notebook in place. Literally locked to prevent theft.
2. Or a frame of sorts, with a bottom lower than the top surface of the controller's cabinet, and with a slot cut in the back so that one slid the notebook in, keeping the notebook's keys exposed. Or it could be a frame that lifted up.

ED may have other ideas. :-)

In the two that I'm imagining, the ideal would be to have an almost flat surface if the notebook was closed. So it would look better, and so people would have a place to rest their drink before spilling it on the notebook.

Of course, either arrangement would mean that would be no screen on the keyboard itself, and the knobs and sliders would have to be kept to the left and the right, since the center would be preoccupied.

Many advantages:
The absence of a screen would reduce the cost.
Short midi cables. No tangles and if the notebook was just kept in the keyboard, no need to connect and disconnect them on gigs--no set up or break down for midi. Plug in the keyboard and sound card and go?
Obviously, Pianoteq, along with a sequencer, other sound engines, lyric sheets, and whatever else would be right in the keyboard\notebook.

But we've known all of this for how many years?

I agree, but I wish that someone would develop an 88 key controller with some kind of slot for a notebook, an open space in the back, in the middle, where one could slide a notebook. Would simply look better, would let the screen be facing the user, and alleviate worries about the notebook sliding off the keyboard.

I agree totally.  A good sized tablet could contain all the printed music,  control MIDI files, along with the voice settings of the keyboard as well.  I wish Samsung, CASIO, and Pinoteq would team up.