<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><br><div><div>On Jul 29, 2010, at 8:30 PM, Jeffrey Concepcion wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">I would like to exclude my laptop from live performance, so to be able to upload my pd patch (or patches) to a device like the beagleboard seems perfect for my needs. <div><br></div><div>@Dan Wilcox - Where you able to build your setup? which one did you go for? how would you be using it (live processing, generation, or sampling,etc.?) </div>
</blockquote><br></div><div>I use a Xybernaut wearable computer running a minimal, no gui Ubuntu and pd with realtime priority and a Roland UA-25 soundcard. It's a slow computer (500Mhz) but with the right settings I have 2 channels in (voice and guitar) and a mixed stereo out with around 12-16ms latency, which is acceptable. The only time I get dropouts are when switching between song patches, which is not a big deal.</div><div><br></div><div>Pd does realtime generation and processing from control and incoming audio. A master patch contains the audio in/out, osc in/out, and playlist. An 8 channel global mixer mixes down to stereo and each song is recorded to wav as I play. Each song is a separate patch noted in the [coll] playlist text file. Switching between songs closes the current song and then opens the new one. A compact flash card contains the songs and media and a small script which is called when the cf card is mounted which tells pd which playlist to load on the card. This way I have different sets per card. The same could be done using usb thumbsticks (should be faster then cf cards) but I used cf cards since the wearable has a slot for one.</div><div><br></div><div>Software wise I have scripting that automatically starts everything and autoconnects alsa midi to pd. A custom daemon grabs hid gamepad events and sends them to pd over osc. The hids are automatically opened when udev detects a new hid device which is super important on a headless machine with no mouse or keyboard. I have a simple visual engine that accepts commands over osc from pd. The overhead with everything running is around 180-230 MB of RAM on a machine with only 256 but it works. I had to fiddle with getting the nice settings just right so the applications work well together.</div><div><br></div><div>I am currently in the process of cleaning up my setup. Once it's ready you can download and try it out on Ubuntu.</div><div><br></div><div>Here's my (a bit empty for now) trac project page : <a href="http://trac.robotcowboy.com/">http://trac.robotcowboy.com/</a> and source repository: <a href="http://trac.robotcowboy.com/browser/robotcowboy/trunk">http://trac.robotcowboy.com/browser/robotcowboy/trunk</a></div><div><br></div><div>In the future I plan to try out a beagle board or gumstix. If I could get funding/sponsorship, I'd drop the 7 grand for one of these: <a href="http://www.bdatech.com/switchback/">http://www.bdatech.com/switchback/</a> a military grade UMPC. The Xybernaut I have is industrial grade (cost $10000 new, but I got for $350 on ebay) and it will outlast any netbook or consumer laptop on the road. Do not underestimate the quality and durability of the hardware you consider while building a performance machine. One option is to buy a mini-itx board and mount it and a soundcard etc into a pelican case ala <a href="http://audiopint.org/">AudioPint</a>.</div><div><br></div><div>Also: the computer will fuck you no matter how much time you put into making it work. Make sure to have a *back up* plan for when it crashes. If you have everything setup correctly, you can just reboot and do a little song and dance ... :D My experience is that 1 reboot is enjoyed by the audience, a second is tolerated, and 3 or more means the promoter will chew you out and wonder why you don't use a Mac and Albeton etc ...</div><br><div>
<div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>--------</div><div>Dan Wilcox</div><div><a href="http://danomatika.com">danomatika.com</a></div><div><a href="http://robotcowboy.com">robotcowboy.com</a></div><div><br></div></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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