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That's pretty cool. I also like the fact that 3rd party developers are making better controllers like the ION Audio Drum Rocker Rock Band 2 Drum Set which I believe is made by Alesis. The beauty part of it is that you can add the Alesis DM5 drum module and make it a real electronic drum set rather than just a video game controller.

Would those be by any means better than the add on module that ION recommends for Drum Rocker, shown here. www.americanmusical.com

What I find interesting is the contrast between your linux story and the rest of the "OMG, linux doesn't work on the desktop!" posts here. You're using linux for a pretty specialized task, that 99% of linux users will never use it for, and it works.

My laptop an ex-Windows 2K machine and my Win 98SE dual boot machines are traditional desktop configured. For the most part, they are plug and play. When I built the Core 2 Duo tm machine, I could have simply used it to replace the older machine, but for web surfing, typing documents and playing the extensive list of included games (vs the short MS included list of cards and minesweeper) the older hardware is just fine. Hardware compatibility was almost non-existant. I have an HP scanner that SANE didn't recognise, but a trip to Goodwill replaced it with a nice Cannon LED model for about $10. I knew to avoid Winmodems and multi-function printers, so these were never an issue. The flatbed scanner and my HP inkjet and laserjet worked out of the box. They are on stand alone printservers and do a fantastic job for my entire network. Only the Vista laptop had trouble connecting to the printers. The new network authentication standard as default in Vista is problematic in existing home LAN's. The MS solution is of course to upgrade your entire lan and toss the working hardware.

I wanted to get into hard disk recording, so I decided to try the free offerings. If they didn't work, I could drop a half grand or more in software. Fortunately, the free stuff works quite well. Ubuntu Studio using a low latency kernal and the AISO interface makes it easy to do multi-track recording in real time. Putting down a drum track and playing it back to add the lead and bass guitar is easy. (play and record at the same time with little delay) Then the 4 tracks can be again played back and the lead and backup vocals can be laid down. In post production a little reverb can be added to the backup vocal track as a new track, so if you don't like it, you can redo, adjust tweak, eq and such till it is just right. Normally this ability is a several grand expense. I use a small under $300 mixer with some good mics, the under $50 A/D Behringer U-Control for the hardware and free software. Other than the price of a good PC which can be dual booted if desired, the studio solution including the mixer, mics, and A/D converter for cutting demo CD's was under $500. Home recording doesn't have to be expensive even when the result sounds like it. The plug it in and it works is more the norm than the exception. The stuff that is hard to make work gets lots of attention and is often a well known issue.

Example hardware is here.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Behringer-UCONTROL-UCA202-USBAudio-Interface?sku=702540

http://www.americanmusical.com/item.aspx?i=YAM%20MG124C&src=D0407FG0HAMS0000YAM%20MG124C&utm_source=froogle&utm_medium=feed&

http://www.zzounds.com/item--SHUPG48

They are there, no one but the dog can hear them but they are there and the mic picks them up not well but it picks up 33Khz.

Not all mic's. Most vocal microphones do not go that high. Check the spec.

The old industry band vocal mic, the Sure SM58 response is here;
http://www.shure.com/stellent/groups/public/@gms_gmi_web_us/documents/web_resource/site_img_us_rc_sm58_large.gif

Sure SM57;
http://cachepe.zzounds.com/media/sm57-0e448d5589fdc8d6658bd863b801f637.pdf

The newer Sure vocal mics are here;
Sure PG58 http://cachepe.samedaymusic.com/media/pg58-d7a8418e0d8d830ff025d91f4eef8a58.pdf
Sure PG48 http://www.shure.com/stellent/groups/public/@gms_gmi_web_us/documents/web_resource/site_img_us_rc_PG48_large.gif

Even ditching a dynamic for the better condensor mic gives this response;
http://www.americanmusical.com/manuals/shure/shusm86_userguide.pdf

Some instermentation microphones may extend into the ultrasonic range, but most are flat through 20HZ-20KHZ with a rapid roll-off above 20KHZ.

I am too. I said society should bear the cost. Not the government. I meant to imply that perhaps the charging for recordings of live or studio entertainment isn't something we should support as a business model; this disenfranchises the entrenched interests such as the RIAA, but I believe their window has closed in any case, and the current copyright model is just beating a dead horse. Anyone can put a studio together in their basement.

Believe me, I know; I am a musician and I own a music studio, less than ten year old equipment and infrastructure capitalization at well over two million dollars, and I have astoundingly good equipment at home that didn't even run $2500.00; You can put the essence of 24-track recording on your desktop for under a grand by tomorrow. Just go to Musician's Friend or American Musical Supply and take a look at the Korg, Tascam and Yamaha recording products.

This means that the only remaining scarcity resides in performance. If a band chooses to perform in the studio, they are essentially giving away that performance. Not by law, not by intent, but nonetheless, in fact, they are. This was an inherent problem for recorded entertainment when studios cost what mine did, but those times are gone. Now the problem, if you can call it that, is that the niche the middlemen carved out - recording, mastering, replication - has closed just as surely as the niche for the horse carriage vanished with the advent of cars.

The implications for the film industry are quite serious; it may not survive in the form we know it today. Perhaps advertiser sponsoring via a television-like medium is all that is practical now.

Check out American Music Supply.

Besides the SKB racks already mentioned by another poster, you can buy rack rails and screws very inexpensively online at music stores (http://www.sweetwater.com, and http://www.americanmusical.com come to mind) and build your own rack. I built a nice 14 space rack out of oak plywood (and oak tape becomes your new friend), which while not all-metal industrial-looking, is very sturdy, was a lot of fun to build, and looks great. If you're going to be mounting a lot of stuff, you may also want to put some vent panels in between pieces of equipment. They look slightly better than open rack spaces and provide good airflow room.

I got a 3' rack about 5 years ago from AMS for about US$200.

-Brett