Rackmounts for Musicians?

williwilli asks: "Musicians face a multitude of challenges in this day and age, yet there are a number of musicians also trying to work towards the future. One constant challenge in almost any profession in money. With CPU's continuing to advance at a rapid rate, many musicians are finding computer-based software synthesis to be much more cost effective than traditional hardware synthesizers. While some musicians are using portable systems, the lack of expandibility limits the systems capabilities in terms of synthesis, multitrack recording, etc. While one could always throw more computers at the problem, many users will no doubt find a rackmount system provides much more capability and expandibility. As such, what insights might the Slashdot crowd be able to provide towards building your own rack? Is shockmounting necessary? Are parts readily available, or are there any 'open-source' CAD files out there? Are there music-specific materials, designs, or tips to recommend or avoid?" Would rackmounts for a mobile musician really differ so greatly from rackmounts made for a small server cluster?

Comments

Re:building the racks first...

[adolf]

I've built a portable rack, of the sort constructed with plastic-laminated ply, aluminum extrusions, stout handles and locking hasps. It was a reasonably fun project. I'll not do it again.

First, it was more expensive to buy a pile of parts than to purchase the same parts pre-assembled from Starcase, Anvil, or their kin.

Second, I had to put it together myself, excluding a not-insignificant amount of my life from other -- potentially more-fruitful -- ventures.

Third, Starcase-and-friends have the process down to a science. While I was futzing around trying to decide which type of pop rivet to use and fighting with bad tools and imperfect measurements, the professional box-builders would've been feeding stock through purpose-built jigs and making perfect components the first time around. They've got better assembly methods, better tooling, and better materials such as real, solid, steel rivets instead of hollow, aluminum pop rivets.

Another example of nearly-unavoidable material differences:

I used 1mm ABS plastic as an outer layer, laminated with contact cement, while the standard road case is covered in hard vacuum-laminated fiberglass. Why? Though these fiberglass laminates are readily available to us lay-folk, shipping 4x8 sheets of anything around the country involves freight charges such that the project would've been impossible to complete. Thin ABS can be rolled up and shipped UPS relatively cheaply, and applied to locally-sourced ply.)

So, don't build a rack, kids. Even if it seems like a good idea. It's cheaper, better, and faster to have a custom box built by someone who does it for a living than to go at it yourself.