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Linux-Based Musical Keyboard Workstation Debuts
Henry G. writes "Lionstracs of Italy has released the Mediastation X-76 music workstation. It runs Red Hat and KDE 3.1. The base model features a 1.67 Ghz Athlon, 512MB RAM, 80GB HD, CDRW/DVD-ROM, 8.2" LCD, and a host of other things. Full specs can be found here and pictures can be found here. To this submitter, it looks more like a keyboardized computer than a computerized keyboard."
For playing music, it's the bomb. However, the only thing I can type in OpenOffice is "FACE"
Man, 3 comments and the site is down. :-(
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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Actually, it doesn't look any more computerized than many other keyboard workstations out there (e.g., Yamaha Motif). The fact that you can hook up external LCDs, etc. in order to more fully exploit what's under the hood will put it a generation beyond.
Can I run Logic or any of the other industry-standard music applications ? If so, this would seem to be the breakthrough Linux has been waiting for in the audiophile/professional musician marketplace.
For whatever it's worth... http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:uhfH21MOZZwJ: www.lionstracs.com/+lionstracs&hl=en&ie=UTF-8. ..
Who doesn't like free music?
The focal point is a picture of a keyboard, with these "helpful" navaids:
Wow, that's clear. I always think "Demo" when I look at the bottom left corner of a keyboard at Best Buy.
It's a computerized keyboard, which implies a computer-human interface. Let's hope that the design team responsible for the web site wasn't allowed anywhere near the actual prodcuct. "Click on the penguin's right toe for MIDI Configuration!"
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Linux-Based Musical
And I thought that a LotR musical would be bad enough...
From a musician's standpoint, I doubt many would care what OS their sound-making device is running. Most musicians just want a device that is stable, affordable, and sounds like they want it to sound. Lots of coveted synths (say, the Access Virus C) run an embedded OS, and musicians are totally happy with that.
With software synths (Reason, Reaktor, plus the various VST and DXi synths available) gaining in popularity, a laptop and a small USB keyboard are all many electronic musicians need to get going. Factor into this the low cost (since downloading of MP3s is killing small/new artists more than it harms anyone associated with the RIAA), and the fact that even electronic musicians are not highly technically savvy ("Yo, mate, I plugged my 'board into the Insert Jack on this Mackie, becuase I want to Insert the sound, right?"), musicians will tend to go with what everyone else is using because then support is easy to find. Unless some new device offers some unique and killer sound with a dirt simple or intuitive user interface, it's just another box destined to fade into obscurity.
"This Website is powered by PostNuke"
I suppose it's appropriate if you're gonna be slashdotted.
Free open source software for musicians:
. sourceforge.net/
http://ardour.sourceforge.net/
http://audacity
http://www.musictheory.net/
Other interesting I forgot ?
Animoog.org
Maybe they were hosting it off one of thier linux keyboards.
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I don't think there has ever been an article that had more than 3 icons? With 6 icons - we have a new record!
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
First off the availability is slowly but steadily increasing. With projects like Ardour nearing major releases even professional recording studios are starting to take note. Even the home user is finding more useful tools available. And with preemptive kernels there's lots of possibilities.
The future for Linux holds many things. Hackers composing music? You bet.
Quack, quack.
Two things need to happen before Linux can be used in a digital audio setting:
1. Drivers for at least one professional audio card need to be written for linux. I would expect to see multi-channel recording, midi, and ASIO 2.0 drivers at the very least.
2. Applications like Cubase, WaveLab, Sonar, and Reaktor need to become available for linux.
We've still got quite a long way to go before this becomes a reality, but if hollywood keeps using Linux for movies then eventually they might start demanding it for their scorers. The movie industry is key in making professional Linux audio a reality.
how come this is modded -1 insightful. Shouldn't that be inciteful?
Hi,
While the Mediastation X-76 uses embedded Linux within some of the 11 in-house developed DSP cards, it is a hard disk based system with commodity computer components. Of course the value of commodity parts is that they're affordable and users can upgrade them.
The eleven Lionstracs DSP cards are the result of two years and $500,000.00 U.S. of research and development. The basic system includes two wavetable DSP cards with 128 voices on each card. These cards run the sam9708 firmware which is common in high end keyboards. The system can be ugraded to run four wavetable cards, 512 voices. The X-76 is tentatively scheduled for release in April, 2004.
Of course the OS is Linux based, with low latency and preemption patches to the kernel and it runs Alsa. With Alsa the system is able to run Jack Audio Connection Kit (JACK). Jack is a low latency audio server that automatically detects hardware ports and user defined application ports. So, routing data from one application to another is simple. Jack also inludes jack_transport where Jack clients are automatically synced to each other. Any jack client can initiate transport commands.
Any available Linux audio applications can be run on the system. Lionstracs will package and maintain a selection of GPL licensed applications including audio, midi and video. Plus, there's modem and ethernet capabilities so software upgrades are "free" (GPL) and automatic.
There will be three unused pci slots available on the basic X-76 system. These pci slots can be occupied with professional grade audio cards like those from RME. So you can build the workstation into a 24 track recording studio.
With JACK and an RME audio card, the user can start Ardour (DAW), JAMin, (audio mastering tools) and Rezound (destructive wave editing). Jack enables routing of the audio chain and syncs the transports. In this scenario the audio source to the mastering tool is multitrack. Very cool!
The X-76 has two hardware transports that can be mapped to any application transport. Of course these applications include sampler, DAW, midi sequencer, etc. One of the included applications is the Lionstracs full featured DJ mixer/player.
Because Linux is a multitasking environment, in live performances a midi sequence that's playing can be fed into the Seq24 based style player where the beat can be changed from rock to reggae on the fly.
The X-76 is designed for live performance where navigation speed to application interfaces is vital. There are 120 configurable hardware buttons on the top panel. The use of a mouse is not necessary.
It also has a 116db dynamic range analog mixer matrix with master, cue and eight stereo in/outs. In a live situation you mix multitrack DAW to stereo_out:1, hardware transports to stereo_out[2,3], sampler_out:4,mic_out1and2:5, etc. This is typical functionality required in DJ/House control systems. Of course it would also be simple to sync MIDI control light mixers and beyond this, the X-76 video outputs can feed projector systems, etc.
The disk based sampler includes time stretch, pitch correction and beat matching algorithms that are usable to +/- 30% without audio artifacts.