Slashdot Mirror
MIDI Keyboard/Computer: Neko64
An anonymous reader gushes "Just got back from NAMM, and saw the coolest thing for music geeks - it's a MIDI keyboard with a dual Opterons and a 15 inch touchscreen. While other vendors crow about 5 inch screens (Now With Color!) these guys have a beautiful UI on a live performance instrument that is also awesome studio gear. 4 interchangable control surfaces, and battery backup to boot! If the power cord gets yanked out in the middle of a performance, there's plenty of time to bitch out the roadie and get it plugged in without missing a beat. These guys truly Get It."
Yeah, but can I play Doom on it?
DROS - Open-Source Robot Software
...is the price.
How much is this thing likely to cost? And since it's essentially a server and a midi-instrument all rolled into one, will anyone outside of major studios and universities be able to afford it?
libertarianswag.com
Damn.. 11 Months to Christmas..
fp!
These guys truly Get It.
and the reason nobody else got it or will get it is the price.
I am getting a casio keyboard on monday, but this keyboard looks really nice, wouldn't mind giving it a shot. What is the price?
That's how we pirated music a decade ago
looks like the thing that that Harold has on the red green show, if anyone here has ever seen it.. you know "if the women dont find you handsome they can at least find you handy"..
If i remember correctly, this thing has been demoed at at least the last NAMM, and possibly the one before.
From what I heard, it was pretty much an empty shell last year and was utter vapourware....
Did you see it on?
Did it boot?
Could you do anything with it?
i don't read slashdot anymore.
but does it run Linux?
Rus
CPanel + Root from $35/mo - 10% off with discount code SLASHDOT
N/T
I guess your little hint to the mods didn't work, cause you have yet to be modded up.
The only problem with this kind of high-end equipment is that traditional capitalistic methods cannot bring prices down through competition.
The only North American dealer is http://www.coastrecording.com/. In Europe, your only choice is probably http://www.electricsound.com/.
That being said however, I've read some great reviews of this keyboard, and it stacks up well against the Triton and Yamaha (potential competitors) in terms of features, quality, and price.
Here's my goal for next year:
1) Buy this thing
2) Become a rockstar
3) Get tons of ass
4) ???
5) Profit!
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
The first time I ever played with Reaktor I thought to myself "damn when is somebody just going to put a PC in a synth with a lightweight real-time customizable OS (open source if possible), a big screen, lots of programmable control surfaces, and a something flexible and powerful like Reaktor?"
.. except for the OS. Still this is pretty damn cool!
..later..
And here it is
PS: Anybody else get a chuckle out of this:
NEKO 64? frees you from all of the frustrating limitations imposed by closed, proprietary systems, while still maintaining the virtues of an all-in-one keyboard instrument.
NEKO 64? is so versatile it can virtually run any plugin or application designed for the Windows XP operating system including products from Steinberg, Native Instruments, Synapse Audio, IK Multimedia and many others!
I guess their definition of "proprietary" is different than mine!
It's probably not so important for the average musician but I hope all the interfaces are MIDI or otherwise accessible by the programmer.
I would buy one now, if it weren't for the extreamly annoying webpage. I mean, do they really feel the need to make the '64' green every time it's written? Yes, I know. I dislike things for the stupidest reasons.
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
Thats the biggest microsoft smart phone ive ever seen!
Someone will need to mirror this soon.
I know there is this rift right now in the community. Some people hate laptops on stage, some people love it. I'm a big pusher of the "Powerbook"/build your own interface. I don't see particular use in incoporating my computer keyboard into my piano keyboard. I personally prefer just to put my laptop on the top. Mind you I also prefer to have 88 keys.
This is probably a very cool toy, but I don't think its a "must have" for anyone.
Some linux developers have developed a similar keyboard that is based on opensource software. I haven't compared specs in detail but I'm guessing the hardware is similar based on voice count.
http://www.lionstracs.com/
I'm totally linux-centric (unlike most slashdotters) so I wanted to make reference to those musicians who'd like to support *true* opensource development.
-ry
Fuck the Panthers. They BARELY even beat the Rams and got lucky because Bulger was so damn lousy. The Patriots will crush them in the Superbowl. Suck my dick you gay ass Panthers fan.
I could get my wife to buy it!!
*anyway* what I wanted to say
is how could it be 64-bit computing, if they run 'Microsoft Windows XP Professional' ?
Am I missing something? do they run something specially licensed from M$? *something in those lines?, like 'they're running a beta of their upcomming 64-bit XP..'?*
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
I make music for hobby, and am married to a musician - plus, I know lots of other people that make music for a living or for fun. I know that these people are put off by the slightest alien noise, when they "work".
And this device consumes a lot of power. Have a look at the specs: "Whisper Quiet Cooling Fans (Internal Chassis, Processor & Power Supply)"
Well, they may be whisper-quiet, but they'll annoy all the musicians I know. Some of them have chosen iMacs for the only reason that they were quieter than anything x86. I may not be that picky with regards to PSU fan noise, but all others certainly are.
Of course, I expect that such an expensive and complex piece of gear must have had some serious marketing and product management work done before they nailed the product specs, right? Therefore, these particular PSU fans are actually unhearable. I hope. Hmmm......
Sigged!
I'm intrigued to know what is open about this product, apart from the name. Am I missing something? Perhaps 'open' is just a term which is open (sorry!) to wide interpretation?
Mod it down.
informative
Open System: NEKO 64(TM) utilizes industry standard micro-ATX motherboards and processors that allow you to run standard operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows
now if it ran debian, then this statement wouldn't be so missleading
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Sorry, but most nobody will want this. it can't do 1/2 of what my laptop + portable 1/4 rack full of synth modules + 3 keyboards can do in regards to sound quality and playability. it's got a 1/2 assed el-cheapo keyboard on it for cripes sake. if you dont have fully weighted keys that have velocity + pressure sensing it's worthless junk.
This is not something for professionals. I'll stick with my Ensoniq and Roland equipment + a cheap laptop with a midi interface card.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
can't wait until somebody overclocks this one....maybe even watercool it....(or do extreme cooling).
Maybe if by "music geek" you mean "guy who knows more about computers than music". Any *actual* music geek would prefer a good, straight up keyboard: 88 keys, hammer action, weighted (at least partially, preferably fully), and minimal other crap. Maybe a pitch bend wheel or a few programmable hotkeys, but not a gigantor LCD screen and a full qwerty keyboard: that's just going to get in the god damn way.
Ahh yes, Pluhbabe time. Well, it's BEEN Pluhbabe time for a while now, and Shafty would say, "ROBBAH, You are the dumb! NEW PLUHBABE WE NEEDSARS!!" Well, aside from the stupid dilemmas that would creep up, I was all, "NO!"
Since Mr. Teh attacked our SERVAR, we lost lots of great images from some previous Pluhbabes. This created a big cloud of sadness. Bloody rain falls from these clouds. And it's in acid form. Thus, as our flesh is melting painfully away from our bones, I type this Pluhbabe review in hopes that we would be resurrected.
I don't understand what's so cool about this thing. It is apparently just a PC in a big, ugly package that includes a monitor, a keyboard, and a couple of control surfaces.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to tote all that stuff around in a single, inflexible box. Remember the virtues of the *ix philosophy of small, purpose-built, easily interconnectable tools? That works for musical gear too, at least for me.
To each his/her own. If you want one, and it's not vapor, go buy one, knock yourself out. I just don't happen to want one.
-David.
Is listed as a feature. It will give the musician the ability to blame a virus for a missed beat.
Did you update your keyboards anti-virus?
Does it require MS activation?
I do want a keyboard with DRM, just in case I need to pay some royalties for playing "Happy Birthday to You"
Get a free ipod.
Bill Gates, of course.
I have a mirror of the photo and specs here. I'll work on getting the website mirrored next.
What were you doing over there all this time?
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
I have severe reservations about an instrument whose core os is Windows XP, you could almost guarantee a crash during a live set... No thanks what a crazy idea! Not something I am prepared to take risks with.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I didn't see where it said what, if any, audio software it comes with. That's a few hundered dollars right there.
They don't say what speed the internal HDD is. And if you're going to do any serious multitracking you're going to want a Firewire drive anyway. That's another few hundered dollars. Nor do they say how many audio inputs it has, so you may well need a recording interface as well.
They don't make an 88-key version, so you'll need a controller if you want a "real" keyboard. Yet another few hundered dollars.
And only a 350 watt power supply? I would think a dual-opteron system with all those bells and whistles would need a lot more than that...
Might be good if you're tight on space, but beyond that you might be better off with more "traditional" gear...
...your bands gets picked up by a major label....you're a rock star now.....you sell out a 10 city tour in minutes....then you get up on stage for your first gig....start playing....and your PIECE OF SHIT WINDOWS-POWERED KEYBOARD CRASHES HALFWAY THROUGH THE FIRST SONG!
Or worse....your keyboard gets a nasty virus when you're transferring MIDI files to it which erases your entire sample library from its hard drive.
-psy
No it runs windows XP. Just look at the web site.
HAHA, it runs XP, it does not totally get it. Its a computer in a fancy case, running an " app " of some kind and a couple of midi interfaces, keyboard etc.
Whats the big deal.
Oh how I love the reverse psychology karma whoring. But, oops, doesn't seem to have worked. Ho Ho Ho. Better luck next time!
- "An anonymous reader gushes" ... this is news? I could like, hobble something like this together with a laptop and an old keyboard, ... could I be on Slashdot then? Please?
... please, break your hands now and spare my ears.
- "These guys truly Get It"
- Runs on Windows XP
- (No sound samples on the web site)
- (May just be a "shovel us money" prototype)
Um like
and last but not least...
It's all about the music for godsakes. If you need this piece of gear to sound good and can't do it on a freakin' roland juno-106 from the 1980s... or a piano
(Not flamebait, and/or troll... just a musician that is sick of crap like this. It is the opposite of inspiring.)
The specs say it can take 8gb but the product info says it can take 16gb of ram.
The big deal is that you don't have to have a bunch of cables running across the stage to a computer to get real time audio effects processing done on your software instruments. You also don't have to have a separate computer. All the interface nicely collected at your fingertips.
And yes, a dual opteron will get a significant load once you start to pile up your effects.
And regarding the price: A computer is much cheaper than a large rack of effect modules.
Geek rants since like... 2000 or something.
It's much better to get a laptop and an MIDI controller. The point of integrating the two is silly, IMO. I could destroy that thing with my setup no problem, and it's MUCH cheaper. I can put whatever program on, and yes, it can run Linux! The only thing it wins in is portability, and even that is questionable. I'd rather carry around my laptop and a nice small light controller than that.
This is good as like any other powerful keyboard. It's good for lame session players doing lame comping, IMO; and who can't be assed to learn about all the various softsynths that are available and to get them to work.
As someone mentioned before about studios and universities. I would serverly frown on any music institution that took this over a good computer and a controller.
This thing is huge! I suppose if you're into that sort of thing it's good but I just do all of my synthesis in software using Native Instruments' Reaktor.
http://www.native-instruments.com
I'm not sure how this keyboard works to communicate with software, but you might be able to get it to work with the Linux softsynths like SSM and zynaddsubfx (and record with ardour.)
But that aside, I think you're missing the point. This isn't just a synth. Its a workstation... With a computer in it.
I'm sick and tired of all the Korg Triton crap and blah, but this computer/keyboard seems more than that IMO. As in you can write your own stuff for it. (However, shut up with all the Open crap, OpenLabs, if you're running XP and calling your keyboard non-propriatary.... which you are.)
Cause where I was sitting, it looked like a good ol' country ass whoopin, wood-shed style
If it was priced at around $1000, it might be worth it, but instead this piece of crap costs $5k.
For about $1000 less, you can get a 17" Powerbook, a midi controller with plenty of knobs and sliders, and a USB audio interface, and still have enough left over for a case of beer.
It Rocks My Cock in a Sock (TM).
Which couldn't be farther from the truth. Maybe having a computer keyboard, laptop screen, and several generic looking banks of controls wedged in right above the (synth) keyboard is handy, but man, does it look clunky (and frankly, ugly).
It also appears to be heavy and awkwardly large, to the point where having a separate laptop and music keyboard might actually be more convenient -- and if your keyboard has built-in sounds, keeping them separate gives you the option of ditching the laptop when you want to, which obviously you can't do with the neko.
No thanks, neko-san.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
here.
...and I have had to carry, transport and connect music equipment far too many times to enjoy that any more. A saxophone is enough hassle, anything electrical quickly becomes a major pain on the road (like a one-week tour with atleast one performance/day)
Geek rants since like... 2000 or something.
oh, they do that with the 64 bit add on package, like they did for 3.1 -> 32 bit...
I have freaks! I did something right...
Man that's sweet. Motivation to get my arse into gear and make some music!
It seems to me that this is primarily aimed at being a replacement for a midi keyboard and laptop combination simplified into one box and hardened for touring.
I would not be surprised if it really is just a midi keyboard with a computer, monitor, UPS and a profession sound card all in the same box. If it is just a standard type midi interface running things internally then I can't see why linux couldn't be a drop in replacement.
The merit of this over a laptop and midi keyboard separately, well the dual opteron option would really increase the computing grunt over a laptop, and it is one solid box that sounds fairly roadie proof. There maybe a niche, but how big of one will depend on price.
last time i checked - winxp is not a real-time os. so keyboard with spaceship control panel and pc inside can't be with "...near-zero latency even under high processor loads". and while processor is highly loaded, latency is "low" but midi in/out starts to drop notes...
Which this guy thinks means "they made something I like." However, I thought "getting it" meant you understood the net gains from freeing software.
Oh, well . . . I guess some people just like using the lingo even though they don't have a clue what they are talking about. Imagine that . . . "Geek wannabes."
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
ritual suicide will be fine (-: jk, just kidding, etc
I have freaks! I did something right...
Suck an egg, asshat. How often do you see windows XP bluescreen?
plz die.
oh., football. who gives a flying fuck
the most god aweful boring over emphasised sport on the planet.
...MS(tm) DRM(tm) Clippy(tm): It looks like you're trying to play happy birthday, a tune that is still (?!?!?) under copyright. Shall I:
;o)
a) Shut down the keyboard you filthy copyright stealing musician/terrorist (delete as appropriate, with extreme prejudice).
or b) send $350 from your online bank account to ASCAP.
Reminds me of that simpsons christmas special where the family are carol singing outside the lawyers house, who promptly comes out and tells to "cease and decist" as the songs they are singing are owned by his clients.
I am NaN
Get a MIDI keyboard, one of the ones which is just a controller, and get a decent synth program. There are plenty of Free Software synth programs out there.
Hook the two together and viola, you've got something which is close, if not better in some cases, than this thing.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
it's a MIDI keyboard with a dual Opterons and a 15 inch touchscreen...
Why is suge a large screen neccesary?
As for me, I'd take a baby grand piano over this thing any day.
~To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. -Yann Martel
Most nerds think football is lame. WTF are you jocks doing here?
This is a dual Opteron, with 350 watt power supply. They claim "quiet cooling fans," but as a practical matter, dual Opteron in a small, enclosed space will not be that quiet. For a piece of audio equipment, wouldn't it make more sense to cut back a bit on the processing power, and go for completely silent? Or alternatively, one could physically seperate the noise from the source. I don't think this would matter much on-stage with mega amplifiers, but in a recording studio, or for quieter music in a smaller environment (for use at home, etc.), do you really want the humming of a fan? Personally, I'd take a 1GHz C3 chip, running fanless, on a MicroITX motherboard probably, one of the quieter hard drives, in an acoustice enclosure. If I really need the high-end speed, I'd blow the money on making the case into a large heat sink, and use heat pipes.
From Bach, Mozart and Sor.
KFG
Ok, predictably lots of comments about the use of the term "open" and the choice of Windows XP as an OS.
So, let's say they did based it on Linux. Would it make the slightest bit of difference? Yes. They wouldn't be able to run all their favourite windows music software, plugins, etc. Open is relative to your point of view. From the point of view of someone who has just spent in the ballpark of $8000 to make music, Windows (or arguably OSX) *is* the most open OS, not linux.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
does it make good homebrewn coffee, like Tweek's dad does ?
In my school's band program, there is an end of year project that makes up a large portion of one's mark. It can be anything related to music. In my grade 11 year (last year) two of the grade 12s (who had left band, or at least one did...) came back in to rap to some tracks they had recorded. To make it more interesting, they aquired me to do my usual winamp AVS and LCD projector thing. This time, I had a video card worth speaking of (TNT2 32 meg roxor box!!!) so I planned on using milkdrop with their CD. First song goes alright, second song my computer unexplanably crashes (Win 98 SE), for no reason whatsoever, and had never happeded like that before. Luckily we had the CD and plugged it into the cd player, and all was well. Lesson: don't use computers in music unless the computer has a good OS, is properly ventilated, and can restart fast. Too tired to include any more wit.
I have freaks! I did something right...
This is just expensive and unnecessary. The reason people buy All-in-One systems is because they're either portable or cheap. This is neither. I'll take a 12" Albook, M-audio Firewire 410 and Novation Remote 25 thanks.
_nfotxn
...They're actually going on tour.
It's not so much the look of the thing. I would just have an issue calling it a synthesizer. It's got a CD burner, for crying out loud. It looks more like an all-in-one digital workstation. I would never carry anything that bulky on a gig. And if I'm recording at home, I would rather use a standard computer setup than deal with something like that. I'm not sure what the market for this thing is going to be. It's an interesting bit of tech, but I'm not sure what to do with it.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Since all you'd get for a beaten-to-death lameass joke is a Funny, you wouldn't even get karma. Fool.
no, no... the question is... but will it run linux?
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.
N/T,
This is a (real)video of the companion product, a rackmount version of the neko. However, the video focuses on the custom front-end software, Karsyn, which is the glue that makes either system work as a unified live performance instrument.
OpenLabs-OMX
Also, there are still additional costs to this system with 3rd party plug-ins and virtual synths.
...it really drives home how ridiculous we geeks are when it comes to discussions of musical instruments. Here's the one and only criteria by which real musicians will judge this thing by:
How does it sound?
because the Gershwin estate was a big backer of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
what a waste of a good 64 bit processor.
I am happy AMD processors are getting used, but here an ordinary 32 bit processor would suffice... since they're using a 32 bit OS. At 9 grand, they better write their own fricking 64 bit OS and a whole suite of music software. I hope this quick-fix-half-assed-solution drops dead in the water.
--_- Mikey G
I could buy a good musical keyboard, and a good PC. Actually I could do so for less than this. Other than the "wow" factor is there any real advantage to this (other than perhaps musicians who really find it inconvenient to lug both keyboard and computer around).
Anyone here know why the high cost? Any particularly extra-special redeeming features that would make you buy it?
how could it be 64-bit computing
Depends how you define bitness. PC data buses have been 64-bit ever since DIMMs first became popular as a RAM form factor. I'm guessing that some of the signal processing is done in IEEE double-precision floating-point, which is 64-bit. And no, pointer size isn't everything; even "16-bit" MS-DOS apps used pointers with 20 significant bits.
As a someone who has worked as a roadie, I'm curious how much this thing weighs. I couldn't find it listed on their webpage.
Luckly I don't think many musicans would take such a contraption to a live gig. Too complex -- too much could go wrong.
This is what the keyboardist/pianist plays on. It's not just some mixer/aftereffects module. They advertise this is for live performance as well. In most cases (in my very limited experience), I've seen the entire band together in the same booth, when they are recording. Certainly in live performance, the keyboardist will be with the rest of the band (although most venues are noisy enough that fan noise wouldn't matter). People also use these things a lot when composing, to try things out. I don't know -- I've seen a lot of people custom-build silent x86 boxes for use in recording studios (going to rather extreme lengths; Google around). Seems like audio is not the place you want a big hulkin' piece of noise equipment.
I suppose you wear one earing too, make sense since your half-a-fag.
:)))
Please learn your contractions. "You're" is the contraction of "you are", while "your" denotes ownership. For example:
"You're a bigoted prick and your cock is tiny and bent."
See how easy it can be?
I'd bet more nerds care about football than music workstations...
of course, football strategy is a lot more complicated than warcraft, so nerds not be able to understand the game...
This page is full of the latest buzzwords, and the fact that the submitter is an AC leads me to believe this is a hoax. More info here.
So which one is embedded, cpu or midi keyboard?
when I was an undergrad, I remember having difficulties understanding these concepts. I wonder what happenned to good old 8-bit microcontrollers.
A keyboard which is much more powerfull then all my PCs... God help us.
how long before the firmware & OS ends up showing up on P2P?
Then grab any such compatible keyboard and volia!
Football is for ass-patting homos.
Gayboy.
What about OGG support?
my blog
They must be using double precision floating point? :)
Karma Clown
Real pictures. Wake me when they've got more than a cheap render to show off.
You are not being picky, that shit is annoying and the marketroid that thought it up probibly got told by his web designer that it was a bad idea.
.
of course to be fair you were probibly not going to buy this.
Offtopic stupid story
several years ago (more than five) I lived in a midwest state that had a truly annoying auto dealer radio ad (much much worse than most). This ad was had all the worst aspects of country music and was played on the rock station I listened to. well one day I was driving along and spotted this dealership, I had time to kill so I pulled in and started looking at one of their nicest fully loaded 4x4s. The sales dude approached I made nice talk about how interested I was in the truck ("hell I don't even need to test drive it"). so we went in for the paper work he set it down I read the header and said "this is %insert dealername%?"
The salesguy said yes and I told him that their ad annoyed me so much that I wasn't interestd anymore, and I walked off.
Two weeks later they had a different less annoying ad
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
I'd bet more nerds care about football than music workstations...
I seriously doubt that. Besides, what about all the music nerds?
of course, football strategy is a lot more complicated than warcraft, so nerds not be able to understand the game...
But apparently it's not as complicated as proofreading a simple sentence.
PS: Don't overuse the ellipsis!
I would have guessed 64 bit SOUND processor rather than 64 bit CPU.
Being a musical instrament the sound capabilitys is more important than how much data it can chuck.
I don't actually exist.
This site claims that all "common" formats are supported. Also claims that can interface with Firewire and USB, so I'm sure you could hack if it doesn't come with support.
http://www.aaplblog.com/ - News about Apple Inc.
Leaving aside the Linux question for a minute.
How can they design a system:
1. named for an OS that isn't released WINXP64 - so its eather lying or its based on early release candidates. I'd say the same if they called it blah 2.61 and based it on Linux.
2. isn't fanless. Of all the people doing flips and twists to get rid of noice and moving parts Musicians are near the top of the list.
Personally if I found a keyboard I really liked to play on my suspicion is that I'd want a link to an upgradable computer network. I think this would do better with a browser or X interface that could take advantage of an external computer. You know one of those things that you can get and upgrade for only $1000 and keep the keyboard you enjoy.
Perhaps others like the 'all in one ness' of the thing but I suspect the extra features let them draw focus from a cheaper keyboard.
Just a cynical guess, you'd best ignore me...
ls
The main issue with a synth is sample size.
A high quality sample of just a grand piano can be 128 megs right there. That is a single note.
Having a 64-bit processor means you can have several gigs of samples and not have to swap them to disk. They can all be in memory.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
If anyone was in the know about 11 years ago, Korg had a secret project called the Oasis which was to have a large LCD display, full keyboard, tons of sample RAM, and everything imaginable all at the convenient pricepoint of $10K retail. Well the market denied the introduction of such a product and the Oasis became the Oasys, a pseudo high end recording system. I don't know if the market is there for even an $8500 keyboard. Kurzweil got dropped by GC. People decided $5K was too much for their top of the line and they were an established company. Oh keyboards, they used to be really cool.
Plus, the Motif ES *does* actually have 128 note polyphony, thank you. I could put together a decent DAW with an M-Audio or Terratec audiocard and Cakewalk Sonar and still come in under budget. Plus, I would have a real, easily upgradeable computer.
The nail in the coffin, however, is the almost complete lack of keyboard specifications. What is the sampling frequency? Can it record at 24-bit, or only play back at 24-bit? Number of presets, user patterns, multisamples, arpeggiator...where the hell is all that info? Is it a proprietary audio card? Et cetera.
Reminds me to much of the Phantom PC console.
...a Beowulf cluster of these?
...lease out step three.
What? Mick Jagger did it.
those interested in a truly open synthesizer may want to check out the chameleon, basically a rackmounted dsp board anyone can code for.
Something that's not addressed anywhere in the ad is the issues that will crop up when using an "industry-standard" motherboard. What happens when the mobo dies, and an exact replacement is not available because it's no longer manufactured? I've had the not-too-pleasant experience of having to replace mobos, and invariably there are chipset, video, and other differences that can make it difficult if not impossible to boot a Windows box off the original hard disk without reinstalling the OS, not to mention the fact that the synth will only be as stable as the drivers for that particular hardware are. If I order a new board for my 20-year old DX-5, I'm quite confident that it will work out of the bag. I wouldn't have that degree of faith with this rig.
You want a real all-in-one workstation? Save your pennies and get an old Synclavier or Fairlight III, or go the ProTools route if that's your fancy. For performance uses, it seems to me this behemoth is a non-starter, and for studio work, there are a lot more modular and powerful solutions for a comparable price. And finally, as others have mentioned, if they want to be taken seriously, they need to do something about the keyboard - you can't charge $5K and only provide a 61-key sprung keyboard.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
I guess from a DSP perspective, it makes sense to have a 64 bit processor. Each internal step in a filter block can contribute to roundoff errors, overflows, etc. Having the ability to do filtering and synthesis in real-time and using floating point instead of fixed point math in 64bits can help, as most DSP processors are 32bits, and fixed point. The only thing that is unexpected is that most DSP chips also aims to be low-power, and opteron certain break this rule.
Back to the issue of running 64bit programs. The opterons can operate in 3 modes: 64-bit OS and applications, 64-bit OS, 32bit applications, and finally 32bit OS and 64bit applications. 2GBs on these machines is still within the realms of 32bit processors, so 64bit processors don't help there. My guess is that they used 64bit processors for precision.
Also, I think I read somewhere (probably the ref manuals) that opterons supply DSP instructions... is this true?
I don't care if it uses XP.
I don't care if it has fans.
the big deal here is that you can have all your vst plugins going on without dragging a laptop or a rack computer.
I just hope its got some serious insulation and waterproofing so you could use it on gigs.
I have seen damage from fog machines in laptops and in racks, so hopefully they thought of this.
...a bar you can go to?
Sometimes you wanna go
where everybody knows your name
and the football jokes are all the same
You wanna be with people who
bitch about the game
you wanna go where everybody knows
your name
Damn jocks.
Imagine beowulf cluster of these ...
Get one of these, it is only $99. The article cites overkill. It reads like one of those fluff CNN articles "Own this new robot dog, only $1,000,000!".
I hate sigs.
OWCH! .... hey!
Jeremy
N-E-K-O??? That's a funny way to spell "cocaine."
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
For a starting price of $5K, I expect 88 high-quality weighted pressure+velocity sensitive keys. Their actual keyboard looks like plastic garbage offhand, although I'd have to see one live to be sure. "Semi-Weighted Synth-Action Keyboard" probably means I'm right.
I'm not yet impressed: my $800 Fatar POS MIDI controller might be nicer to play. I plug it into a computer if I want it connected to a computer---computer runs Linux, too. MIDI rules.
The this hardware is the car that can run at a top speed of 440 Km/h, all the roads are adapted to handle 440 Km/h, everyone in the world allready drives at top speeds of 440 Km/h.... but the driver of this car has only got the balls to puch the car to speeds of 220 Km/h....
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
Damn, I wish I had mod points for that...
This is what I always dreamed of. A few years ago I had an Amiga 1200, 14inch CRT monitor, and a couple of fx and sound modules hooked up to a small mixing desk inside a bloody great big roadcase to use in a live situation. The other guys in the band hated it ;) I even made a custom startup sequence that bypassed most of the OS to just run Octamed Soundstudio with about 10 seconds of booting up time.
Now this thing, you could run Reason or Logic Audio and have access to a ton of sounds as well as being able to mix the sequences live. Brilliant!
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Bring It!: equipped with PCI slots that can accept up to FULL SIZE cards, the NEKO 64(TM) can accommodate your favorite Creamware
Blimey - there is an apt term!
Actually the NT kernal does have a realtime priority level which does block OS processes so in fact the crucial I/O pieces CAN be run at realtime level while effects processors and GUI code can be run at a higher level to assure that stuff isn't dropped. Besides I think they are talking about something like ASIO which with the right hardware and software can get to very very low latency, even with cheap stuff like my Audigy I get down below 15ms which is quite acceptable. If you can really throw enough stuff at this thing to bog down dual 2GHz Opteron's and make it sound good then I bow down before your superior musical skills =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Basically they've packaged a software synth into a cheap keyboard. I'd rather spend the cash on a decent dedicated, properly weight keyboard and connect it via midi to whatever. Software synths have been around for ages, this is nothing but bells and whistles.
"Semi-weighted?" What the hell is that? A euphamism for "cheap piece of crap?"
Whatever. No professional will be impressed. Oooh, a $1500 computer with a $500 keyboard for $6,500. Wow. I'm thrilled.
Let's see, a fully weighted proper 88 key Korg SP-500 is about $1,500. That leaves me $5,000 for rack mounted synth modules and computers. Considering rackmount Triton modules go for about $1,400, you could have three of 'em plus a decent keyboard AND a proper computer with scoring software for the same price.
Screw these guys. This is crap.
man go back into your cave you fucking *nix zealot.
everyone knows that the best pro audio shit is available for win...get a clue before spouting off.
YOU don't totally get it my friend
Am I missing something, or could you get a top of the range PC, a MIDI keyboard, pro hi-fi setup and all the sequencer and sound generation software
you could ever want for about half that price? oh , but wait, they've put the PC motherboard INSIDE the a keyboard case, of course, silly me, that
entirely justifies the absurd price. Yeah right.
btw, I've done some digging, and found this document, scroll down to page 33 & 37-39; which I wasn't aware that software could also enable/disable the LME register. /* but then again, I don't know how/what they define 'software' to really mean/be. App & OS, OS not App, App not OS?...*/
*/
and scroll down/up to page 2: "Defaults can be overridden in most modes using an instruction prefix or system control bit" - page 2 - table 1. "Operating Modes" /* but what's "most modes"? */
But, then again, does their 'proprietary' software do this 'instruction prefixing or system control biting'? is it possible for them to switch to '64-bit addressing' from inside 'legacy mode'?
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
What about the noise of the dual opterons ? You're gonna need a heavy amp if you still want to hear your music ;)
Am I the only one that noticed that all of the images of the Neko on that site are computer generated? I mean, I can come out with a 4-way opteron system with enough time and photoshop...
Neat idea, but it sure looks like something K-Mart would sell. if i had to guess it'd say it's about as quality as a Casio.
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
It's almost as good as my synth.
I belong to the ______ generation.
If you are to build a musical instrument keep those in mind:
1- If I turn it on I need to be able play with it without configuration or setup or opening apps, nothing, turn on->play
2- I do not care what processor is used, I expect to read audio and musical specs not computer ones when I buy a musical instrument, I need to know about polyphony, tracks count, effects count, sync, bits count and sample rate, number of ports, etc. And to be honest 128voices is rather ridiculous for a dual Opteron setup, I really do believe it is able to produce a lot more or else this is the pure confirmation that it doesn't even compete with the G5.
3- I care about the design (not the look but the way every controls are layed out), I need to be able to reach the controls in a logical, musical manner, having the rotary bank away from the fader bank isn't natural to anyone used to audio gear for example.
4- If I am a musician with limited ressources (mostly every musician) I'll be better off with a PowerBook and various controllers in a road case than with this (or a SmallFF-PC for the PC inclined).
5- If I'm a wealthy musician I'm better off with a PowerBook and various controllers in a road case...
5- If I somewhat am a geeky rock star (no rock star yet playing any keyboard workstation but one can hope...) I can always use an XserveG5 with various controllers in a road case...
Bottom line is, great idea, poor design...
Im all for geeks with glasses, running MIDI stuff, connecting it to Keyboards and sequencers, and synths.
I have a Yamaha Master keybord, I have shitloads of computers. So whats next? What gear does MOBY use? I am pretty sure it is not this geeky hybrid.
"/Dread"
You're new around here, aren't you?
They are targetting musicians, with x86 hardware.
. html
Good luck.
Let's ignore the consumer level crap, Bose computer speakers, Sonic Foundry, Creative's Audigy 2 for a moment.
If you get into real audio production, professional quality: Mackie/JPL monitors, MOTU Digital Performer or Logic, and MOTU/M-Audio sound interfaces... it's best to have a Macintosh becuase your options are very limited without one.
Problem with that keyboard is that all the bells and whistles are going to raise the price through the roof. Professional musicians or sound engineers might want to take advantage of it's computer interface, and wish to run their favorite software; which likely only runs in MacOS X/Classic.
It's price tag is ~7k. http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/2003/Neko-64
Making it nothing more than a super-expensive conglomerate of consumer level crap. Who's likely to buy it? A keyboardist would rather spend that money on a real keyboard that has all the keys, this one only has 60 keys. With that money, a real savvy person might buy a new G5, some MOTU equipment and have enough for a nice Yamaha keyboard and be assured he's got the beef for studio quality mixes.
I predict this machine, will become yet another obscure piece of equipment/technology for a slashdotter to refer to years from now. The only picture of one, then, being on Geocities.
Just wish it had a full-sized fully weighted keyboard. This thing could take care of soooo many studio functions: workstation, multitrack recording, effects processing, editing.. hell just about everything.... I wonder if it uses the mATX motherboard's on-board sound card to do the recording, though ;p
Speaking of sound cards - any recommendations for a GOOD 4 or 8 channel, 24 or 32bit recording card?
It sounded vaguely interesting until half-way down I see:
"Low Latency."
At which point I left to feed the cat and water my cactus.
J.Konrad
That's actually not the first keyboard to include a full pc. Wersi did this with the Abacus keyboard 3 years ago.
Sliders and touchscreens are nice, but the mark of a good keyboard is how it SOUNDS.
I've seen plenty of Workstation keyboards like the Korg Triton set up in studios, and in every case they were being used just like normal keyboards - the sequencing functionality was completely unused.
The plain fact is that a view screen that points upwards and forces you to lean over every time you even look at it is an ergonomic nightmare.
mad skillz ;-) actually why so much ram? it's like gigasampler. big fat useless samples. no wonder why dual opteron. oh and winxp sits in ram too :-)
with a decent controller and a high end mac g5 you would be better off with the garage band software and a UPS. When mac releases a G5 laptop musicians everywhere will be happy.
Oh yah and the 15" LCD (admitedly not all that impressive but still. . . .(
A 15" LCD on a laptop: Been there.
A 15" Touchscreen LCD on a MIDI keyboard workstation: HOLY SHIT.
Have you ever used a Korg Triton? Its display is 1 color and maybe 5".
--- What
here's the strategy:
1. Port your favorite Linux
2. Build a Beowulf cluster of these
3. ???
4. Profit!
Heck, since there are two you could dedicate one Opteron for rendering the sound, and the other for UI.
OK, I am generally not critical of Slashdot editors, but since this is a news organization, you could try to use the English language correctly. The verb you were looking for was "affect" and the particular form you wanted was "affected". "Effect" is, generally, a noun. When you "affect" something you create an "effect". Not that I expect you to be English majors, and not that I am by any means perfect in my spelling, diction and grammar, but a very common word processor caught this right off. You might do the simplest of spelling and grammar checks before publishing. Remember that, as news publishers, you affect the habits and knowledge of your readers, effectively teaching them. Do this poorly and you create an undesirable effect. For pedantic clarity, the context under which "effect" may be a verb is when you use it to indicate that you took action. For instance, "I effected a plan to address poor grammar in Slashdot posts."
There are only 6,863,795,529 types of people in the world.
Midi was supposed to help you connect modular components. You can flexibly connect a keyboard to a sound module and to your PC, and to a drum machine, and so on. If one gets out of date, you just switch it out.
This product glues the components together. Components glued together are good for casual users (see one-piece PCs like the eMac), but this is targeted at high end users. Not a good match.
I've got to ask because it doesn't seem like anyone else is asking...
WTF do you need a dual Opteron in your keyboard for? Seriously, what midi software requires more than a P166?
Arrrgh! Damn Genesi employees!!
But what HAS been done. The idea behind this synth is that, unlike proprietary ones, you can load any old commercial app or plugin that runs on Windows. So say you want a limiter, and you really, really like the Waves L2 (why wouldn't you? great limiter). Well, for this keyboard, you just go buy the Waves plugins and load them. There you go.
Well, what if it ran Linux? Then you are SOL. Waves doesn't have Linux plugins, just Windows and Mac. You start looking at just about all the other software that pro studios use and you find the same thing: Windows or Mac only.
Well, since the whole selling point of this thing is "use the software you like", they need to run an OS that is going to run a wide variety of the software that people like. On an x86 CPU, that's Windows. There are Linux alternatives to many programs, but that's not the point of the board. It's to run teh software you are already farmiliar with, and for 99% of pro audio epople, taht's not Linux software.
i am really rather shocked that so many of you guys are lauding this device. if you are the kind of (reasonable) person who will not buy a combo tv/vcr/dvd player for any or all of the salient reasons not to do so (problems if one of the components break, inability to upgrade one component, doing three+ things adequately instead of doing one thing extremely well), then you had better be consistent and laugh this horror off the map.
i don't know who said that real workstation synths run from 8-10k, because that's a filthy lie. no one in the world needs more than a korg triton, which max out at only a few thousand. most people can make do extremely well with a lightweight, versatile synth and a cheap, fast pc or laptop. not only can you upgrade parts for either with much greater ease, but you can do so for about 1/5th of the price and (with a laptop) 1/3 the weight.
i have a 61-key korg synth and it is monstrous to lug around, and it doesn't even have A FREAKING COMPUTER in it. good luck lugging this...this THING to an actual gig.
this device is, to both musicians and technophiles, an absolute monstrosity and an utter joke. all should join in the mockery, as it is right to do so.
If I could make this sig kill you, I would.
I mean check the price on the high end Roland and Korg synths. It's damn silly. They go over $10000. This one here will do all they do and more, and probably cost you less.
There is a lot to be said for an all-in-one package and interface, espically if using it on the road. I mean, why do you think there's a market for hardware audio solutions at all any more? Like take a IZ Radar multi-track recorder. What it does could not only be replicated by a PC, it IS a PC at it's core, running BeOS. So why buy one? I could build you a system for less that does what it does. Convienence, relibaility and support, that's why. The Radar is all integrated as one unit, and has a special controller that makes it real easy to use in a studio environment. It is also rock solid, since it only does one thing on one hardware platform, there's way less bugs than a normal PC. Also, if you DO have problems, Radar will fully support you.
Same idea here. Ya, you could buy a keyboard MIDI controller, soundcard, and a PC. In fact, many people do just that. This, however, is all-in-one, has their nice control software, and is 100% supported by them.
Given the price of its competitors, I don't forsee it having a problem.
The main reason of the high cost is limited market. Dell sells millions of PCs, I'd be supprised if they meet 50,000 of these. Drives per unit costs up.
It is still the method of communication between programs, and between hardware, for music creation. If you are writing music on a computer, better than average chance you are doing it using a MIDI compatible program. All the synthesizers I've ever encountered, software or hardware, speak MIDI. It's simply a convenient, and long established standard for music data.
There are TONS of huge, complecated, expensive, synthesizers out there and they do get bought and sold. This one is the same, but features teh ability of have software synthesizers and the like loaded on it. Those have become rather popular, and in fact some companies sell nothing but soft synths.
There is plenty of market for this sort of thing.
I'd guess '64' refers not to the processor instruction size, or the OS support for such, but rather to the sampling bit-depth of the audio subsystem -- 2^64 discrete levels of amplitude can be rendered (a little excessive if the case; most digital audio is only 2^16 or 2^24 these days, and has a normalization curve applied to it anyway)
Or, perhaps it's the maximum polyphony -- 64 simultaneous sounds can be played at once (this would be kind of low for a pro music workstation, though.)
Or maybe it's just a marketing gimmick. With music hardware, you never know.
As a semi-pro musician, let me join the chorus of people saying "I don't get it" and "Why would anyone want this"?
I don't see what this thing does that couldn't be done with an off-the-shelf PC and a separate MIDI keyboard.
And to be quite honest, the Macintosh still rules the roost in the music market. Obviously this company wasn't going to be able to license a G5 to stick in their contraption, so they really didn't have a choice but to go with an Intel platform. Unfortunately, this choice is going to severely limit their market.
I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to get to NAMM but was surfing this mfgr.s site just this morning before reading this post....
good eye. As soon as I save up the requisite $6000 I will buy one.
one penny, two pennies, 3 pennies, 4, 5, I have a nickel!
Hee Hee... actually, i think you're right, 'xcept on one point: i guess it's actually difficult to sound bad on a Juno 106 or even better 60 (arpeggiator) These old simple babies still rule! I was about to go and sell mine, but went to a small gig in a pub, saw The Locust giving that old beauty a bit of excercise through a tube amp 'at 11' Came home and apologized to my keyboard for thinking bad thoughts (i really did!) Such a simple keboard, yet such a rich sound, it gets used in techno/electro through hard-rocking noise bands, i even saw one playing together with a Cello and violin, and it didn't sound out of place. (Yes, I'm a devotee to the Juno, can you tell?)
How come this is stuff that matters? I remember seeing a Commodore 64 with a midi keyboard about 15 years ago (give or take a few years). Slashdot is really going downhill...
Antti S. Brax - Old school - http://www.iki.fi/asb/
You buy this thing to make music, and perform music.
You do NOT buy this thing to fool around with an OS. Why does it matter what the OS is, as long as the audio workstation does the things that an audio workstation is supposed to do?
Sure, you *could* run linux on it, but then you'd wind up sacrificing much of the functionality on your brand new $8000 hardware.
When all is said and done, if this package doesn't do what you want it to do, then DON'T BUY ONE.
-CausticPuppy "Of all the people I know, you're certainly one of them." -Somebody I don't know
It uses software-based synthesizers. So, to answer your question, what it sounds like depends on the quality of the synths that you use on it.
The good news is that you're not limited to a particular type of synthesis. Many audio workstations specialize in being samplers, or maybe using granular synthesis, etc etc but this one will do them all with the right software.
Semi-weighted means a fast action keyboard well-suited for synth playing. Fully-weighted and/or hammer-action means it will feel like a piano. Whether that's good or bad depends on what you like to play. But go try the action on a K5000 (which is semi-weighted) before you decide that the term is A euphamism for "cheap piece of crap?". BTW, 'semi-weighted' is an industry-standard term.
But you're right about it being overpriced for what it is.
At $4900-8500 those things are way overpriced for their capabilities. You can do a lot more with Logic 6 + a few soft synths and a midi controller, for half the price. I can't see the point in buying an entire computer to run a crappy synth from a company that makes nothing but over priced, crappy products. I already have a computer (and it's portable) that can run an entire prodcuction studio without blinking. If I want a keyboard to play, I can get a $99 usb midi controller. The product info touts the abilities of the AMD processor more than anything. The only synthesis they mention is the ability to host VSTi modules, which any good DAW can do without costing 8 grand.
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