Cantabile + touchscreen? midi controller? non-laptop use

[JohnCrusher]

Hey Cantabile users,

I'm currently looking into every possibity of getting VST's on stage for live use and buying Cantabile is one of those options. I would then build my own custom Windows 7 pc in a 19inch case.
I am wondering if there are more people in this forum who did this already and i would like to know what your experience is and what you use with Cantabile to control it.

Do you use a simple monitor with keyboard and mouse or are you using a touch-screen? Maybe you have a external controller with an lcd display on top of your keyboard controller showing you the current loaded preset/song/setlist?

Any hints/tips from non-laptop users are welcome.

[humphrey]

Hi John,

I have 2 setups I use alternatively with cantabile at the moment:

1) A laptop (which is obviously not of interest for you) if I don't need that much performance and memory.

2) A desktop solution:

At the moment it is placed in a regular midi-tower. I'll get an industry-PC-case in the future to place the PC in a rack. Besides there is a UPS which I strongly recommend for live use (voltage lags and interrupts, high-energy transients and the like). This also can be placed in the rack.

As controllers there are 2 or 3 MIDI-Keyboards with 1 volume- and 1 sustain pedal that can be routed in cantabile. Additionally I have a separate hammond controller on one additional input. In principle up to 8 contriollers would be possible so.

In the beginning I also used external hardware soundmoduls but at least there was no need for them - so I left them away.

I don't use USB - Connection between keyboards and the computer but a MOTU MIDI-Express 128. On the one hand a broken MIDI-connection between keyboard and MIDI-Interface doesn't lead to a crash in cantabile. A missing plug can simply be connected again without the need to restart cantabile.

As Soundcard I use an RME HDSP System with Multiface interface. This product is not the cheapest but for me the most stable very good sounding interface with the lowest latencies you can get for windows PCs.

Then I have a "TC level pilot" between soundcard and DI-box (in my case a simple Presonus Blue Tube). So I'm able to influence the master volume if necessary. Additionally it has the advantage the it is not places on the software-side. This means I can simply turn volume to 0 if I should get a crash with buffer-cycle noise which would not be possible in case of a MIDI-fader.

Similar to you I was thinking about a touch-screen solution but in the end the decision was to take a standard 19' screen. During the sessions with the band I have a standard-keyboard & a wireless trackball for programming cantabile.

For live use I have a very small keyboard with integrated touch-pad and wlan stick, which is absolutely sufficient for this situation. The keyboard is small enough to be placed on one of the keyboards.

The screen is normally placed on the floor, so I have a good look on it from every playing-position on stage. The advantage is: it is not visible for the audience. As explanation: some weeks ago I had a funny situation with my laptop on stage. The audio operator asked me to give him some signal to do the live and monitor mixing. When he was ready he told me he'd be "ready with the mp3s from my computer" and he asked me to play my keyboards now (he really didn't understand that there only were MIDI-keyboards and that the laptop was the soundmodule which meant: he believed I'd only do playback on stage).

This form my side, hope there was some useful information for you,

kind regards, humphrey

[JohnCrusher]

Hi John,

I have 2 setups I use alternatively with cantabile at the moment:

1) A laptop (which is obviously not of interest for you) if I don't need that much performance and memory.

2) A desktop solution:

At the moment it is placed in a regular midi-tower. I'll get an industry-PC-case in the..............

Thanks Humphrey!!

Your post is very helpful to me.
I didn't thought about something like the MOTU Midi-express. I also somehow forgot the whole existence of mouse trackballs. It also gives me more comfort to know that people are performing this way.

I did think about a UPS, but it's not on top of my shopping list. That is only because of my budget. It's also very handy at festivals with quick changeovers when my stuff is on a riser so i can load everything in.

I'm also going to use a M-audio Delta1010 from another computer until my bank likes me again and gives me more money. I will certainly put RME on my list next to MOTU. I am having a cheap SM-Pro audio Nanopatch Plus for volume control.

That last thing is funny, because even my own friends say stuff like "Oh look a laptop. He is not playing for real". I also don't like it when you can see a monitor from within the audience.

Could you tell me which brand you have for your UPS? There are so many beasts made to keep a lot of servers running and i am still looking for a good affordable UPS.

Regards,
John

[TiUser]

That last thing is funny, because even my own friends say stuff like "Oh look a laptop. He is not playing for real". I also don't like it when you can see a monitor from within the audience.

Yes, that can be a problem... there is so much music technology for so many reasons and purposes that non involved audience can not really understand whats going on - so things like monitors become suspicious pieces of equipment on stage...

I don't like laptops much too.

Hey, what about Open labs gear?... a PC in a case with keyboard - and a great cheating device too... LOL

Guess the best to do is placing keyboards on stage in a position where audience can see your hands playing... maybe that will destoy most of the suspicions?

[humphrey]

Hi John,

concerning the soundcard you use: It was not my intention to force you to change your equipment. If your is setup is running properly leave it as it is. There is no need to change a running system! It was only a description of what I use and brobably a hint for a future upgrade.

My UPS is from XANTO Typ S700. It's the tower-case version. I originally ordered the S700R which is the rack version for 19' but they sent me the wrong one. When I asked to exchange it with the type I ordered they didn't have it available. So I had the possibilty to get my money back or to keep and and get a good amount of money back. As I urgently needed a UPS I decided to keep it. If you can you should for sure take a version for rack-mount.

To my mind it is important not to take a UPS with rectangular output. The S700 has a special filter that makes the output signal sinusodial. Rectangular Output voltage can lead to overtalk of the 50 or 60Hz harmonics in the audio-lines and there is no way to kill these effects.

Besides there are 2 furter aspects that speak for UPS:

1) in live situations there are often long cables between the mains and stage. Then lots of loads (coolers for beer and other very important machines,...). This can lead to situations with voltages far beond 230/240V. I'd agree that PC PSU in most cases can handle this. But it is a good decision to supply not only the PC but also the other equipment (keyboards, monitor, effects, soundcard(!) so that the whole setup has a supply of its own.

2) If there are strong loads that are frequently switched off and on (f.e. a refrigerator) you can get very high transients (up to 3000 or 4000V) on the mains. A good UPS behaves like a buffer for these transients and protects your equipment.

kind regards, humphrey

[humphrey]

Guess the best to do is placing keybopards on stage in a position where audience can see your hands playing... maybe that will destoy most of the suspicions?

Yes, surely a good way. In my case I found another one: during a rock'n roll song I was rocking the keyboard so hard that the chair I was sitting on (an older piano stool) lost one of its three legs. Believe me: noone had the suspicion afterwards I'd do any sort of playback...

regards, humphrey

[JohnCrusher]

.....
I don't like laptops much too.

Hey, what about Open labs gear?... a PC in a case with keyboard - and a great cheating device too... LOL

Guess the best to do is placing keybopards on stage in a position where audience can see your hands playing... maybe that will destoy most of the suspicions?

A cool big ass video wall with 5 cameras pointed to you and your hands, driven by Cantabile. The midi input will change camera's based on midi input
Oh and if i could buy that, i would buy also 2 heavy big smokers and 2 of those flame things.
But seriously...

I did look at Open Labs, but i never liked the price and the looks of an Open Labs product (can't afford it). I think it is because you literally see a keyboard area, mousepad area, screen area. It would be cooler when the design would be different.

Hi John,

concerning the sound card you use: It was not my intention to force you to change your equipment. If your is setup is running properly leave it as it is. There is no need to change a running system! It was only a description of what I use and brobably a hint for a future upgrade.

Yeah a running system is priceless, but i already know that i want as much as processing power as my current audio computer (for home use only). So i am going to upgrade computer parts (they are much slower) that i am going to build in the VST host computer with Cantabile. Also the M-audio card can give more headaches when it comes to compatibility. I also want to use the delta1010 for another computer at another location.

My UPS is from XANTO Typ S700. It's the tower-case version. I originally ordered the S700R which is the rack version for 19' but they sent me the wrong one....
To my mind it is important not to take a UPS with rectangular output. The S700 has a special filter that makes the output signal sinusodial....

Great info. I don't know anything about UPS and this is a great help to start with. Maybe a UPS can also help to remove some hum that some computer parts sometimes create in conjunction with the sound card.

[TiUser]

Ok, referring to your original question, well you can add a (single) touch screen to almost any PC.

Touchscreens by itself are not cheap too, compared to other devices for PC use. Especiall if you don't want to use a cheap chinese make on stage but a more rugged industrial make.

Concerning OpenLabs, yes their stuff is expensive but it's also ready to go. One can not compare that to a PC which is mass production stuff. The low quantities and all the integrated components - including some bunch of software that comes with OL too - makes it play in another price range.

I personally am not the DAW type guy. To me personally OL boxes are kind of portable DAW and DJ devices and less a kind of keyboard emulation also one can use it this way. I also can't afford OL but for professional musicians it might be a serious option to reduce tackling with HW too much instead of making music.

The payware Cantabile versions support some kind of networking remote control called "Telnet server". But that is not for heavy realtime use like tweaking filters Dj like or similar. What's different using Telnet compared to midi is it's bidirectional in some (not all) aspects. Problem with telnet is there is no client software available for "normal" musicians to use that except using a PC keyboard and some terminal software that comes with Windows...

I've done some evaluations in programming a Telnet clinet (indeed I'm the one who made Topten finally implement that telnet server at all) but I have also nothing to offer yet I can release to the public. It's not totally unlikely that I will release something anytime but that's for sure nothing that can be scheduled and considered for cantabile users at the moment...

[TiUser]

"but i already know that i want as much as processing power as my current audio computer "

I have to comment a bit on that as I have ambiguos experiences with that.

When you look at discussiona about Cantabiles "cpu" meter you get a first impression of that.

Problem with a Windows PC is not a lack of processing power but it's capability to schedule processing time fast enough to the processes/threads that need it. This is a larger bottleneck than people might think.

I don't claim deep understanding of all that but I've done some tests on timing with develloping some midi software stuff I can say that just looking at the raw processor and system power is not the key to fast realtime music performance of a system...

The fastest timing source for "normal" programming on a PC is the so called multimedia timers - providing 1ms cycles. I've checked jitter of this and can say jitter is unpredictable... massive problems are rare but can not completely avoided. Usual thread scheduling is slower than 10ms and not realtime, so you can not rely on perfect 10ms between each call of such routines.

I'm not into audio programming but Windows scheduling system isn't any different for such applications. So the conclusion is it heavily depends on the audio drivers what happens - as this is the driving "force" for such applications. When you look at all discussions of that hot topic you see that there isn't great behavior in Windows here too... add 1+1 looking at all the experiences with audio buffers - that are a result of non tealtime scheduling - and you see again that 1ms timing cycles or less is almost unapplicable on a Windows PC.

The quality of the audio driver decides timing - not just the raw PC speed.

If you follow Humphrey's posts you'll notice that he get's much better performance with his high end audio cards drivers on the same PC than the usual stuff.

Audio drivers may be programmed on a deep systems level (probably below Windows normal scheduling) that is not easy to master for "normal" programing (like I do).

I just wanted to note this.

Just looking at raw cpu speed or system performance tests may be totally misleading for music applications on a PC.

just my 2ct here...

[Pulse Width Modulation]

I haven't gotten the chance to perform yet, but I've been preparing my system for future live performance...on a very cheap budget. I've got Cantabile 2.0 Solo running on an old Dell Inspiron laptop (1.4 GHz) where I can comfortably run 2-4 instances of synths and effects. It may not seem like much, but I get additional sound from hardware synths, an Ensoniq ASR-10 and a Roland Alpha Juno 1. The ASR-10 and a MIDI controller are tapping into the computer via inexpensive MIDI-to-USB connections that I got on ebay for $2 and $8, but they work great, as well as a Korg NanoKontrol for tweaking parameters. It's small for studio use, but for live performance, it does everything I need it to do.

[TiUser]

Well, people's needs are different and using HW will be a big winner to reduce cpu load. Midi processing is quite inexpensive on the cpu compared to realtime audio...