@'"I'm using a 15.6" GeChic OnLap touch screen to control a mini PC built into my pedal board"
has got my imagination in Hmmmmmmmmm... mode. You may have planted a GAS germ.....
What kind of pedal board and computer?'
I know the feeling well and I apologize if I've exacerbated your G.A.S. affliction!
I'm writing a blog of my adventure here...
http://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/index.php?topic=10117.0 ...and perhaps you'll not be offended if I cut and paste a relevant excerpt from March 2015. The blog also includes YouTube videos regarding Sonar and touch screen although at this point I've found new solutions as posted above.
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So it's been an adventure getting the new version of my rig up and running (Drachen 2.0) My overall design uses the GP-10 for guitar/amp modeling, synths, and alt tuning on the fly. The Vl3 (VoiceLive 3) adds to that as I discussed in post #105 of this thread. There are a few other components of my build. The first is what I call the synth, sample, and control portion and the second is how it all interconnects via signal path and MIDI (some control here as well.) After that my concerns are with amplification and mobility.
In the first build I tried using an iPad air and an iConnectMIDI4+ for synths, samples, control, and interconnectivity; I ended up dissatisfied with the results. Let's start with the iConnectMIDI4+. It's a great little box and does a number of things very well but in the end its shortcomings ended up being more than I was willing to settle with. It's fine for routing audio and MIDI but after that the lack of full usb class compliance became an obstacle. When routing the usb output of my VL3 and GP-10 through the iConnectMIDI4+ I was left without easy access to the control software such as the Boss Tone Studio and VL3 equivalents. Thus every time I wanted to access those programs I had to reroute the usb into my studio PC; something I couldn't do when away from my studio. Even if there's some workaround to this limitation that I failed to discover there are also issues with IOS that I didn't care for. IPad's and iphones have a lot of great potential for making music and I'm a big fan but not enough to set them into the heart of my main rig. There's no IOS version of the GP-10 and VL3 software for starters and then there's the issue of cpu "grunt" with IOS. I want the synth and sample leg of my rig to land me in a rich, endlessly deep, ambient sonic landscape; there's no getting around it - I'm an AlienSporeBomb wanna be. I just couldn't find a way to load the number of complex synths I need for this using IOS. Even running just one instance of Z3TA+ on my iPad resulted in an unacceptable amount of intermittent pops and crackles. Even if I figured out why this was going on it would have still left me unable to load several simultaneous synths without using several ios devices. I was using an iPad Air in my rig because I already had one at hand to test and the cost of IOS apps is low enough not to be an issue. None the less, I always found myself chafing within the confines of the gear and decided I needed to invest in a computer that would enable me to launch multiple synths and samples as well as record in real time.
So if not IOS then what? I find it telling that Windows has something like a 92% share of the market in desktop/workstation applications but that penetration drops off markedly in music production environments. Whatever the actual numbers, it's clear that Apple has a much greater presence in this space and I think for good reason. Macs provide a stable, low latency environment, with available gear vetted to "just work", and multiple audio source aggregation built right into the OS core. Not an exhaustive list but illustrative of some of the goodness baked right into the Apple pie.
None the less, I'm much more of a Windows guy and for me the workflow in a Windows environment is something I'm comfortable with. I'm already heavily invested in Windows apps via my DAW (Sonar X3) and my bet is that I can leverage some of that vst investment into a working rig. Sonar X3 isn't designed as a live platform but a bit of searching reveals that a fair number of people use it live and are pleased with the results. I've been using Sonar in a studio environment for over a year now and it works for me in music creation. I've developed some facility with it and I'm trying to reduce the number of devices and applications I have to master. I can think about expanding my horizons after I gain mastery of the core of my rig and this will free me up to pay more attention to the compositional and guitar technique requirements that many of you mastered long ago. Going with Windows allows me to build my rig as I envision it and at a reduced cost vis a vis Apple.
So what is that build vision? I decided to go with a mini-pc (7" x 7" x 2") and build it right into my pedal board. Underneath where it's relatively protected, easily connected via usb etc, with just a 15.6" touch screen to act as my main control surface. The GeChic On-Lap 1502i is the monitor I selected. It's a full 1980 x 1080 IPS projected capacitive touch screen unit, usb powered, vesa mountable, and weighing just 3 lbs. It wasn't exactly cheap at $399 but compare that to a Surface Pro 3 at $1500, or a quality laptop, for an item that is perhaps most exposed to thieves and drunkards; for those nights you're not playing at The Met. The mini-pc I selected is the Zotac Zbox IQ01 whose price has come down considerably as the newer Intel Broadwell cpus begin to replace the Haswell line. I bought the barebones model in addition to which I added a 240 GB mSata SSD and 16GB of 1600 DDR3 RAM. Besides the small form factor of the mini-pc I was also attracted to the i7-4770T processor. The i7- "T" model processors are 45W TDP cpus which bring the benefits of hyper-threading to cooler running chips which alleviates to some extent the potential for cpu throttling and loud fans used in cooling. I'm very pleased with this cpu. I can't hear this mini-pc at all. I stress tested the unit using Microsoft's quality index app (or whatever it's called) because I didn't want to add testing software such as prime95 to a dedicated DAW PC. Perhaps not as telling a test as Prime, none the less, my max core cpu temp was 73 degrees centigrade and I'm thinking my vst host will be similarly cool running; RealTemp yet to be run. As is evidenced in the first pic in post #102 this cpu is a monster and its performance exceeded my expectations. I did a bit of cpu testing on my gaming rig with its i5-3570k cpu and reached 40% cpu utilization running 4 heavy synths in Sonar. To have the ZBox recording and outputting 2 audio tracks, a backing track, and 6 heavy synths with a mere 17% cpu utilization surprised me. I feel I have plenty of headroom for any combination of tracks that isn't absurd for a mobile rig.
I decided to live dangerously and the first OS I installed was the Windows 10 tech preview. I love this OS. It booted in 11 seconds and (subjectively) I felt it offered an improved touch environment. Things just seemed to respond more smoothly with less glichiness about the controls. Sadly, the state of usb drivers is lacking leading to usb recognition failures and fears of a usb 3.0 mismatch. I loaded Windows 8.1 the next day and was relieved to find that all elements of my rig requiring usb worked just fine with my ZBox's usb 3.0.
The touch screen use with Windows 8.1 is still something I'm exploring. I tried rescaling the screen using Windows "Display" resizing but had poor results in Sonar. It seemed there were more glitches and less stability leading to the need to restart the app or even the PC. It seems to work well when left at its native 1080p resolution without scaling. The icons are tiny in 1080p on a 15.6" display but I find I have very little trouble using touch accurately in Sonar. Missed targeting occurs but it's not common enough to be an issue. More problematic is Sonar's touch implementation in which common touch commands such as touch and hold for right click menus are not recognized; nothing happens. To get around this I've installed a free program called "TouchMousePointer" which provides either a virtual touchpad or mouse as you prefer.
http: //www.lovesummertrue.com/touchmousepointer/en-us/
Thus, I'm able to get around some of the limitations of Sonar and other programs lacking high quality touch implementation at the cost of some extra clicks and ease of use; which is less than the convenience of an actual mouse. I use a lightweight bluetooth keyboard at times as Windows virtual keyboard is harder to use than a real keyboard since you are often switching between the number screen or the alphabet screen. Microsoft really needs to do better on the virtual keyboard front by providing a virtual keyboard with all the keys and layout options available in a real keyboard.
My current routing involves coming out of my VL3 into my Scarlett 2i2 audio interface and then onto the ZBox mini-pc via usb. Audio output, summing the VL3 output with my FTP triggered Sonar synth and sample output (plus backing tracks), goes out to the 2i2 and onto amplification. I've done no formal testing of lag with my rig but it passes the ear test and feels very responsive. I had a professional drummer and keyboard player over and she concurred that the system felt very responsive and natural with no discernible lag.
Overall I'm very pleased with the rig as it stands although there are several important tasks yet to be completed. I'm unsure just how stable everything is going to be. There have been more failures than I'd like up to this point and it remains to be seen whether I can get past that or not; although it's early going. Assuming that I can stabilize the beast I need to turn my attention to my MIDI routing and foot controller/pedal implementation. Beyond that I'll probably be adding a larger audio interface so that I can record dry output from my GP-10 and VL3 along with the wet. Like most newbies my takes tend to be way too wet; think tsunami making landfall during a typhoon. Sometimes I just like it over the top and at other times it's just operator error. In any case I want the dry tracks to reamp etc.
The last issue regards mobility in that the trunk setup shown earlier in this thread is problematic. It's probably 120 lbs fully loaded and I need to get that pared down somewhat. My current plan involves four scenarios with gear acquisition needed for full implementation. First is the full rig with the trunk carrying my rig plus two FRFR powered speakers and a sub woofer. The second FRFR speaker and sub carried on top of the trunk. A step down has just the trunk with one 10" FRFR speaker inside; my yamaha DXR 10 along with my VoiceSolo FX-150. Next down is my rig with just the VoiceSolo FX-150. My rig with the 15.6 monitor included will be placed in a semi rigid Gator keyboard case for either FOH or tiny gig/jam situations.
http: //www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/GK76
In the smallest iteration of my rig my iPad air and FX-150 will be paired with my xtSA and FTP with Bias or Yonic providing the modeling. Audio interface to be decided.
Here's hoping some of you will get some benefit from this post and the rest of you can feel free to wake up and move on.
post edited by Vade - 2015/11/01 12:45:17