This is where it all begins. Well at least where my experience in the art of blogging begins. The main purpose of this blog is somewhat divided. The first half is that I need a place to store information about myself. The second part is that I need a place to contribute to internet.
Bloggers (and other home pages) have helped me tremendous in my hunt for information. If I can pay back a little with things I put here… well I know how happy I would have gotten.
This category is about building what I have decided to name the “composersBOX”. The box itself is as little fancy as my urge for it is big and it will be built using as little hardware as possible.
Here I (and hopefully you) will diskuss issues and show the results in the design and work with composersBOX.
What is composersBOX?
The composersBOX is a computer that will aid in music production. It is a computer that will try to be as useful as possible when it comes to MIDI, softsynths, sequencers and recording. The following statements will guide in desinging and building composersBOX:
@ composersBOX will as much as possible be bulit on ready to buy hardware.
@ composersBOX will run open source software.
@ composersBOX will try to be dirt cheap.
What composersBOX is not!
composersBOX is no fancy all in one power tool for proffessionals. Nor is it a “brag box” to impress your friend (or whatever). I do not have the possibility (or the will) to pour a lot of money in composersBOX. If you are one of the persons that gladly pay 15000 SKR for a system, then you can buy things like this that are ready made and ready to run… enjoy. But if you (like me) look at computers like designated systems that use their resouces to their purpose, solely. Then, maybe, you will find usefull info here. And what the heck… it’s fun, and it will lower the pile of computer trash in your wardrobe 🙂
HARDWARE
I have decided to use an old FujitsuSiemens motherboard simply because I had one lying around. It happened to be a D1215 motherboard featuring a 400MHz processor, 256 Mb of RAM, onboard sound and NIC. Not much, but at absolutely no cost.
My collegue found a 1MHz processor that I used instead. The D1215 motherboard required a BIOS update and a microcode update to accept the newer processor. The update is downloadable from FujitsuSiemens for free.
I have ordered a IDE to CompactFlash adapter and a 1Gb CF card. In that way composersBOX can be more quiet and the later to come DVD burner can be easily freed. After some googling a found a CF adapter for 100 SKR and a 1Gb CF card for 150 SKR.
My idea is to build composersBOX so it can be a part om my stand. If I give it the right dimentions it can fit neatly under the synth modules. I have yet no idea where to put the computer keyboard, the mouse or the monitor. Any ideas? I do have a salvaged mouse pad from an old laptop, maybe that could com in handy? I also have an old frontpanel from a bridge, it looks like this.
As you can see it features a 2X16 LCD display, three momentary push buttons, a DB9 female connector and some LED’s. It has a 2X17 pin connector at the rear wich I haven’t investigated yet, but at first glare it looks rather straight forward.
Ok, my IDE to CF adapter and the CF-card arrived last friday. FUN! I spent some time this weekend trying to install and boot from them. It was trickier than I had thought, but finally I did it right and got it working. I don’t know why but the SYNC command where really essential to get files onboard the CF-card. I think I screwed the files about ten times before I got them seated on the card. The istalled systems (yes I made two of them) are MUSIX and DSL. Now my quest is for cooling, any slient ideas? PLEASE? All fans I have tried sounds like jets. Is there really no way to cool 1GHz in a passive way?
The ideas for the case are growing. I think I’ll skip the DVD-drive, to clunky and to old fashioned. And I will build a perforated hood to enhance cooling. As soon as I have the material I’ll post some pictures.
MIDI INTERFACE
Last year I invested in a MEDIROL UM-1 USB to MIDI interface and the motherboard I am using does not have the gameport/midi connector. But if you have a motherboard that do have the gameport/midi connector this
or this
scheme from John
Loadsman might come in handy. But as I stated above, the composersBOX will be built from ready to buy hardware.
SOFTWARE
As stated, this project is going to use open source software.
I like the idea of live CD’s. That kind of operative system let composersBOX to use a diskless design.
Distros like JACKlab, AGNULA and MUSIX are beeing tested. Theese distros represent an impressive achitecture and a vast program flora. To come up with a home built distro like one of theese would take me years, if ever.
After some fiddling with the different distros I have found MUSIX to be the one I like the most. AGNULA have been discontinued and JACKlab is very beta. MUSIX on the other hand is a live CD (jacklab is a DVD) and it is based on KNOPPIX of wich I have som experience and it is PACKED with music making software.
One other aspect of MUSIX is that it is a live CD. Perfect to combine with CF booting. A “normal system” will wear out the CF-card, but if you treat the cad as a CD… it will last a long time.
I have been slow lately. No updates, no reports on composersBOX. The reason for that is that the preliminary tests on my machine described above where dissapointing. I got it all working and started to use the box a little. It did not keep up with me for long. It is to weak, and I think it is the processor and/or motherboard (read: chipsets). I will keep you updated as soon as I have another machine to fiddle with.
