Pandora On Stage

[The_bad_artist]

Hey there everyone! Just joined the forum - after examining the specs for the Pandora and monitoring the development, I was trying to figure out could it be the gadget I'm looking for. Finally I realize I should simply ask the devs

Anyway, I'm a musician from Serbia. Acting as bass guitarist in my band, but I love to add some weirdo gadget music stuff all over, and in live performance. So far I've used stuff like Game Boy and Sega played onstage (talking about geeks and music ), using some heavy modding to get my midi controllers to access audio boards in consoles. Needless to say, it's hilarious. I really got into it, it so much fun and there are no analogue or digital synths out there that give me that kind of ridiculously cool sounds.

At some point, back in early 2008, I added EEEPC 4G to my onstage set. Worked like a charm - all I need is something small and robust, and running Cubase to load plugins. Alas, time has passed and EEEPC got tired of traveling - battery life is almost nonexistent (and this is my third battery!), its taken multiple beatings making touchpad really quirky and also, since I had to use WinXP to run Cubase, it is increasingly unstable.

So, naturally, time to improve. Emulators and gaming is cool, but what I need to know - straight up - can I use Pandora in a same way I used EEE? I can work around most software issues IF the CPU can handle what I need. Apps I'd be running would be either Wine running Cubase and plugging midi controller in USB, or using some Linux substitute. (Well, I'll probably skip the whole Win emulation idea if there is anything that can provide me with Cubase style enviroment on Linux). Since you guys might not be into PCs and music, compare it to EEE. How much could it handle? Like if I was to play single plugin, play a rhythm loop and use some kind of trigger to add delay at some point. What kind of line out does it have? And most importantly - I really feel like someone is pulling my leg when I read about 10 hours of battery time? Seems impossible, but if it will go for 10 hours, than it's a perfect candidate.

Hope you can help me out on this one! Just waiting for some positive feedback before I place my order

 

[The_bad_artist]

Damn, just realized this is Wiz General Talk, not Pandora :S

Sry for hassle. If some moderator can move it plz...

 

[mindlord]

Short answer - the Pandora should work great as a musical accompaniment accessory.

There are several musicians who are also developers in this scene. Torpor comes immediately to mind, but I'm sure there are others. This is an old thread (don't post there) about sequencers and stuff. There are more threads here as well, but this one seems to have the most information. Try searching the forums for "tracker" and you should turn up quite a few conversations on this topic.

 

[The_bad_artist]

Thx a bunch!

 

[Ferram]

Bear in mind that the Pandora will not, ie WILL NOT, run Wine! As long as you find Linux software that works for you, everything else will be fine.

 

[shadow.8]

Check this thread.  And thanks to Torpor in advance 




http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/49917-csoundpd-pro-audio/

 

[cobaltage]

My short response is that we won't see what the developers have in mind until they themselves get their Pandoras. The potential is definitely there and stage ready tools are the goal, but they will take some time to get into shape for that.

 

[Pleng]

TopPor is working on a lot of music stuff but weather you want to rely on it on stage is down to you and you alone. The OS and Software may never be 100% stable enough to rely on for live music.

ps. I saw a gameboy being played on stage once. Wz awesome!

 

[Awakening]

You should check out some of these videos for some really geeky music

 

[WhiteBat]

A couple things, the pandora can't run WINE, because it has an ARM CPU. you would have to run an x86 emulator, then WINE, then Wondows xp, then Cubase.. and with 500mhz, not going to happen
For every windows program, there are usually like 10 Linux substitutes.
concerning battery life, yes 10 hours is true. In fact it is real world, ie not an outlandish claim or hope that it can reach 10 hours.
IIRC 8.5 hours is the minimum battery life. 15 hours if your not running the cpu at 100% all the time, and probably even longer if the display is off.
The Pandora has a 4200mah li-po battery.

here is the lineout, It also has USB 2.0 host, usb otg has slave and 1.1 host.

 

[The_bad_artist]

Thx for reply y'all.

Really good to know there is a person like Torpor out there. Thx in advance Torpor!

Wine came into mind as a fast solution until I get the whole Pandora-one-in-all-music-operating-linux-thingy up and going, but since there are ppl dedicated to developing and tuning these apps for pandora, Wine is obsolete. I know it can't be expected to be 100% stable, but I reckon this Pandora music dedicated OS Torpor is mentioning as a possibility is still much better solution than WinXP.

@WhiteBat

So the EXT port is meant to be like an universal port of some kind? I imagine there would be prebuilt connectors using EXT as line out or tv out, but would it be possible to make use of the EXT port for accessing sound chip on, let's say, Game Boy via link port on BG?? Sry if it's a stupid question - I managed to get a midi controller connected to an SegaMegaDriveII, so I guess this is a possibility..? I am by no means a true techie, this midi-to-sega connection was done after a long trial&error process even though I had precise instructions and schematics.

@Awakening

Aye, the Blip fest. Proly gonna see it live this year

 

[mali]

This is a good audio stuff summary from Gruso:

I believe this is the datasheet for the DAC, although I just found it in a thread so I'm not 100% sure:

http://focus.ti.com/docs/prod/folders/print/pcm1773.html

Some similar threads:

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/45252-can-anyone-report-on-music-sound-quality
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/45093-details-and-specs-of-the-pandoras-sound-card
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/50015-the-pandora-sound-chip
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/50518-pandora-sound-hardware
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/44508-audio-hardware

(Look for Guru posts, MWeston in particular).

Regarding software, you'll have plenty to keep you busy once a few key people start porting stuff.

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/47362-music-making-software-daws-sequencers-recorders-etc-for-pandora
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51536-music-creator
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/51424-pandora-audiomusic-sequencermixer
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/49917-csoundpd-pro-audio
http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?/topic/46855-pandora-and-the-ol-mucking-about-with-sound-aspect

 

[renegadechic]

not sure if youve seen the standard AV cables yet but theres some nice pictures of them here http://pandorapress.net/2009/09/11/the-av-cables-have-landed/

the headphone socket (if i remember correctly) can also be used as a line in too which is always handy. with the USB ports as well i think there is endless scope for some kind of USB to midi conversion as well and really the biggest thing to get used to is your music projects working on the software usable on the pandora. i am quite interested to use it as some kind of live sampler. if you think of something like the akai S series, they used floppy discs and were big rack mounted things in the late 80s, they were old but they were powerful. now though we should be able to fit the sampler AND the midi generator (and more!) into the pandora and have it running at once for something really special. as a dedicated tool its just gonna be awesome!

hmm you know what would be interesting... some kind of iPad sized capacitative touch screen that could be connected to the pandora and used sorta like a second screen (but less heavy duty on the graphic processing) as some kind of touch screen midi controller. hmmmm the possibilities!

 

[mali]

^The headset port has got a microphone contact, no line in.

 

[renegadechic]

^The headset port has got a microphone contact, no line in.

always glad to be set straight, dude

i knew there was some kind of input there and if anything im glad its a mic input!

 

[Pleng]

hmm you know what would be interesting... some kind of iPad sized capacitative touch screen that could be connected to the pandora and used sorta like a second screen (but less heavy duty on the graphic processing) as some kind of touch screen midi controller. hmmmm the possibilities!

If the iPad is capable of MIDI output over USB (does it even have USB?) then it'd probably be the cheapest solution. Touchscreen Multitouch MIDI controllers do exist but are very expensive.

If somebody was interested in creating such a system it could sell very well. A little multi-touch i-Pad style device with buitl in wifi, bluetooth, USB and remote-grade IR beam could have ALL kinds of uses. It could be marketed as a fully configurable MIDI controller, a programmable universal remote control, a programmable game controller (though I think SONY has just patented that idea), a digital photo frame.... all kinds of things.

Personally I like to get my finger round my knobs so I'll be adding these to my Pandora

 

[Awakening]

I doubt you can just plug in any mic to it since it's a combined headphones+mic port. I'm guessing there's some converter for plugging in both, my headset got separated plugs for headphones and mic. Correct me if I'm wrong

 

[Asmo]

[quote name='Pleng' date='27 February 2010 - 05:27 PM' timestamp='1267291640' post='821340]
If the iPad is capable of MIDI output over USB (does it even have USB?) then it'd probably be the cheapest solution.
[/quote]

What about one of these?

 

[Pleng]

Yup that would work a treat, providing it supports multi-touch!

 

[mvickers03]

A little off topic.. Please can you give more infomation on how to use a gameboy midi sound on stage?? is it somehow wired to a keyboard?? that would be so cool if i could take one to rehearsals