By the Edirol being programmable I meant that the effects themselves could be programmable, kind of like a Nord Modular for video manipulation. If it was like that I would definitely try to find a way to get it, as I probably wouldn't need more than a few distinct effects.
I figured I would need at least two computers because of the audio dropout with GEM; I've got my personal lappie and then, hopefully, a $1500 grant to buy the school a new computer. Plus there's this monsterous dual Xeon that's being used lightly for video editing, that I may be able to conscript. And there's a 'tantalizing' offer of a half dozen Pentium II 400MHz rigs.
I don't quite understand why the Motu would make the difference over the Audigy. Basically, PD outputs with dac~ to which you could give as many arguements as you have channels, right? So why wouldn't "dac~ 1 2 3 4 5 6 7" give seven channel sound? And if that wouldn't work with the Audigy, why would it with the Motu?
Say where are you studying?
I'm an undergrad in Computer Science and Dance at Marlboro College in Vermont.
-Ian
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: RE: [PD] buying PC's: Quantity vs. Quality From: beau25@access4less.net Date: Wed, March 31, 2004 5:22 pm To: "Ian Smith-Heisters" heisters@0x09.com
PD sound drivers don't let you have a different number of inputs than outputs so your $100 Audigy's will not give you surround sound, there are some interesting open source drivers that let you custom program the dsp on the card, which could be interesting but is sort of like having to learn PD twice. Try to use the schools old Motu, that will save you a lot of money and let you do surround, and should be easy.
You need two computers, if you try intensive graphics rendering the audio will drop out. If you have any synths, you could use video and midi, but not video + audio. I tryed it on a 1.1Ghz processor, faster processors probably still wont work. See if you could develop the audio and video in seperate patches and then install pd + Gem on the schools computer. You probably still want to use the GEM GEO mapping that is cool.
The mixer will do effect like colorization, mirror, and video blending. These effects can be done in GEM, but they slow down the system too much, and work seemlessly on the mixer. The V4 is definitely programable, you get 8 banks of 6 effects and a transition. You mix your video camera or computer source in the mixer and possibly map some geo's with gem. the control the automazation with midi through pd's logic
Say where are you studying?----- Original Message Follows -----
Edirol V-4 video mixer it has a lot of built in effects and can be controlled via midi, so uses it video
processor and let PD atomate it.
Next you need a good quality multi-channel audio device. Motu (PC + MAC) makes one, and hammerfall has another (Linux + PC + MAC). I think with the hammerfall you would also need to buy a DAC. On a students budget this could be tough either of those are close to $700.
That's interesting, I hadn't even considered buying external hardware. My college already has the requisite LCD projectors, PAs, screens, etc. including a Motu 2408mk2, which is old, but not unusable. I figure that something as simple as a 100$ Creative Audigy 2 would be enough as it has 5.1 (7.1?) perhaps not.. But with something like the video mixer, since all it needs is midi , I could do audio and control the mixer all on one computer. The thing I would worry about is limitations of the mixer if it is not programmable (I haven't had time to really go over the Edirol's specs in detail yet--it may be programmable).
Thanks for the tips.
-Ian