—why are my pics blocked?
http://www.kilobytemodshop.com/2009/12/mod…still-open.html pics available on my blog
after sever years of daydreaming about my perfect setup ive finally constructed it, ive always felt limited by using laptops as music computers but its been the only way to jam with a computer without having alot of wires to fumble with. and most desktops have insufficient cooling and have cheap build quality, and they are huge… i jam with a buddy all the time so a 2 person interface was my goal. and a setup that could still produce music if a computer crashes. also a setup that is lightweight and small for easy transport, i also wanted to have reliable hardware, this was the hard part.
ive found that the IBM ultranav keyboard is very duribal and uses ps/2 connections rather then usb for connectivity. they are very nice to use and the prefect renoise keyboard an offers a small footprint.
the screens are IBM 4820 Point of sale touchscreen monitors, theise are ment to be used in retail environments and can take alot of abuse. they are very firmly constructed and utilize and infrared touchscreen instead of the normal “touch wire” design so there is no parts to wear on these monitors. and being an IBM product they function perfectly out of the box and will never need calibration or adjustment however they only offer a resolution of 1024x786 witch i like because it makes you focus more and vst’s editors take up the entire screen making software feel more like hardware.
the computers are modified rackable systems 1u rack servers. theise computers are very rugged and designed to run intensive applications for months at a time locked away in someones basement being a web server. they work just like a normal pc however the cooling fans make about 60db of fan noise. so cooling modifications where necessary and they not cool very well and run at about 15db now. i installed sb audigy sound cards, and connected them with a pci ribbon cable the 7.1 support on these gives me 6 diffrent mono audio outputs for each computer. these 1 unit rack computers are very hard to work on, there is no room in the cases. powered by dual hyperthreaded P4 xeon processors. and running windows xp 32bit edition for backwords compatibility. the mobo’s support up to 8gb of ram however windows 32bit will only register under 4gb. so they have 4gb of ram each.
the center computer is the brains of the operation. running a MOTU 324i pci card and a motu 24i audio interface and a MOTU midi timepiece. this setup is superpowerfull and flexible features 24 channles of audio capture and an 8in 8out midi interface. allows this computer to act as a complicated audio mixer allowing for vst effects and complex routing. the computer is a high end single p4 setup. slightly dated but more then up to its job. ive been waiting to upgrade this computer to windows 7 with a multitouch monitor. only every company offering multitouch monitors right now only support two touch points.
the next step is to enclose everything in a transportable box. with a clean layout. im planning on building a ucapps.de midi knob box so i can cleanly place knobs and sliders next to the keyboards, and ditch the crappy uc-33 knob box pictured. much more to come of this 
all parts found for dirt cheap on ebay
