The VSTiBox is a Windows based machine that has the power to run the most heavy VST’s, while interacting with it like a musical instrument. Because everything is integrated, it is easy to bring to a rehearsal or gig and hook it up.
I’m intrigued, partly because the idea is slick, but also because I’m interested in ways to manipulate Renoise in real-time using MIDI/OSC, scripting, and assorted controllers and controller middleware.
Makes me curious of what “Renoise-in-a-Box” could be.
Impressive, very ambitious project. I do think he made it harder than necessary in some ways. Designing and soldering his own surface-mount PCB for a controller? Writing custom firmware in Keil? The “silicone buttons” which apparently use a PCB copper pattern as part of the contact - and turned out to be flaky? To me, these are choices for a mass-produced item where you have time and budget to iterate, and want to make the final product cheap.
I think you could use an Arduino for the controller board and have a much easier development curve. And no, there’s no latency problem or flakiness inherent there, provided you don’t add any libraries to the Arduino. I would use high quality panel mount buttons, possibly EAO or arcade buttons. You could probably make the whole case out of 1/2" plywood, including the front panel. Then a local cabinet shop can CNC cut it from your drawings. Maybe radius the edges and wrap in black Tolex?
Is it possible to go fanless and still get enough CPU power?
I like the idea of a more-or-less dedicated box running Renoise and using assorted custom controllers designed to make manipulation Renoise easy and intuitive in a live setting.
I’m currently working on some software that works as a MIDI-to-OSC proxy, with some custom tools managing track/pattern manipulation.
I’m using an Akai MPK MkII mini, and noticing that a smaller controller with just some rotaries and pads would work better (smaller footprint).
Building such things with arduino/teensy/etc would be pretty straightforward. (I probably already have the parts.) My use case doesn’t need velocity measurement so the MkII mini is overkill.
Custom PCBs + surface-mounting seem like overkill, but maybe if I knew how to do all (and had the right tools) that I’d think otherwise