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On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Louigi Verona wrote:
> Fluid Synth is VERY difficult to work with in a live situation, even as

quoted text
> QSynth. I tried it many times and I don't advice it.

>

For years, I regularly used Fluidsynth+qsynth in parallel with Bristol,

live at shows running off a netbook with an Atom chipset. Dell Latitude

2100.
(Somewhat outdated, but conceptually accurate) details here:

http://lukepeterson.com/2010/02/07/arriving-midi-keyboard-live-rig/
The trick was to set Bristol up as my hammond emulator on midi channels 1

and 2, then various patches including a Rhodes, a D6, a piano, a few other

things up on channels 3+ ... I set up Bristol to listen to the knobs and

sliders on my keyboard (M-Audio Axiom 61), and then could change patches by

flipping the global channel for that keyboard up and down. It took me half

a dozen shows to work out all the bugs in performance -- for instance, I'd

run into trouble every now and then if I'd change channels while holding a

key.
The most overloaded this rig ever got was a show where I had my X-Box

keytar running through a M-Audio MidAir wireless midi unit, fixed to

channel 1 on a high-distortion D6 patch, my Axiom 61 as a multichannel

workhorse playing any patch I wanted with the knobs and sliders set to the

hammond, and my old Yamaha P80 which was a pain in the ass to change the

channel on set to channel 4 for my piano patch. So 3 controllers in total.
Our encore was Baba O'Riley, for which I created a QArp arpeggio on the D6

that mimicked Pete Townshend's Lowrey autoarpeggio intro. After our set, I

ran a shell script to kick off QArp to control channel 1, and then started

the song from the crowd in front of the stage on my wireless keytar. It

worked great until I made my way back to stage and tried to hold the

arpeggio on the keytar while also then playing the first 3 piano chords on

the P80. The five-fingered piano chord along with the arpeggiating D6

overloaded the memory on my little netbook and sent a ton of nasty

artifacts through the venue's PA, and then I had to kill a bunch of

processes and re-load the rig. But it was pretty f--ing cool right to that

point. The sound tech and the rest of the band covered as best they could

and we did a fairly exciting trainwreck of an encore, which we medleyed

into something else. God bless beer and 2am crowds!
Anyway, I guess my point is, if you are just looking to play a fixed

fewer-than-16 patches and don't need to change any of their settings

mid-show, QSynth should be a fine solution. Pre-load each onto its own

channel and just change the channel on your controller to switch from patch

to patch.
-----

Luke Peterson
--20cf30334cf7edf05604cecbe172

Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 12:10 PM, Louigi Verona <louigi.verona@gmail=

.com> wrote:

Fluid Synth is VERY difficult to work with in a live situation, even as QSy=

nth. I tried it many times and I don't advice it.For years, I regularly used Fluidsynth+qsynth =

in parallel with Bristol, live at shows running off a netbook with an Atom =

chipset. Dell Latitude 2100.

(Somewhat outdated, but conceptually accurate) details =

here:=A0http://lukepeterson.com/2010/02/07/arriving-midi-keyboard-live=

-rig/

The trick was to set Bristol up as my hammond emulator =

on midi channels 1 and 2, then various patches including a Rhodes, a D6, a =

piano, a few other things up on channels 3+ ... I set up Bristol to listen =

to the knobs and sliders on my keyboard (M-Audio Axiom 61), and then could =

change patches by flipping the global channel for that keyboard up and down=

. It took me half a dozen shows to work out all the bugs in performance -- =

for instance, I'd run into trouble every now and then if I'd change=

 channels while holding a key.

The most overloaded this rig ever got was a show where =

I had my X-Box keytar running through a M-Audio MidAir wireless midi unit, =

fixed to channel 1 on a high-distortion D6 patch, my Axiom 61 as a multicha=

nnel workhorse playing any patch I wanted with the knobs and sliders set to=

 the hammond, and my old Yamaha P80 which was a pain in the ass to change t=

he channel on set to channel 4 for my piano patch. So 3 controllers in tota=

l.

Our encore was Baba O'Riley, for which I created a =

QArp arpeggio on the D6 that mimicked Pete Townshend's Lowrey autoarpeg=

gio intro. After our set, I ran a shell script to kick off QArp to control =

channel 1, and then started the song from the crowd in front of the stage o=

n my wireless keytar. It worked great until I made my way back to stage and=

 tried to hold the arpeggio on the keytar while also then playing the first=

 3 piano chords on the P80. The five-fingered piano chord along with the ar=

peggiating D6 overloaded the memory on my little netbook and sent a ton of =

nasty artifacts through the venue's PA, and then I had to kill a bunch =

of processes and re-load the rig. But it was pretty f--ing cool right to th=

at point. The sound tech and the rest of the band covered as best they coul=

d and we did a fairly exciting trainwreck of an encore, which we medleyed i=

nto something else. God bless beer and 2am crowds!

Anyway, I guess my point is, if you are just looking to=

 play a fixed fewer-than-16 patches and don't need to change any of the=

ir settings mid-show, QSynth should be a fine solution. Pre-load each onto =

its own channel and just change the channel on your controller to switch fr=

om patch to patch.

-----Luke Peterson=A0
--20cf30334cf7edf05604cecbe172--