Performing Live with Jack,Qsynth, and Bristol Organ

Purpose of This Resource

To Demonstrate how Ubuntu Studio can be used for live keyboard performances...

Background

There is a lot of posting on the Internet that "struggle" with performing live with Linux. The answer is that it can be done, it just takes some knowledge of commands to launch/start Jack audio server, and detect and make connections via Jack.

Over the next few months, I will be posting on this page how to use Linux Ubuntu Studio for live performances. Contrary to other Internet postings, you don't have to use an application such as Reaper (although that approach would make it more user-friendly for non-Linux users or "Newbies". Instead, a well-written Bash shell script can be used to launch Jack and necessary keyboard applications such as Qsynth (Piano, and other sound-font voices), as well as Bristol Organ Emulator (Hammond B3, Vox, Rhodes Piano, Phophet5, Juno, Moog, etc). Therefore, you can switch to different voices by switching to different transmitting MIDI channels (which may be more convenient than pointing a clicking on instrument on the Netbook / Notebook while using the Reaper or Cubase applications.

I have used MS Windows OS with Native Instruments Hammond B4, and other Native Instruments applications,
so I have some experience with comparing open-source software against proprietary software (pros vs cons).

Hardware / Software Setup

I'm "pulling-out all the stops", so here is my ambitious Hardware/Software setup:

Hardware (Acer Aspireone 715h netbook):

• 11.6 inch screen
• 1 GB RAM (expandable to max of 2 GB - for future)
• 160 GB Hard Drive (80 GB dedicated to Linux Ubuntu Studio - Dual boot Linux,MS Windows XP)
• Tascam US122 USB studio interface

Software (Ubuntu Studio 10.10 Netbook Remix) Key applications include:

• Realtime Kernel
• Jack Audio Server
• Qsynth (Graphical Frontend for Fluid Synth)
• Bristol Organ Emulator
• Sound Font Editor