Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Talk about your MIDI interfaces, microphones, keyboards...

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Fmajor7add9
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Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

Never considered this till now, reckon some of you may use a similar setup?

Park a powerhouse PC in a cabinet or rack somewhere convenient.

Drag an extension USB or firewire cable to external audio interface.

Place interface wherever you need the in- and outputs for your media stuff.

Connect to powerhouse PC by VNC or another remote x-server-thingy from a netbook or thin client that suits.

Is this happening somewhere somehow?

Alternatively, if not stationary parked somewhere, a smaller cabinet form factor that can be lugged around and still kept away from workspace if/when noisy fan spinning.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by bluzee »

I had a setup along that line in my old house. My old computer was too noisy to be in the same room. I had a mixer with me in the room and a snake back to the audio interface in the computer. I like nomachine for remote operation.

My new place is built with a fanless computer so everything is silent and no problem having it with me in the room.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

I've never owned a desktop. Laptop number ca. 5 was a Chromebook, super leightweight, half bad touchscreen display, no fan, 10 hours battery life, such a relief.

I also like my little 8" Asus tablet with a digitzer, its bigger 10" Transformer brother has keyboard (like the MS Surface models). There are even build-your-own-OSC-control-surface apps for my old Surface RT. And a MIDI hardware controller (with faders, knobs, buttons, by USB) could do most DAW tasks faster than a mouse/touchscreen anyway.

Then stuff like old Mac Mini's and small cabinet home theater PC builds pop up when I search for used Thunderbolt and Firewire computers. Except for the missing battery they could sort of easily be lugged around for most sessions elsewhere. Not sure if CPUs are that much more beefy than some laptops in same price range (used).

Firewire recommended cable length is 4.5 metres (14.8 ft) for FW 400 (that's in most laptops) and up to 100m (1394b 6 pin) but the shorter ones can be extended or daisy chained.
https://support.pixelink.com/support/so ... le-lengths

I've got a collection of old decent VGA and DVI displays and one newer ultrawide HDMI.

Please share your exp. if you've tried anything like that, thanks.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

bluzee wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 12:49 am I had a setup along that line in my old house. My old computer was too noisy to be in the same room. I had a mixer with me in the room and a snake back to the audio interface in the computer. I like nomachine for remote operation.

My new place is built with a fanless computer so everything is silent and no problem having it with me in the room.
With standard length USB and display cables I've sometimes stuffed the fanny i5 laptop in a large, closed box next tot the table, or, during summer, outside the window :)

Didn't consider snake to PCI interface, stagebox style, was thinking about external interfaces to avoid long mic and intrument cable runs. Which might be sort of the same as the snake.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by bluzee »

Yes it depends on how far you need to go. USB is not designed for long cable runs but you can certainly run it through a wall from one room to the next. Balanced snake 150 feet is still fine.

Silent computer is still my favourite. Fan less mobos have respectable speed quad core now. TB SSDs are affordable now.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

bluzee wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 5:12 pm Yes it depends on how far you need to go. USB is not designed for long cable runs but you can certainly run it through a wall from one room to the next. Balanced snake 150 feet is still fine.

Silent computer is still my favourite. Fan less mobos have respectable speed quad core now. TB SSDs are affordable now.
TB SSDs?
Do drop any specific models and series if you can recommend any.

I do expect a decent silent PC to be x 1-2 above my budget though. And because I want to do the odd off-grid battery powered session a beefy laptop is perhaps best suited to avoid having that est. 60-80W pull on a battery power bank as well as 15-20W on interfaces and cameras. My numbers could be way off there and maybe the big bank is useful for other things anyway.

But without battery powered PC there's no way to do a 3-4 mics off-grid sessions without getting something like a Zoom H4/5/6 which is probably as costly as a good battery bank. Need to know more about those power banks bricks whatever they're called in any case.

Firewire 800, which may be possible from a laptop also, claims cable runs up to 100m. My interfaces are external anyway. They can be daisy chained but only the first one is bus powered then.

For home use I think I can manage with 8-10m lengths for VGA/DVI/HDMI displays and use wireless keyboard and mouse to get the PC noise out of the way from ears and mics.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by bluzee »

I just bought a Crucial MX500 1TB to replace an ageing HD in my office computer. It was on sale for $114 CDN normally about $130 CDN. It had lots of good reviews and is working well so far but I've only had it a few months. I've had a Samsung EVO 850 120GB in my HTPC machine for 4 or 5 years now. No problems but the MX500 seems to boot up a lot faster.

The embedded mobos have low power cpu usually 10-12 Watts. A fan less PC would probably take about the same power as a laptop. Probably cost about the same to build as an equivalent spec laptop if you have to buy a case and everything. ASRock makes some DC mobos with a barrel connector but they are not always easy to find in stock. I built the fan less PC solely for the purpose of reusing my PCI audio interface and satellite TV tuner.

I've never used Firewire. I have one old 32bit laptop that has a firewire jack but I know nothing about using it.

I've used wireless keyboard mouse at times. The one I have is supposed to be long range, but I find that's a bit of an over statement. It also eats batteries quickly. There are some half decent wifi mouse/keyboard apps for Android that work relatively well. They utilize xdotool on the Linux machine.

I run a 25 foot HDMI from HTPC to TV with no issue. With a good quality cable and 1080p only I think you can go up to 50 feet.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

bluzee wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:42 pm I just bought a Crucial MX500 1TB to replace an ageing HD in my office computer.....
thanks for the specs and rundown.
Embedded mobos and fanless all new to me.
TB SSDs not an issue yet, can live with HDDs a few more years so it seems. Maybe not if I start actually making some music :)

Another consideration appeared, I'll add it to the laptop thread instead. If that reasoning comes true in the end the hardware specs aren't that iffy.

As long as it can be stowed away during use the noise and low watt specs aren't that critical and I can use another lower spec host machine instead for rare off-grid sessions.

The remote control or long cable runs methods discussed above remains relevant for both cases though.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by merlyn »

It would be better if you could send everything over a network cable.

VNC doesn't send audio over the network. For VNC software I have found tigervnc is good. It's a different world from having e.g. a KVM switch with tons of wires everywhere. Using VNC without audio the remote machine only needs a power cable and a network cable.

I think an elegant solution would be to send audio over the network in addition to video/mouse/keyboard.

I intend to look at netjack and see how that goes.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

merlyn wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:21 pm It would be better if you could send everything over a network cable.

VNC doesn't send audio over the network. For VNC software I have found tigervnc is good. It's a different world from having e.g. a KVM switch with tons of wires everywhere. Using VNC without audio the remote machine only needs a power cable and a network cable.

I think an elegant solution would be to send audio over the network in addition to video/mouse/keyboard.

I intend to look at netjack and see how that goes.
I remember your netjack optimism from earlier and considered it as well.

Since this is short 5-10m distance and I'm using one or more firewire interfaces to connect 6-8 channels in daily use and up to 12-14 in some cases I can't fathom an alternative to long firewire cables for that. They can run long or daisy chained as mentioned.

Long FW cables are a bit expensive, not sure if VGA and HDMI are also. The radio remote keyboard I'm using is great, plenty of bluetooth options also. Maybe a transmitter can be added to my USB mechanical one.

If in an apartment or some other small space the main machine could even hang outside the window in a sealed box of sorts some times of year.

For longer distances a network cable carrying everything from a thin client could be elegant of course. I already have an old Asus ultrabook laptop that suits but can't get firewire into it however. A touchscreen model could also be worthwhile trying, for certain musical interfaces, if the VNC transfer can handle that.

What's the ethernet interface req. for such a catch all connection? Would you recommend high quality cat5 like Denon's AK-DL1?
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by merlyn »

Fmajor7add9 wrote:What's the ethernet interface req. for such a catch all connection? Would you recommend high quality cat5 like Denon's AK-DL1?
No I would not recommend that cable. :lol:
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by bluzee »

I guess my question to netjack would be if you have a computer quiet enough to run the audio interface and netjack in the room with you then why not just record directly on that computer?
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

bluzee wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 5:20 pm I guess my question to netjack would be if you have a computer quiet enough to run the audio interface and netjack in the room with you then why not just record directly on that computer?
Sure, that makes most sense. If I'm keeping my steampunk noisemaker going or get another that's also a huge fan the remote control setup might involve netjack. But probably not, due to the external firewire devices being used.

Then there's a 2nd scenario where netjack could be useful to bridge audio from a Windows or OS X client running on their own or as VM guest in Linux with VFIO access to one of the interfaces. All depends on the specific machine, interface and OS combo.
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Re: Desktop, towers, racks, remote controlled by VNC, extension cable to interface

Post by Fmajor7add9 »

merlyn wrote: Thu Apr 15, 2021 2:21 pm It would be better if you could send everything over a network cable.
I noticed dispiriting reports on netjack elsewhere. Have you found any other FLOSS tools to pipe audio along? Even multitools that can do both video and audio by cat5.

If that's possible I could use more or less any netbook or ultrabook as thin client front-end controller.
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