How far are “we” from hardware for VST?

[stm113]

I was sitting around thinking.. I wonder how far off we are (if it’ll ever happen at all) that someone makes a hardware unit to load VST’s for on stage use?

What I envision is something not too far off from a laptop or tablet type device with a stripped down but stable os (win or Mac based) a small SSD with 1 or 2instrument inputs, a handful of outs 2 each 1/4 and XLR and midi & usb. I know you can kinda do the “same” with a laptop or iPad and an interface like a Scarlet but I feel like it would be worth someone’s while to put out something like this.

just a random musing.

 

[NeoSound]

there are some that have been around a long time

 

[GlennO]

http://www.smproaudio.com/index.php/en/products/v-machines/v-machine

 

[NeoSound]

blue cat audio patchwork and a laptop is something I've pondered before

 

[shatteredsquare]

Muse box

https://museresearch.com/products/musebox.php

...it's not a new concept at all. There were floppy drive powered keyboard sound modules since forever, and the modern keyboard workstations are basically VSTs already running on hardware, crazy capable sound sculpting without needing a computer

 

[Piing]

just a random musing.

I was already musing with a Muse Receptor back in 2007

I loaded VST instruments to trigger withe the Axon AX100 MK II and some VST effects



It was using a standard PC motherboard and components that I upgraded after hacking the hard disk with Acronis True Image

 

[GlennO]

It was a nightmare to get Omnisphere running on Muse Receptor. I still have sleepless nights from that .

 

[Piing]

If I needed VST portability today, I would rather buy an Intel i7 NUC and a small display or just use the latop

 

[Admin M@]

 

[shatteredsquare]

yeah no kidding to the netbooks, they are so cheap and light now...most of them with SSDs and touchscreens and wifi/bluetooth already for like 300 bucks. Somebody just needs to build an music specific OS that runs something like Gig Performer, but ONLY the host program, nothing else running so it literally can't ever crash.

 

[NeoSound]

yeah no kidding to the netbooks, they are so cheap and light now...most of them with SSDs and touchscreens and wifi/bluetooth already for like 300 bucks. Somebody just needs to build an music specific OS that runs something like Gig Performer, but ONLY the host program, nothing else running so it literally can't ever crash.

there's a standalone version of patchwork. So just kill all unnecessary background programs?

https://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_PatchWork/

 

[Stratoblaster]

Somebody just needs to build an music specific OS that runs something like Gig Performer, but ONLY the host program, nothing else running so it literally can't ever crash.

It's too bad the BeOS never took hold; I ran it decades ago on a Pentium I computer and it's capabilities were astounding for video/audio.

I remember running multiple video and audio playback instances and they never stuttered; it was amazing...even when you moved the app windows around, did stuff, etc. the streams never chopped. It was very suited for multimedia applications...fantastic OS, especially at that time. Nothing was even close to it's efficiency in manipulating/playing digital media. I can only imagine what it would be like running on modern hardware...

From Wikipedia (and this was decades ago...far ahead of it's time):

BeOS was built for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing modular I/O bandwidth, pervasive multithreading, preemptive multitasking and a 64-bit journaling file system known as BFS. The BeOS GUI was developed on the principles of clarity and a clean, uncluttered design.

 

[Anthony76]

Thats been around for a decade or so, these days it is far more economical, easier etc. to just use a decent laptop.