DIY workstation keyboard

[timhowes]

Okay, DIY is something of an overstatement, but I wanted to share a recent project and thought some may be interested.

I've been using Cantabile for a while for lightweight use in a covers band. My needs are acoustic and electric pianos, clav, B3, synths and samples. Cantabile has proven excellent for this with various free and premium VST instruments, but I was sick of the physical setup.

I own a Novation 61SL MK2 which has a nice action, good template mapping and, crucially, a large void in it. So I opened up, installed an Intel NUC and a small USB audio interface (ESI Maya 22), created the relevant terminals in the keyboard housing and provided some ventilation. After a bit of engineering it boots straight to my "vintage keys" instance of Cantabile in under a minute, so no need for a screen (all controls for live are mapped to my keyboard). There's an HDMI terminal and USB ports for when I need to do an engineering session, and I can use Spacedesk to provide emergency touchscreen access using my phone or tablet.

I soldered a USB cable to the terminals on the Novation PCB and leave it connected to the NUC internally so that I don't have to run any cables externally.

I've also repurposed a spare 18v drill battery to act as an uninterruptable power supply (no pics of this yet - trying to ascertain how best to arrange a fuse to protect the PC)

So far so good (not gigged yet though!).

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... M-5yUrT-xN

Interested to hear your comments!

[The Elf]

Clever!

I'd be worried about not having a screen on the PC running Cantabile. How can you be sure it's doing all it should without a screen?

[MarkOne]

Nice idea. Like Elf I'd be tempted to add a screen.

For under £60 on Amazon you could get an 8" touchscreen HDMI jobbie which could be affixed to the rig somehow

[timhowes]

Thanks both.

I share your concerns but haven't found it to be an issue yet.

I have to mix the sound for our gigs so I have an Android tablet clamped to the keyboard (need to ride the faders while I play) and this is the obvious spot for a screen.

However, with Spacedesk I can use this same tablet to immediately access the PC desktop if needed (either via WiFi or USB cable).

In time I may well need to add a screen more permanently but am going to try without, given the safety net provided by Spacedesk.

[The Elf]

How can you be sure Cantabile is running, and has connected to everything? Is it set to auto-run on startup?

[timhowes]

I set up auto login for Windows, put a shortcut to the relevant Cantabile song in my startup folder and hey presto, it launches every time.

For confirmation I have Cantabile play a brief startup sound via media player as the first thing it does once the song is loaded.

[The Elf]

Yep, all clever stuff. I still think I'd want a screen, for a few reasons, but what you've created there is a neat solution.

[James Perrett]

From a quick search, it appears that Spacedesk is a commercial version of VNC which gives you a screen for the embedded computer. However, in my experience, RDP is a more efficient way of remotely controlling an embedded computer. I've used RDP on an Android tablet to control embedded computers in Autosub and we very rarely (in fact probably never once the setup was fully developed) needed to attach a real screen to the system.

[timhowes]

Following one gig and several annoying issues with external HDMI and Spacedesk, I have done what some of you prophecised and installed a 7" touchscreen. £39.99 via eBay. Fits like a glove in the Novation. Very happy with this franken-board!

Photo added to the Google drive

[resistorman]

Very nice!

[ajay_m]

Worth putting this on instructables, as a truly creative project. You might wonder when any of the master keyboard vendors might twig that making a unit that would accept an internal computer would be an interesting product option. Given what Roland, korg etc charge for workstations, I imagine a modular solution like this costs a good deal less.

[The Elf]

I think we are not far away from a time when a Raspberry Pi might be all most of us need for our live rigs. I could certainly run my improv set from a lone iPad if I put my mind to it.

Your project is quite inspiring.

[Martin Walker]

Indeed it is - I've just had a look at the latest image, and that 7-inch screen does fit beautifully!