A tiny PC in a desktop synthesizer setup? - hardware VST host

Hi, lovely synthesizer people! By your comments, I'm noticing I should have made it clearer that I'm NOT recommending this for professional music production. Some viewers kept asking for a Raspberry PI sized box that can run their favourite plugins while also being small as a RasPI and featuring a touch screen. That''s what this is! Thanks for stopping by. :-)

So... I tour as a lead singer and rhythm guitar player in a progressive band. I play a midi controller ro run a vocal processor as a vocoder (tc helicon VK mounted on mic stand...) sometimes im asked to play additional synths and such. Ive SPECIFICALLY been looking for somerhing like this. I want ro gey all my gear onto a guitar oedal board... Guitar rig, a synth of some kind and my vical processor. Ive been contemplating an iOS device or something, but this is kinda awsome lol

Hello Mr. Steinberg. I wanted to bring to your attention a VST created by a reaper user called "Rolling Sampler" by Bird. There is also a MidiCap plugin for capturing midi. The functionality of these running on this mini PC would enable ghost recording while using plugins. It only uses RAM to store audio data until you drag it out of the UI!

My dream box runs plugins and has switchable ghost tracking depending what im doing. Either master bus or instrument depending on an ABY box setup into the interface :) ❤ i love your videos.

I have seen similar setups with x86 based tablets or laptops hybrids with a touchscreen.

Im amazed by the latency. Even my $1400 lenovo struggles with latency

cute but unless you like to mess around with a microscope lol something a little bigger would be more useful… it is amazing these days they can put full windows on such tiny spaces.

great demo and info, thanks

some of the ca. 2012-2015 good i3 and i5 2-in-1 11-13" laptops are getting cheap now and are available refurbished, look for Asus Transformer or Lenovo Yoga f.ex.

I can't fathom the need for a 5" like this, only for train or bus commuters perhaps, or office workers with sudden downtime, you know who you are

Would be nice if there is something similar for MAc os and AU plugins

Thanks for the continued great content Floyd!

Is this higole1 pro ?

Impressively powerful for such a small form factor. I wonder if Windows Magnifier would aid with the small screen GUI issues. Great video.

I'd love to build a Vital synth hardware synth...

Floyd, Oh yeah, by the way, how is Korg Wavestate Native running on this one?

I want one for my mashine mikro

Cool device, I would probably use a mini pc with a tablet as a screen (vnc)

Awesome..!

Clear and informative review. Thank you.

Im using a steamdeck for this. I use my osmose to play softsynths like Diva.

Would it run Keyscape?

I always wanted to do this. Recommended for pro use or not, I'll use it anyway cuz I'm crazy!!!!!!

The form factor makes this very desirable for small setups, i can see this being perfect for outdoor jams with mini equipment (like pocket operators or volcas). You could create an extremely powerful portable rig with this.

Floyd, you blew me away again!!! I was going to write you anyway because I just got one of those android tablets on Amazon that will hold a TB.250 go, Wow! And 16 gb of ram, and can be used as a touch monitor for Windows or I could actually just load Windows onto it with an app! Sounds expensive? Under $200 called Blackview. It’s amazing! I ordered two more for my desktop rig! The gentleman that mentioned can be used in 3rd party is absolutely correct! It has to be coming from the main computer which is an i9 64 gb but I’m mirroring Komplete on it and running it thru my mult. It works but I need to fix a few bugs before I do a video on it.😀

Interresting concept.
I have an idea, can you compare the performance of this device running he mpc software using mpc one as controller and or soundcard vs the mpc one? this will be the most,"in the box out of the box in little boxes" production scenario ;)

Nice idea but about £330 too expensive 😂

Surely, Reaper allows you to tweak interface scaling beyond what Windows can

Just curoius how it handle 6 audiostreams simultanous. It would be a nice little solution to bring a guitar with a single-string pickup on stage.

What about elk audio os tho?

can I run native instruments Kontakt here

This is Perfect for Bringing Serato or Traktor DJ software. Both companies have flagship DJ decks that will only run on Desktops (and not mobile)

I do this with my steamdeck. I also DJ with the steamdeck as well

Did you try ASIO4ALL?

But will it crash a lot in a few months?

Looks like a piece junk… didn’t work like ten different times in the video.. just use an iPad or get that 1010 mixer unit…

Many, many years ago I bought an 8" Windows tablet in a sale. Given it cost £70 it was surprisingly not terrible! But this looks like that, but with significantly better I/O than a single micro USB port 😁

Would love to see VCV rack on something like this. I might have to try myself...

Looks great. Only downside is touch screen. Does it have a spare usb for a mouse?

What are your thoughts about using it strictly as a dedicated softsynth. Like using to exclusively run Omnisphere. I would connect it via midito my mpc, or midi controller, or usb from my iPad, and use it as if it were a hardware/touchscreen version of omnisphere. I would need at least 4 tracks of it running simultaneously. I think one instance of omnisphere can run multi track, but not sure. Thoughts?

Huuu ❤‍🔥 thats hot... ✨

I feel like this would be cool to make a diy polyend tracker out of

USB-C ✨

You could use it as a hardware sequencer for midi devices. Renoise would probably work great.

You need to use a pen. I think one twice the size would be better.

I changed my steam deck to windows and did exactly this with ableton. Works great! Kinda slow though

Is it cheaper than a small Surface? Because if it isn't, just use a Windows tablet instead.

As always a great run down of hardware synth systems - and I really feel you have addressed the important questions - how practical is it to use! You have shown not just what is possible but really shown the practicalities involved. Thank you!

Intel, Intel, Intel..... AMD?

I found this with Windows 11 pre-installed for like $300US. That is the magic price point to be honest.

I'm very curious how well this can run a CPU-hungry Caustic 3, that I REALLY wish he would make updates for.... ? Would you be willing to test that for me, on your device? I bet you really love your S-1, don't you? It's worth a lot more than it's price tag, imho. I use mine, heavily.

Great video, Floyd.

With a screen that small, you'll definitely be better off using a capacitive stylus instead of a finger.

That Celeron is a pretty low power processor (we also see it a lot in astrophotography mini PCs to control telescopes), but Reaper is a super efficient DAW. I'm actually really impressed that device could do 3.3ms RTL with ASIO4All.

FWIW, Windows does run quite well on Arm64 (we've had mainstream Arm support since 2012, and even a cut-down IoT version for Raspberry Pi), but the Intel-arch DAWs and plugins would be running under emulation today, so it's almost certainly a performance wash in cases like this.

Hi Floyd
I Wonder How it would feel using the touch screen on a VSTi synth run through Nano Host or for example Xlutop Chainer.