Hi,
I'm trying to decide whether to order a Bela cape and I hope someone can make some things clearer in my mind.
I've been dreaming of building a little FX box running SC for a long time (since someone managed to install Linux on a second generation ipod mini). I've since run SC on an ipod, an Android TV stick and a Beaglebone Black. One thing that has kept these solutions from being portable and ok for live usage has been the clunky cable and adapter mess as well as power issues that resulted from using USB audio interfaces and a midi footswitch. So, the prospect of having good quality audio i/o without the need for a USB audio interface is the main reason why I'm considering having another go. Also, I have this BBB lying around unused.
As I understand it, the Bela OS is a small Debian with a real time kernel and without a display server, that's running a special low latency audio thread that works circumvents Alsa.
Here are my questions:
1. Is a working SC for Bela installed on the latest Bela images?
2. Does SC for Bela include sclang and scsynth?
3. Does sclang now work on a headless system without me having to comment out gui related code in initClass methods from the main library first?
4. Can SC for Bela read Midi from a connected USB Midi controller?
5. My ultimate dream would be to get rid of USB completely and - with the help of a friend who knows about these things - build my own footpedal. Could we use the Analog Ins to connect simple switches? Could sclang(!) read from them?
6. If yes, would there be a way to have more than 8 of those control inputs? 12 would be ideal. And since they would be used for simple switches there would not be any need for high sampling rates and all that.
7. Could I run the machine reliably from a regular power bank?
8. How long does it take Bela to boot into sclang?
Sorry for the many questions, but in the past, I've wasted months of time on projects like that only to run into practical problems that made the idea impossible to realise in the end.
Many thanks in advance,
Axel