A winning combination

A simple combination that makes the world's smallest, lightest, full-function synthesizer.

An Axis-49 and a netbook - an Acer Aspire One (about $350 canadian) to be precise, running Windows XP Home SP3.

It is running a pre-compiled executable Max/MSP program I wrote and freely available here. The program takes the notes from the Axis, optionally remaps them, and sends them to the standard microsoft instrument bank (or loaded VSI instrument). It's not fancy, but the latency seems to be very low. The netbook is not fancy, but surely can run any music software (especally instrument packs) I care to use as my skill develop.

For ease of carrying the two, I "Velcro-ed" them

together, Axis-bottom facing netbook-bottom, to make a single, portable assembly.

Note that the Axis completely covers up the nextbook and the two are easily linked together with a short USB cable.

Operationally it's pretty simple, I tweaked the netbook's power-saving settings to not automatically go to sleep, to not hibernate when the lid is closed, to run in low power mode, and put a short-cut to the AXiS-49 playing program in the start-up folder.

To start, either pull the two apart or just put the Axis-and-netbook down still attached together, with the Axis key-side down, the netbook is then facing up. I flip open the netbook, turn it on, close the lid, and flip the assembly over, putting the netbook top-down and the Axis keys-up.
45 seconds later I check the keyboard plays, plug in headphones or a portable speaker, and I am good to go. (The netbook's speakers are horrible, but so what). The netbook does not seem to be unduly drained by the Axis, and the setup us good for 2.3-3 hours.

How does it sound? There's two levels to that question.
Functionally, with just the Windows default instruments (piano-like sounds) not hot, but OK for playing for practice. I have the Garritan sound packs, but I'm not wild about them - they sound great, but the Garritin Studio VSI software that they need to run I can't automatically load at startup, and it introduces a fair bit of latency. Garritin now has moved to the Native Instruments Kobe sound support (VSI) environment, and I (and those who follow my path) don't have the time to get it to work with Max/MSP. Please advise, gentle reader, if you know of a better sound pack. The sound in headphones is excellent. 

Playing-wise. my fingers are starting to get the idea. my ability level is still .5 (on s scale of 1-10), and will be for the balance of the summer, but I no longer have fears that I won't make it. 

I showed a jazz piano teacher my instrument today very successfully (he agreed to teach me!), but that is surely the subject of a new article ...