Thanks, not a stupid question and yes I am considering that!
I will mainly be playing this rig outside my house, at rehearsals and gigs, and as such will be plugging into mains afresh each time. It takes 3 mins with the 2 false starts currently to boot my main Cantabile file, but only 30 seconds from a standard boot - you can see my frustration!
Doug - your command works perfectly (modded for shutdown rather than restart) and can then be bound to a midi CC as a UI command. Brilliant!
I am working on a different housing arrangement to give access to the power switch.
Only remaining issue is the long boot time on plugging in, which I think I can live with
Many thanks Tom. Will check it out.
It’s more or less a laptop based component PC. The processors are the same as in a laptop, except for the gaming version.
And as you say, NUCs are not cheap. I have one, used as a home multimedia center, IMHO it’s a good PC, but it’s not faster than a laptop.
Been going back and forth on this since NUCs became popular. Just haven’t pulled the trigger yet. I have to convince myself, which will take some time. My aging refurbs have served me well, but, unfortunately, requirements of some newer plugins are forcing an upgrade.
Hi,
I have been using an NUC since 2017 and it has been fine, but it is probably starting to struggle a little now in terms of resource needs, so time for an upgrade. I would happily replace it with another NUC.
The path I went down was based on advice here - specifically that of @Neil_Durant, who was really helpful in guiding my choices.
I paired the NUC with a GeChic touch monitor and that combination works well. I have a USB mouse and keyboard with me as a “just in case” but they never come out (yet) at a gig. In the studio, I use to set up the monitor, but as my GIGPC is on the network when in the studio I just use remote desktop these days to get the screen on my DAW
@dsteinschneider Yes, it can. I use something like that with my rig, a laptop and two headless Dell microPCs. I set them up as shortcuts, with the command line data, and pinned them to the taskbar. One shortcut for Shutdown and one for Reboot. They work like a charm – with the caveat that if you are using RemotePC as the connection to the laptop (as keyboard and monitor), then the connection will break and have to be renewed.
Headless all-in-one coming along nicely, just waiting on some low-profile patch cables and an HDMI extender which should arrive this weekend.
Will post full report with pics shortly, but in the meantime can anyone tell me: is there a way to get Cantabile to sound a notification when it boots? Since I am running headless I want to know when I’m good to go, and audio confirmation would be ideal.
I have installed Spacedesk so that I can check using my phone/tablet that all is well, with some touchscreen usability, but if I know it has booted properly (without having to repeatedly hammer the keyboard until something happens!) I would be happier!
Apologies for another noob question:
How do I exploit the /headless command line option? By which I mean, fundamentally, how do I use command lines? Is this a cmd.exe manouevre?
Put a media player with a startup sound into your background rack and use an Engine binding to trigger it on Cantabile start:
I gave the media player the name “Startup Sound” to make things clearer - you can call it whatever you want…
That really depends on how you autostart Cantabile in your headless system. Is this via a shortcut in the Autostart folder or using Settings / Task Manager Autostart Tab or some other mechanism, e.g. Registry? Depending on that you’ll need to use the right mechanism to give Cantabile the command line parameter…
Brilliant suggestion for my startup sound - thanks.
Currently I autoload my main Cantabile instance by placing the file in the startup folder via shell:startup
OK, I assume you place a shortcut (link) to the Cantabile executable into the startup folder, not the actual program - right?
In that case, you’ll need to edit that shortcut to include the correct command line parameter in the “Target” field.
This shortcut starts Cantabile with a specific configuration using the /config option. Similarly, you can place the /headless option there.
Cheers,
Torsten
Perfect, thanks. Yes it is a shortcut. I’ll do as you describe, thanks
All-in-one build finished.
Novation 61SL mk2 - drilled some holes - installed a NUC7 i7 32GB with SSD, and a small USB interface.
Interface arranged such that jacks for 'phones and combo/Hi-Z inputs face outwards, with patch cables as extension for LR out.
HDMI extension allows use of screen for engineering sessions. Spacedesk provides phone/tablet screen via Wifi in a crisis (intending to run headless as much as possible).
USB cable soldered to the 4 pins of the USB-B female socket so no cables run externally bar the PSU.
So far so good! No thermal issues yet but need to give it an extended trial. Thanks for all your help.
Seeing those jacks in there reminds me of the terrible prank played on iPhone 7 owners who were shown in YouTube videso how to drill the upper right top to expose the headphone jack 
I like the build. Redco audio sells all kinds of patch panel type USB connectors. I was surprised the 61SL MKII sells on Amazon for $600. Is that because it’s out of production?
I acquired mine cheap secondhand. It has a Fatar keybed with a pleasing action. It’s very nice to program templates once you get the hang of the editing software and I’ve found it to be excellent with Cantabile.
As I understand it, the MK3 lost the quality keybed.
It was a fun build! Still tweaking - need to sort out the boot sequence from cold start - but I’ve largely achieved my goals
Put me down here as officially jealous
