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Students Major Project Questionnaire (please fill in if you have the time)
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Students Major Project Questionnaire (please fill in if you have the time) // Roundtable
Post by hemulin // Sep 28, 2006, 11:48am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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I am a student currently studying AS Level Design Technology at Read School, as some of you might already know. I am designing a multi-purpose computer and music workstation aimed at students and young people for my major. This workstation will accommodate a computer or laptop, a music/midi keyboard, and a writing area (i.e. desk).
I am currently researching the different aspects of these 3 areas that could be incorporated into my design.
I would appreciate it if any people (particularly techi musicians :) ) on this forum would be willing to spend a few minutes completing my short questionnaire.
My workstation is aimed at students and young people; therefore space-saving is a key priority in my design.
Just a few words per question would be great; then I will be able to collate my results and find out what the average peripherals a student would have are.
Q1) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their midi keyboard (if any at all).
Eg: Foot-pedal, music stand, speakers etc...
2) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their computer, bearing in mind that space and money is an issue and students can’t have everything ;) )
Eg: Printer, cd rack, etc...
3) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have on a desk?
Eg: Pen holder etc...
4) What sized keyboard would you expect an average student or young person to own (how many keys)?
Eg: 61 note, 88 note
Any other comments would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time
Keep On tS-ing! |
Post by Chester Desmond // Sep 28, 2006, 3:26pm
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Chester Desmond
Total Posts: 323
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Q1) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their midi keyboard (if any at all).
Eg: Foot-pedal, music stand, speakers etc...
A sustain pedal perhaps..speakers (which they would probably have anyway) and good chance of a small audio interface and\or mixer
2) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their computer, bearing in mind that space and money is an issue and students can’t have everything ;) )
Eg: Printer, cd rack, etc...
Printer, speakers, joystick, scanner
3) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have on a desk?
Eg: Pen holder etc...
pen holder,
4) What sized keyboard would you expect an average student or young person to own (how many keys)?
Eg: 61 note, 88 note
49 key |
Post by hemulin // Sep 28, 2006, 8:54pm
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Thank you very much Chester; most appreciated. :) |
Post by TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb // Sep 29, 2006, 12:36am
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TheWickedWitchOfTheWeb
Total Posts: 858
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Q1) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their midi keyboard (if any at all).
Speakers and a 2x2 USB MIDI interface
2) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their computer, bearing in mind that space and money is an issue and students can’t have everything
Speakers (as above), pen(s), small printer or printer/scanner combo, camera memory card reader, maybe a joystick
3) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have on a desk?
Pens, Post-It notes, notepaper, leaflets/pamphlets, reference books, lucky gonk, tea/coffee cup, audio CD's, mobile phone. (possibly also cheap headphones and mic for Skype-ing)
4) What sized keyboard would you expect an average student or young person to own (how many keys)?
49 key
Hope that's of some help and I wish you all the best with the project. Having seen your other work I'm sure the end result will be stunning. |
Post by hemulin // Sep 29, 2006, 12:57am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Thanks Kate. |
Post by hemulin // Sep 29, 2006, 11:10am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Do any more people have time to fill in my questionnaire? |
Post by Alien // Sep 29, 2006, 4:05pm
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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Do any more people have time to fill in my questionnaire?
I was never that organised. :o However, on a related note, I thought I should mention that you might get points for ergonomics if you designed it such that the monitor was below eye level, at such a distance so as to be... 45http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alien42/images_for_caligari_forum/degrees.png [IIRC] down from the user's eyeline. [I'm not 100% sure about the angle, it might have been a bit more or less] |
Post by chrisj // Sep 30, 2006, 2:07am
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chrisj
Total Posts: 239
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Good point from Alien. The workstation shouldn't obscure the view of the teacher from student, and vice versa, so a low level screen would be good.
chris |
Post by hemulin // Sep 30, 2006, 4:02am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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@alien&chrisj - I completely agree
Good point from Alien. The workstation shouldn't obscure the view of the teacher from student, and vice versa, so a low level screen would be good.
chris
What makes you think its a classroom workstation? ;) It's actually for a students flat or home.
I am hoping to get at least 10 replies from this questionnaire. |
Post by Steinie // Sep 30, 2006, 4:27am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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I am not qualified to answer your questionnaire although I wanted to help you. One thing I would definitely incorporate into your design as a space saver, portable and affordable device would be a large capacity thumb drive. I would also use wireless peripherals. |
Post by splinters // Sep 30, 2006, 8:37am
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splinters
Total Posts: 4148
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Psuedo-nepotism prevents me from answering but if I could...well...I can't..:rolleyes: |
Post by hemulin // Sep 30, 2006, 9:52am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Psuedo-nepotism prevents me from answering but if I could...well...I can't..:rolleyes:
LOL
Come on all you musicians. You know who you are. ;) |
Post by Alien // Sep 30, 2006, 9:33pm
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Alien
Total Posts: 1231
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The reason I'm not 100% sure about the angle is I read it in a book a friend & I discovered in the school library [actually co-authored by our Computer Studies teacher, you can imagine our surprise at that! :)], which would make you somewhere between... -3 & 1 years old at the time. :)
On a different note, I was thinking it might be a good idea to factor in the possibility of 2 monitors, given how cheap some are these days [especially if you consider 2nd hand CRTs]. |
Post by hemulin // Sep 30, 2006, 11:06pm
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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The reason I'm not 100% sure about the angle is I read it in a book a friend & I discovered in the school library [actually co-authored by our Computer Studies teacher, you can imagine our surprise at that! :)], which would make you somewhere between... -3 & 1 years old at the time. :)
On a different note, I was thinking it might be a good idea to factor in the possibility of 2 monitors, given how cheap some are these days [especially if you consider 2nd hand CRTs].
I've got an image that shows the ergonomics of sitting at a computer desk, it even goes to to the angle that your torsoe should be against your upper leg.
Oh, I am taking the presumption that the majority of students will have tft's or laptop. All the students I have seen do, and some have more than one. |
Post by hemulin // Oct 1, 2006, 10:05am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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OK it looks as though I am going to have to do this as 4 or 5 seperate polls. |
Post by stoker // Oct 1, 2006, 10:59am
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stoker
Total Posts: 506
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Are you sure this is the right place to be asking questionaires such as this one Hemulin?? |
Post by hemulin // Oct 1, 2006, 9:43pm
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Are you sure this is the right place to be asking questionaires such as this one Hemulin??
It's the perfect place Stoker. This way my questionnaire is not biased by geographical location (i.e. where you live) as there are people from all over the world who frequent these forums; and bearing in mind that the whole of my project is going to be modelled and rendered in trueSpace, it makes sense. |
Post by W!ZARD // Oct 10, 2006, 2:54am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Q1) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their midi keyboard (if any at all).
Eg: Foot-pedal, music stand, speakers etc...
Foot pedal (preferably programmable), music stand, speakers (obviously). good headphones, a desk lamp so you can see the keys.
2) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their computer, bearing in mind that space and money is an issue and students can’t have everything )
Eg: Printer, cd rack, etc...
printer/scanner combo, cd/dvd racks are a must though cd multiwallets could be good for space saving, multi-card reader and (for the more affluent student) some sort of extrnal mixing station - software mixers (Cubase, Protools etc are all good but you can't beat having real sliders and knobs IMHO). My desktop has a Soundblaster LIVE frontmounted I/O panel which has a range of input and output jacks including MIDI IN and OUT, SPIDF digital coax, standard RCA jacks and 1/4inch mic and headphone jacks as well as optical digital ports. I can't recommend this highly enough, I find it's brilliant and for anyone doing regular DSP work it's VERY handy.
3) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have on a desk?
Eg: Pen holder etc...
Yep, penholder, document holder, scrap paper, unfinished homework assignments, half eaten pies, crusty bongs, empty beer cans and overflowing ashtray.Stacks of Playboy mags, computer mags and music mags.
4) What sized keyboard would you expect an average student or young person to own (how many keys)?
Eg: 61 note, 88 note
Unless you are also using your keyboard for live performance work I would recommend a middle sized keyboard (with full size touch sensitive keys) as once you've recorded the MIDI info even the most basic MIDI editor lets you cut and paste your data into whatever pitch you want. Therefore a full sized 88 note keyboard just takes up extra room IMHO.
Looking around my little home studio here there's a couple of extra things that I could not do without: a guitar stand, mic stand and mics. Of course these later items are only required if you are also recording guitars and vocals rather than just programming loops and samples.
Additionally, depending on the student and the work they are doing, you may also have external digital drum machines and/or percussion pads and any number of other assorted musical instruments.
HTH |
Post by Nez // Oct 10, 2006, 4:30am
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Nez
Total Posts: 1102
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Pretty comprehensive answer above, which I couldn't add much too...
Q1) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their midi keyboard (if any at all).
Eg: Foot-pedal, music stand, speakers etc...
Foot pedal (possibly programmable), music stand, speakers (may or may not be built into the keyboard), headphones
2) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have for their computer, bearing in mind that space and money is an issue and students can’t have everything )
Eg: Printer, cd rack, etc...
printer/scanner combo or separates, cd/dvd racks, card reader (either single or multi-type), possibly a USB hub (I use one as a simple networking solution to share peripherals between two pcs). NB - you may want to consider that they have more than one computer, or possibly a desktop and laptop machines
3) What sort of peripherals would you expect an average student or young person to have on a desk?
Eg: Pen holder etc...
Penholder, document holder, scrap paper, magazines, etc (W!zard said it all better!).
4) What sized keyboard would you expect an average student or young person to own (how many keys)?
Eg: 61 note, 88 note
Not too sure, as I'm not a keyboard player - would imagine mid-size would be adequate.
As with W!zard, I'd be considering other inputs - particularly guitars/bass, drum machines, possibly a mini mixer, etc. I'd expect a greater proportion of students to own some form of guitar than a keyboard... |
Post by hemulin // Oct 10, 2006, 6:42am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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Thanks Wizard, Nez
Wow-wizard, what a comprehensive answer, thanks. I'm starting to get all my ideas together now, not that long until I will have a reasonably final one. |
Post by hemulin // Oct 10, 2006, 7:08am
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hemulin
Total Posts: 1058
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My desktop has a Soundblaster LIVE frontmounted I/O panel which has a range of input and output jacks including MIDI IN and OUT, SPIDF digital coax, standard RCA jacks and 1/4inch mic and headphone jacks as well as optical digital ports. I can't recommend this highly enough, I find it's brilliant and for anyone doing regular DSP work it's VERY handy.
I do wonder about getting a SBLive every so often, they're quite cheap, as the other option is buying a £100 SBXFI or Audigy 4 or something, but yeah, i've heard the live is quite good if you get the I/O panel, although when I was looking around about a year ago I was most bothered about the midi synths they had, although now this is not such of a problem. |
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