Open DSP instruments

An open-source, open-hardware DSP audio platform in two SKUs: a guitar floor unit (Quad Cortex-alike, 7" touch, around $399–499) and a desktop synth (Astrolab-alike, 12" touch, Fatar keybed, around $699–899). Thesis: DSP is commoditised, hardware is commodity, the open stack already exists (MOD-HOST, LV2, NAM/AIDA-X, Faust, Surge XT); the only gap is a polished touch-first UI that needs no laptop or browser, which is the gap that killed MOD Devices and limits Zynthian and pi-Stomp. Strategy: price to collapse the margin structure (the Android model), software-first to de-risk UX before any manufacturing, feel over features, and an opinionated instrument rather than an open platform ("open platforms fail; opinionated instruments survive"; constraint as feature). Standalone operation is non-negotiable. Prototype: Orange Pi 5 Plus, Slint UI on DRM/KMS, JACK plus lilv, an M-Audio interface, developed on the target. First milestone: one LV2 plugin, touch bypass toggle, audio through. Fundraising sequence imagined: self-fund, then crowdfund, then seed; Shuttleworth fellowship noted. He keeps interaction design for himself and uses coding agents for plumbing. This is the project most directly continuous with the convivial-computation thesis: commodity hardware plus open software, packaged well enough to displace an extractive incumbent.

Live: re-check with James before relying on this.

Provenance: James, in conversation with Claude, Sept 2026 (unverified); body restored from raw/notes/hermes-wiki-seed-2.md on 2026-10-18 after it was found missing. Disposition: live.

Detail: open-audio-hardware-prototype

Part of thread: thread-instruments-and-constraint