Conference Schedule

KMI's SoftStep Foot Controller is a very compact yet incredibly powerful foot controller. Roughly the size and weight of an average USB keyboard, it features 44 pressure sensors grouped in 14 "keys", allowing for new and creative ways to control computer-based live music performances. Unfortunately, to get the full power of the device, you need to use KMI's software which, in addition to being rather unintuitive, is only compatible with Windows and Mac Os.
This lightning talk will present FooCoCo (The Foot Controller Controller), a python/pyo-based project that intends to unleash the full power of the SoftStep (allowing possibly even more than KMI's original software) in a FOSS, Linux-compatible way. The project is in early stages of development and will welcome ideas and contributions!

At Les Chemins de Traverse we've been using Linux on stage for live looping and live sound processing in dozens of gigs for the last four years.
Although most audio-oriented Linux distributions focus more on studio setups than live performance, our experience shows that it is possible to build reliable, very low-latency, highly customized live music systems - even using ridiculously old computers that are generally thought to be completely inadequate for any kind of audio processing.
We will present our live music system - based on existing software (jack, SooperLooper, rakarrack, ...), custom software (made with ChucK, python/pyo, ...) and a bunch of "glue" scripts (bash, python, ...). We will also discuss our experience about the strengths and weaknesses of the Linux audio ecosystem for live use on stage.