%0 Conference Paper %B International Computer Music Conference %D 2000 %T Scalable Connectivity Processor for Computer Music Performance Systems %A Rimas Avizienis %A Freed, Adrian %A Suzuki, Takahiko %A Wessel, David %C Berlin, Germany %I International Computer Music Association %P 523-526 %U http://cnmat.berkeley.edu/publication/scalable_connectivity_processor_computer_music_performance_systems %X Standard laptop computers are now capable of sizeable quantities of sound synthesis and sound processing, but low-latency, high quality, multichannel audio I/O has not been possible without a cumbersome external card cage. CNMAT has developed a solution using the ubiquitous 100BaseT Ethernet that supports up to 10 channels of 24-bit audio, 64 channels of sample-synchronous control-rate gesture data, and 4 precisely time-stamped MIDI I/O streams. Latency measurements show that we can get signals into and back out of Max/MSP in under 7 milliseconds. The central component in the device is a field programmable gate array (FPGA). In addition to providing a variety of computer interface capabilities, the device can function as a cross-coder for a variety of protocols including GMICS. This paper outlines the motivation, design, and implementation of the connectivity processor.