Sometimes you want a really "punchy" sound. To a musician, this means a sound with a rapid attack and a quick reaction from the keyboard. To a software developer, this means a sound with a very low attack rate and a very low latency through the synthesizer from the keyboard to the audio output. To make a punchy sound, we're going to use an external USB audio card, and also adjust the sound card settings.

There are a lot of good touch-MIDI controllers available for the iPad.  They're fun to use and can be customized.  One such popular controller is MidiPads .  In the past, an owner of a Raspberry Pi wouldn't be able to take advantage of this controller, since MidiPads speaks "Network MIDI" and the Raspberry Pi does not.  (Or did not, at least until now).