For mobile users: Three years ago, I did the same test on a #linux #raspberrypi 400, which failed at playing more than 4 notes on Surge XT #synthesizer . This video explores if it's possible to create a song using synth and production plugins and multiple audio tracks. There's a latency test as well using an "audio hat" and a USB sound card. Music made in this video is here: th-cam.com/video/Jl1ylW8yA8k/w-d-xo.html . This is a follow-up video, if you need step-by-step instructions, please watch my older videos on the topic. Artists in this video: Xavier Radix www.youtube.com/@xavierradix ZAELI www.fiverr.com/elisabank The finished track is here th-cam.com/video/Jl1ylW8yA8k/w-d-xo.html or floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/waves Stuff shown in this video: Raspberry PI 5 amzn.to/3yfM1zV Touch screen amzn.to/3yniKmQ Hifiberry DAC+ADC amzn.to/4bxKLqh Reaper www.reaper.fm/ ZynAddSubFX github.com/zynaddsubfx/zyn-fusion-build/wiki/Building-on-Linux Surge XT github.com/surge-synthesizer/surge Build commands for Surge XT (May 2024) cmake -Bignore/sxt -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DSURGE_BUILD_LV2=TRUE cmake --build ignore/sxt --config Release --parallel 8 sudo cmake --install ignore/sxt Build commands for ZynAddSubFX (May 2024) make -f Makefile.linux.mk install_deps PARALLEL=1 make MODE=release -f Makefile.linux.mk all cd build/zyn-fusion-linux-64bit-3.0.7-release Sudo ./install-linux.sh
There's a discussion on the Zynthian discourse about how SurgeXT is a really heavyweight synth that uses lots of CPU power. It might not be the best one for Pi based systems :)
@@Poulscath Yes, that plugin eats CPU cycles like there's no tomorrow. ;-) I wonder why that is, though. ZynAddSubFX is way less power hungry despite being quite complex. Even if the Surge XT team uses some super realistic hardware emulation, it shouldn't be _that_ taxing on hardware. (Perhaps I should look it up on their page ;-) )
Your brain is a crazy great muscle containing all that knowledge PLUS then knowing how to communicate this so we can understand things better. You are a gift!
@@mr_floydstagreed: was just thinking how he flies through Reaper no big deal- producing like it’s second nature. lol combined with the tech know how - sheesh I have some geeking out work to do
Brother from start to finish, your channel is truly a gem. I just pulled up "waves" on spotify - and simply the knowledge that the track was made from scratch & part of a DIY project video - makes the whole track that much more special. keep doing you!
At this point in history, anyone who's willing to invest a little bit of time can build the most incredible things. The tech is readily available and the specs are impressive.
A serious aesthetic question from a.. listener: why then is pop music is now so much worse, so much more homogeneous than for example in the 70es? (e.g. chord progressions; but actually a whole aesthetic) Do you, as a musician, think the gratification from geekiness of the tech process takes over/hides/ makes the musician forget the gratification from creating beauty?
@@PiselliPirelli I think this is a discussion that largely depends on personal preferences and tastes. First of all, (if you were referring to my musical output in my YT videos ;-) ) - I don't consider myself an expert in anything, especially in music, and I see myself as a hobby musician. And you've come to a channel that focusses on geeky gadgets ;-) With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on the topic. 1) I think you're wording is a bit too general here. If you're turning on the mainstream radio, yes. It's hard to bear. But I'd argue that was the case in the 70s as well. You'd better be in the mood for some country pop kitsch before turning on your time machine! ;-) If you're willing to browse some playlists of genres you like, you'll find plenty of awesome new music (that admittedly has the disadvantage of not being connected to fond memories of the past, but give it some time) 2) I think geeky gadgets can be fun in themselves. It's a nice thing to spend your time with. Like 3D puzzles, but then you can make some sounds once you're done. The process of building and understanding them is rewarding in itself, and if you don't enjoy that, then it's not for you. I also think that new machinery or new instruments often provide new inspiration, but that's another discussion to be had ;-) 3) Complexity does not equal quality. If that was the case, for example Uriah Heeps "Lady in Black" should be considered a rubbish song. 2 chords? Leave me alone with that. ;-) But no! It's a timeless classic. It's an awesome song. And finally, I think my example music here wasn't that bad. At least Xavier and Zaeli did awesome jobs on the guitar and vocals (the finished track is here th-cam.com/video/Jl1ylW8yA8k/w-d-xo.html and contains a lot of jazzy chords, layered vocal harmonies and stuff ;-) )
@@mr_floydst thank you for your considered answer. Food for thought. I get your point and your enjoyment of tech, but there are ALSO major structural = $$$ reasons for the current radio/pop music aesthetic: Spotify &co (and we) don't pay enough the little artists. The grassroot band is dead. The band with your school friends (in person, not remote collabs). The small town scrappy but potentially inspired band. I am saying Spotify &co are happy we're all "just little bedroom producers with our gear": they don't have to pay us. And... I actually quite liked your song, more than I was expecting! Thanks
Very nice, Floyd! You've always got a nice groove! The Pi has come a long way for sure. But I do hope on the Pi6 they can get the power consumption under control. Though I guess that depends on the chip makers etc.
Thanks for watching! Yes, the PI5 somewhat misses the "high power computer with low power consumption for embedded builds" mark this time 'round. Though it's still way less power hungry than an Intel Chip like the N100, for example (which is a pretty good CPU for embedded systems despite its higher energy consumption)
Awesome. I recently became unemployed and having a professional identity crisis at 47. Had to sell most my synth hardware (not everything..not yet) and was thinking a project that challenges me both technically and tickles my music geekery would be cool to spend time on, and consequently wondered if the new RaspPi5 would be a good cheap start.
A RasPi 5 is a good start. I'd advise to buy a "Freenove Raspberry Pi starter kit" (e.g. on Amazon) along with it, and start building stuff. It comes with an excellent manual that's well written, well-structured and easily understandable. I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Hope you'll find a new job soon. Or create something awesome and start a career in tech. ;-)
@ ah - good dream to have surely. I was in infosec sales and have a basic degree in infosec/digital forensics; was a network engineer and security analyst previous. In the US the competition is insane. Awesomely talented folks out of work for over a year, etc. Might be a good time to just go back to school for me as I have an Associate degree but all the competition appear to have more, and are younger lol. ;)
A note on Zynthian Pi5 performance. Yesterday I fired up a configuration with 2 instances of Surge XT and 2 instances of ZynAddSubFX. I then put the sustain pedal down on my 37 note keyboard and latched 37 notes in to all 4 instances (different patch for each instance). No overruns and about 85% cpu usage. Not an exhaustive test as I don't know which are worst case patches on either synth but suggests pretty strong performance for the Pi5. Was also running each synth's UI in a VNC window. YMMV.
Zynthian Oram running Bookworm on the Pi5 is reasonably stable now (but not officially "stable") and provides built-in support for a large number of synths and effects. I'm currently running it headless with a generic USB audio interface and a USB to midi converter. Got about $120 into all in. Worth checking out...
Great video as usual, however although I consider myself a music and technology enthusiast and nerd, I'm finding myself growing more and more pessimistic about my hobby. As an owner of a couple of Raspberry Pi's (that I run my own Juce applications on) Mac and PC laptops multiple analog and digital hardware synths as well as hardware samplers. I keep hearing voice's in my head that say why are you bothering with all that. Those voices belong to Suno and Udio. They will never make me give up my beloved hobby but they are slowing me down and making me less likely to do experiments like the one in this video.
AI is just another tool. The goal was never (for me, at least) to work as a DAW and synth patch technician. It was to express oneself and create beautiful music for everyone to enjoy. Why train piano when a computer always can play 100x better? Because it's fun and even other people like it if you get good at it.
Don't let yourself get dragged down by AI music. Remember last year, when everyone was like "wow, these AI paintings look so good"? As usual, people learn quickly, and now that AI art style has already gotten stale and most people can spot it from a mile away. The same thing will happen to AI music once the initial hype has calmed down a little bit. No one can take away from you the fun and progression that making music (and building electronic gadgets, in this case) brings.
The business of music has been a miserable, hopeless situation for ages. This will probably make it somewhat more difficult, but it's a difference between like 98.5% difficult and 99% difficult. There'll always be a place for human music, but maybe not so much outside of just a hobby and personal/cultural building. But this has mostly been the case for most musicians.
@@Aeduo Uh-oh, yes, I didn't see it from the perspective of freelance artists. You're right, a lot of people will jump to the cheaper alternative in the coming months - but I guess they'll be back in a year. I think AI's place will ultimately be for customers generating a concept of what they're searching for, which they'll then pass on to an actual artist, designer or musician. E.g. I've been using AI voices a lot on this channel, but if I feel a track is worthy of a real singer, I try to hire a real singer (if there's a budget)
If it's a hobby! What does it matter what AI does? From my point of view the music is about expressing myself and I'll never get the same experience from using AI, no matter how polished the music is. If I was working in music production I'd feel very different but I never expected to make a living from music so I'm still where I was when I started years ago...
Ardour is part of the Raspbian Repository and can be installed with two mouse clicks - I don't know if it's the latest version (most likely not), but compiling things often proves to be a rabbit hole of dependency checks that you definitely want to avoid if your life time is precious to you ;-)
Thank you very much! Don't switch to Linux or Raspberry PI in particular just for the sake of using Open Source. I'd recommend this only to people who enjoy the process of "tinkering" in itself ;-) For the things I show in this video, any old Laptop or Tablet is a much more approachable solution.
ah yes... Thank you... I already have a Pi that I use for various things but yeah... I know what you mean... it can be a pain getting things to work the way you want them to :-)
How would you say this compares to just using a midi keyboard with a phone or iPad? I was thinking something like this might be useful to turn a midi only keyboard into one that is more fully featured. But my thought was if there was some way to do this without the screen and mouse, i.e. booting the RPi would auto load the DAW and a VST, then you'd be able to control the instrument selection and parameters from the Midi controls of the keyboard. So you wouldn't be able to actually record or sequence anything, but it would just turn the keyboard into one with 'built-in' audio.
Sure thing, you can do that. On Windows, there are VST host applications you can set up to be controlled via MIDI (Hermann Seibs VST Host or Kushview Elements, for example) On Linux, there's Carla first and foremost (at least on PI) How does this compare to a phone? Well, you have more possibilites of developing hardware solutions (custom MIDI controllers and so on). Apart from that, a phone or tablet with your favourite DAW is propably the easiest and most reliable way to get results quickly. RasPi is for people who enjoy the process of tinkering with stuff by itself.
Hey Floyd! Great video, as always. I was wondering if you would get better results by using a real-time preemptive kernel on the Pi. You can check by looking at the output of "uname -a" for SMP and PREEMPT. Sorry if you know about all this... Keep exploring!
Pulseaudio is probably the major bottleneck here. If it's using systemd, you should be able to just disable the pulseaudio socket activation unit, that way applications won't be able to connect to the socket and pulseaudio won't start and hang on to the audio device. Of course, you'll have only ALSA so any applications which need pulseaudio will simply not function, but if this is the pi's dedicated purpose, this is probably fine, and the socket can always be reenabled. Likely with a reboot or at least relogin between disabling and enabling.
Hi, thanks for watching! While using a realtime kernel will add chip away some precious milliseconds, the main culprit here is pulseaudio, in combination with the hifiberry drivers. I chose to show it this way because that's what you get if you don't put in a lot of work ;-) Reaper comes with its own audio setup which will solve most of the latency problems for you. But in this case, it didn't work with the Hifiberry card, unfortunately. I used a USB audio interface instead, which gave me around 10ms of latency, which is ok for me.
Very nice but why would I want to give up on my Windows rig with all its VSTs and sample libs? Are there any advantages to run everything on the Pi5 instead?
Thanks for watching! No, in that case, stay with Windows. You can install Windows on the PI5 (seen here th-cam.com/video/6oosN8jxzvQ/w-d-xo.html) but I'd advise to just use a Windows Tablet if you're planning for a mobile setup.
Thanks for bringing this project to my attention - I've never tried it, so unfortunately, I can't provide help. Rule of thumb is, the older the plugin, the more likely it's to run with box86/64. I tried that in a PI some years ago and hat Valhalle Supermassive running correctly as an example, if I remember correctly.
I would like a setup like that to multitrack recording on a venue with a digital mixer. the recordings usualy last about 6 or 7 hours, do you think it can handle it ? I just record 4 or 6 tracks
Good question! From a purely technical perspective, yes, most definitely, there's enough CPU power and RAM here. Question is if there are multichannel USB interfaces that are supported. I'll try my Zoom R20 and report back ;-)
Yes, you can use this with a microphone. Don't use an audio hat, though. I think a small handheld recorder that also works as a USB audio interface (Zoom, Tascam, ...) would be the best solution in that scenario. Or one of these small and cheap USB audio adapters.
More conventional hardware will always outperform Raspberry Pi in this area. It's still cool and I wouldn't mind messing around with it, but not really cost effective compared with admittedly more boring solutions like a used laptop or modest, low-end PC build.
Yes, this is true. This is for people who like tinkering with gadgets - I'd never advise to buy a PI specifically for producing music. (Unless you want to build a synth, but that's another story)
I like the Pi5 because it can run in silence - perfect for audio recording. Also portable, right? I gave up PCs 'cos the moving parts just wore out and made more and more noise. I'd love to see what the limits are in this kind of DAW setup on the Pi, especially with the kind of USB audio interface regular musicians use to record, such as ones from Focusrite, Presonus, Audient and SSL.
I didn't use a box at all ;-) I just moved the PI+Hat off-screen. A 3D printer is on the way, though, and once I've done my baby steps with that, I'll try to create some more "product-like" contraptions. ;-)
@@mr_floydst sure it should be generic with no licences and generic passwords. I don’t have the Pi5 yet, only a Pie3 but if I grab a 5 someday I will try. Could also be nice to make of a Dj controller a standalone one (with Mixx).
'Search for LV2. Install everything you find there.' That's like about 100 packages that appear. Check every box, really? Is there a quicker command-line way?
I wasn't able to with the HIFIBerry board, Jack seems to have a problem with that. Using a USB interface, it was no problem. Reaper provides it's own Jackd / ALSA interface, just choose it in the preferences and select the correct audio hardware.
Raspberry pi used to be an unbelievably cheap way to get a decent little computer. Now though, getting the latest model, with enough parts to function as a full computer, it ends up being bigger and more expensive than a low-end mini PC, and the PC has better performance and compatibility. I loved my pi 2, 3, and 400, but it's hard to recommend the 5.
They made some design missteps on the PI5 (the need for an active cooler, and removing the 3.5mm audio jack). The 4GB version is around $60 which seems to be a fair price for what's on offer, though.
That's because Linux is a mostly democratic system ;-) Several groups come up with what they think is a great idea, and then distros pick that up (or they don't). That's why we end up with Pulseaudio, Jack, Pipewire, Alsa, ... And now I can stream my Audio from my fridge to my Banana bread, but it only works when there's a full moon and Jupiter is opposite of Mercury or something.
As somebody allergic to dealing with computer frustrations, I'd be happy to pay someone the cost delta between this hardware and a microfreak for the labor involved in setup and debugging.
For mobile users: Three years ago, I did the same test on a #linux #raspberrypi 400, which failed at playing more than 4 notes on Surge XT #synthesizer . This video explores if it's possible to create a song using synth and production plugins and multiple audio tracks. There's a latency test as well using an "audio hat" and a USB sound card. Music made in this video is here: th-cam.com/video/Jl1ylW8yA8k/w-d-xo.html . This is a follow-up video, if you need step-by-step instructions, please watch my older videos on the topic.
Artists in this video:
Xavier Radix www.youtube.com/@xavierradix
ZAELI www.fiverr.com/elisabank
The finished track is here th-cam.com/video/Jl1ylW8yA8k/w-d-xo.html or floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/waves
Stuff shown in this video:
Raspberry PI 5 amzn.to/3yfM1zV
Touch screen amzn.to/3yniKmQ
Hifiberry DAC+ADC amzn.to/4bxKLqh
Reaper www.reaper.fm/
ZynAddSubFX github.com/zynaddsubfx/zyn-fusion-build/wiki/Building-on-Linux
Surge XT github.com/surge-synthesizer/surge
Build commands for Surge XT (May 2024)
cmake -Bignore/sxt -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr -DSURGE_BUILD_LV2=TRUE
cmake --build ignore/sxt --config Release --parallel 8
sudo cmake --install ignore/sxt
Build commands for ZynAddSubFX (May 2024)
make -f Makefile.linux.mk install_deps
PARALLEL=1 make MODE=release -f Makefile.linux.mk all
cd build/zyn-fusion-linux-64bit-3.0.7-release
Sudo ./install-linux.sh
There's a discussion on the Zynthian discourse about how SurgeXT is a really heavyweight synth that uses lots of CPU power. It might not be the best one for Pi based systems :)
@@Poulscath Yes, that plugin eats CPU cycles like there's no tomorrow. ;-) I wonder why that is, though. ZynAddSubFX is way less power hungry despite being quite complex. Even if the Surge XT team uses some super realistic hardware emulation, it shouldn't be _that_ taxing on hardware. (Perhaps I should look it up on their page ;-) )
Renoise
Your brain is a crazy great muscle containing all that knowledge PLUS then knowing how to communicate this so we can understand things better. You are a gift!
Thanks!
@@mr_floydstagreed: was just thinking how he flies through Reaper no big deal- producing like it’s second nature. lol combined with the tech know how - sheesh I have some geeking out work to do
Brother from start to finish, your channel is truly a gem. I just pulled up "waves" on spotify - and simply the knowledge that the track was made from scratch & part of a DIY project video - makes the whole track that much more special. keep doing you!
Thanks for listening to my tracks! ;-)
this was really cool ! It's amazing how available music production is becoming ! Let's see how it continues :)
At this point in history, anyone who's willing to invest a little bit of time can build the most incredible things. The tech is readily available and the specs are impressive.
A serious aesthetic question from a.. listener: why then is pop music is now so much worse, so much more homogeneous than for example in the 70es? (e.g. chord progressions; but actually a whole aesthetic)
Do you, as a musician, think the gratification from geekiness of the tech process takes over/hides/ makes the musician forget the gratification from creating beauty?
@@PiselliPirelli I think this is a discussion that largely depends on personal preferences and tastes. First of all, (if you were referring to my musical output in my YT videos ;-) ) - I don't consider myself an expert in anything, especially in music, and I see myself as a hobby musician. And you've come to a channel that focusses on geeky gadgets ;-)
With that out of the way, here are my thoughts on the topic.
1) I think you're wording is a bit too general here. If you're turning on the mainstream radio, yes. It's hard to bear. But I'd argue that was the case in the 70s as well. You'd better be in the mood for some country pop kitsch before turning on your time machine! ;-)
If you're willing to browse some playlists of genres you like, you'll find plenty of awesome new music (that admittedly has the disadvantage of not being connected to fond memories of the past, but give it some time)
2) I think geeky gadgets can be fun in themselves. It's a nice thing to spend your time with. Like 3D puzzles, but then you can make some sounds once you're done. The process of building and understanding them is rewarding in itself, and if you don't enjoy that, then it's not for you.
I also think that new machinery or new instruments often provide new inspiration, but that's another discussion to be had ;-)
3) Complexity does not equal quality. If that was the case, for example Uriah Heeps "Lady in Black" should be considered a rubbish song. 2 chords? Leave me alone with that. ;-) But no! It's a timeless classic. It's an awesome song.
And finally, I think my example music here wasn't that bad. At least Xavier and Zaeli did awesome jobs on the guitar and vocals (the finished track is here th-cam.com/video/Jl1ylW8yA8k/w-d-xo.html and contains a lot of jazzy chords, layered vocal harmonies and stuff ;-) )
@@mr_floydst thank you for your considered answer. Food for thought. I get your point and your enjoyment of tech, but there are ALSO major structural = $$$ reasons for the current radio/pop music aesthetic: Spotify &co (and we) don't pay enough the little artists. The grassroot band is dead. The band with your school friends (in person, not remote collabs). The small town scrappy but potentially inspired band.
I am saying Spotify &co are happy we're all "just little bedroom producers with our gear": they don't have to pay us.
And... I actually quite liked your song, more than I was expecting!
Thanks
you are knocking it out of the park fella! nice work!
Thanks!
Very nice track. Raspberry pi 5 cpu upgrade is just what we needed
Thank you very much! Yes indeed.
Very nice, Floyd! You've always got a nice groove! The Pi has come a long way for sure. But I do hope on the Pi6 they can get the power consumption under control. Though I guess that depends on the chip makers etc.
Thanks for watching! Yes, the PI5 somewhat misses the "high power computer with low power consumption for embedded builds" mark this time 'round. Though it's still way less power hungry than an Intel Chip like the N100, for example (which is a pretty good CPU for embedded systems despite its higher energy consumption)
Danke!
Oh, vielen Dank! :-)
Awesome. I recently became unemployed and having a professional identity crisis at 47. Had to sell most my synth hardware (not everything..not yet) and was thinking a project that challenges me both technically and tickles my music geekery would be cool to spend time on, and consequently wondered if the new RaspPi5 would be a good cheap start.
A RasPi 5 is a good start. I'd advise to buy a "Freenove Raspberry Pi starter kit" (e.g. on Amazon) along with it, and start building stuff. It comes with an excellent manual that's well written, well-structured and easily understandable.
I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Hope you'll find a new job soon.
Or create something awesome and start a career in tech. ;-)
@ ah - good dream to have surely. I was in infosec sales and have a basic degree in infosec/digital forensics; was a network engineer and security analyst previous. In the US the competition is insane. Awesomely talented folks out of work for over a year, etc. Might be a good time to just go back to school for me as I have an Associate degree but all the competition appear to have more, and are younger lol. ;)
A note on Zynthian Pi5 performance. Yesterday I fired up a configuration with 2 instances of Surge XT and 2 instances of ZynAddSubFX. I then put the sustain pedal down on my 37 note keyboard and latched 37 notes in to all 4 instances (different patch for each instance). No overruns and about 85% cpu usage. Not an exhaustive test as I don't know which are worst case patches on either synth but suggests pretty strong performance for the Pi5. Was also running each synth's UI in a VNC window. YMMV.
Thanks for your feedback - yes, it's quite powerful! There's a lot of headroom for audio projects.
Zynthian Oram running Bookworm on the Pi5 is reasonably stable now (but not officially "stable") and provides built-in support for a large number of synths and effects. I'm currently running it headless with a generic USB audio interface and a USB to midi converter. Got about $120 into all in. Worth checking out...
Thanks for pointing that out! I've already downloaded it and played around a bit, and I'll post a video soon!
Great video as usual, however although I consider myself a music and technology enthusiast and nerd, I'm finding myself growing more and more pessimistic about my hobby.
As an owner of a couple of Raspberry Pi's (that I run my own Juce applications on) Mac and PC laptops multiple analog and digital hardware synths as well as hardware samplers.
I keep hearing voice's in my head that say why are you bothering with all that.
Those voices belong to Suno and Udio.
They will never make me give up my beloved hobby but they are slowing me down and making me less likely to do experiments like the one in this video.
AI is just another tool. The goal was never (for me, at least) to work as a DAW and synth patch technician. It was to express oneself and create beautiful music for everyone to enjoy.
Why train piano when a computer always can play 100x better? Because it's fun and even other people like it if you get good at it.
Don't let yourself get dragged down by AI music. Remember last year, when everyone was like "wow, these AI paintings look so good"? As usual, people learn quickly, and now that AI art style has already gotten stale and most people can spot it from a mile away. The same thing will happen to AI music once the initial hype has calmed down a little bit.
No one can take away from you the fun and progression that making music (and building electronic gadgets, in this case) brings.
The business of music has been a miserable, hopeless situation for ages. This will probably make it somewhat more difficult, but it's a difference between like 98.5% difficult and 99% difficult.
There'll always be a place for human music, but maybe not so much outside of just a hobby and personal/cultural building. But this has mostly been the case for most musicians.
@@Aeduo Uh-oh, yes, I didn't see it from the perspective of freelance artists. You're right, a lot of people will jump to the cheaper alternative in the coming months - but I guess they'll be back in a year. I think AI's place will ultimately be for customers generating a concept of what they're searching for, which they'll then pass on to an actual artist, designer or musician. E.g. I've been using AI voices a lot on this channel, but if I feel a track is worthy of a real singer, I try to hire a real singer (if there's a budget)
If it's a hobby! What does it matter what AI does? From my point of view the music is about expressing myself and I'll never get the same experience from using AI, no matter how polished the music is. If I was working in music production I'd feel very different but I never expected to make a living from music so I'm still where I was when I started years ago...
I'd like to see you compile the latest version of Ardour for use with the Raspberry PI and knock out a jam! 🙂
Ardour is part of the Raspbian Repository and can be installed with two mouse clicks - I don't know if it's the latest version (most likely not), but compiling things often proves to be a rabbit hole of dependency checks that you definitely want to avoid if your life time is precious to you ;-)
A lot of useful tips - much appreciated 👍👍 I may yet make the switch to Linux for music 😎
Thank you very much! Don't switch to Linux or Raspberry PI in particular just for the sake of using Open Source. I'd recommend this only to people who enjoy the process of "tinkering" in itself ;-) For the things I show in this video, any old Laptop or Tablet is a much more approachable solution.
ah yes... Thank you... I already have a Pi that I use for various things but yeah... I know what you mean... it can be a pain getting things to work the way you want them to :-)
Cool video, I have a Audio Hat with line in and out so you can record into the pi5
Thanks for watching! Which one do you use?
@@mr_floydst I will dig it out its deffo the only one one the market with line in and out with volume control
I love "Waves"!
Thank you very much!
OK. This is impressive and cool.
Thanks for watching - glad you think so!
Awesome video sir! You should make the image available with everything already compiled for us less tech savvy followers 😂
Thanks for your input - I'll ponder it ;-)
I’d love to see how the DSP56300 project plugins perform on the Pi5
Thanks for pointing me at that! I'll give it a try.
@@mr_floydst NoProb . Enjoy .Just keep the how to get rom on the DL if you do a vid as to not spoil it for the rest Good Sir . Cheers !
How would you say this compares to just using a midi keyboard with a phone or iPad?
I was thinking something like this might be useful to turn a midi only keyboard into one that is more fully featured. But my thought was if there was some way to do this without the screen and mouse, i.e. booting the RPi would auto load the DAW and a VST, then you'd be able to control the instrument selection and parameters from the Midi controls of the keyboard. So you wouldn't be able to actually record or sequence anything, but it would just turn the keyboard into one with 'built-in' audio.
Sure thing, you can do that. On Windows, there are VST host applications you can set up to be controlled via MIDI (Hermann Seibs VST Host or Kushview Elements, for example)
On Linux, there's Carla first and foremost (at least on PI)
How does this compare to a phone? Well, you have more possibilites of developing hardware solutions (custom MIDI controllers and so on). Apart from that, a phone or tablet with your favourite DAW is propably the easiest and most reliable way to get results quickly. RasPi is for people who enjoy the process of tinkering with stuff by itself.
Hey Floyd! Great video, as always. I was wondering if you would get better results by using a real-time preemptive kernel on the Pi. You can check by looking at the output of "uname -a" for SMP and PREEMPT. Sorry if you know about all this... Keep exploring!
Pulseaudio is probably the major bottleneck here. If it's using systemd, you should be able to just disable the pulseaudio socket activation unit, that way applications won't be able to connect to the socket and pulseaudio won't start and hang on to the audio device. Of course, you'll have only ALSA so any applications which need pulseaudio will simply not function, but if this is the pi's dedicated purpose, this is probably fine, and the socket can always be reenabled. Likely with a reboot or at least relogin between disabling and enabling.
Hi, thanks for watching! While using a realtime kernel will add chip away some precious milliseconds, the main culprit here is pulseaudio, in combination with the hifiberry drivers.
I chose to show it this way because that's what you get if you don't put in a lot of work ;-)
Reaper comes with its own audio setup which will solve most of the latency problems for you. But in this case, it didn't work with the Hifiberry card, unfortunately. I used a USB audio interface instead, which gave me around 10ms of latency, which is ok for me.
Love ReaXcomp 👌
Most of the Reaper plugins are really good, but this one deserves a special mention indeed.
Great video mate. Do you have SoundCloud or another yt channel where we can listen to the final song composed in this video? ❤
Thanks! Yes, it's here th-cam.com/video/Jl1ylW8yA8k/w-d-xo.html or floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/waves , also on Apple Music and so on.
Very nice but why would I want to give up on my Windows rig with all its VSTs and sample libs?
Are there any advantages to run everything on the Pi5 instead?
Thanks for watching! No, in that case, stay with Windows. You can install Windows on the PI5 (seen here th-cam.com/video/6oosN8jxzvQ/w-d-xo.html) but I'd advise to just use a Windows Tablet if you're planning for a mobile setup.
I just got reaper running on Winlator for android, could you suggest me some compatible plugins. I got Syrum to load, but the UI is skuffed.
Thanks for bringing this project to my attention - I've never tried it, so unfortunately, I can't provide help. Rule of thumb is, the older the plugin, the more likely it's to run with box86/64. I tried that in a PI some years ago and hat Valhalle Supermassive running correctly as an example, if I remember correctly.
I would like a setup like that to multitrack recording on a venue with a digital mixer. the recordings usualy last about 6 or 7 hours, do you think it can handle it ?
I just record 4 or 6 tracks
Good question! From a purely technical perspective, yes, most definitely, there's enough CPU power and RAM here. Question is if there are multichannel USB interfaces that are supported. I'll try my Zoom R20 and report back ;-)
@@mr_floydst Its a midas m32 It should work ok on linux machines
I'd be curious about this too. I use a Zoom R16 for live recording, which is perfect, but a plug-and-play boxed solution would be cool.
Would this work with a microphone? I travel a lot and do voice work and reaper is way easier to edit in than on a phone
Yes, you can use this with a microphone. Don't use an audio hat, though. I think a small handheld recorder that also works as a USB audio interface (Zoom, Tascam, ...) would be the best solution in that scenario. Or one of these small and cheap USB audio adapters.
More conventional hardware will always outperform Raspberry Pi in this area. It's still cool and I wouldn't mind messing around with it, but not really cost effective compared with admittedly more boring solutions like a used laptop or modest, low-end PC build.
Yes, this is true. This is for people who like tinkering with gadgets - I'd never advise to buy a PI specifically for producing music. (Unless you want to build a synth, but that's another story)
I like the Pi5 because it can run in silence - perfect for audio recording. Also portable, right? I gave up PCs 'cos the moving parts just wore out and made more and more noise.
I'd love to see what the limits are in this kind of DAW setup on the Pi, especially with the kind of USB audio interface regular musicians use to record, such as ones from Focusrite, Presonus, Audient and SSL.
Very Nice! Шикарно!
Thanks for watching!
What’s the box you are using to accommodate the 7 inch screen and the Raspberry with the audio hat ?
I didn't use a box at all ;-) I just moved the PI+Hat off-screen.
A 3D printer is on the way, though, and once I've done my baby steps with that, I'll try to create some more "product-like" contraptions. ;-)
Did you happen to try Vital or any of its forks by chance?
Thanks for pointing it out - will give it a try!
Thanks for the tutorial. Hopefully someone can make a generic sd image with everything already installed 😅
Yeah well I could do that but now I've entered my serial number into Reaper ;-)
@@mr_floydst sure it should be generic with no licences and generic passwords. I don’t have the Pi5 yet, only a Pie3 but if I grab a 5 someday I will try. Could also be nice to make of a Dj controller a standalone one (with Mixx).
'Search for LV2. Install everything you find there.'
That's like about 100 packages that appear. Check every box, really? Is there a quicker command-line way?
There is (and you can google it) ;-)
sudo apt-get update && apt-cache search lv2 | awk '{print $1}' | xargs sudo apt-get install -y
Were you able to run jack2 over alsa?
I wasn't able to with the HIFIBerry board, Jack seems to have a problem with that.
Using a USB interface, it was no problem. Reaper provides it's own Jackd / ALSA interface, just choose it in the preferences and select the correct audio hardware.
have you tried using ubuntu as OS for Raspi? It should have pipewire…
Thanks for your feedback - I'll put it on my to-do-list! :-)
Raspi OS has now also introduced pipewire. I think you have to be running in Wayland mode.
Raspberry pi used to be an unbelievably cheap way to get a decent little computer. Now though, getting the latest model, with enough parts to function as a full computer, it ends up being bigger and more expensive than a low-end mini PC, and the PC has better performance and compatibility. I loved my pi 2, 3, and 400, but it's hard to recommend the 5.
They made some design missteps on the PI5 (the need for an active cooler, and removing the 3.5mm audio jack). The 4GB version is around $60 which seems to be a fair price for what's on offer, though.
Audio on linux platforms is unfortunately a big pain in the arse... that's why I gave up using it for music.
That's because Linux is a mostly democratic system ;-) Several groups come up with what they think is a great idea, and then distros pick that up (or they don't). That's why we end up with Pulseaudio, Jack, Pipewire, Alsa, ... And now I can stream my Audio from my fridge to my Banana bread, but it only works when there's a full moon and Jupiter is opposite of Mercury or something.
@@mr_floydst I'm a linux profesionnal but I gave up KXStudio to switch back to Windows for my simple amateur musician needs. I'm a bass player.
Sharing to Twitterino... ;-)
Thank you very much! That's the spirit we... wait, I already said that, didn't I? ;-)
@@mr_floydst ... ;-)
As somebody allergic to dealing with computer frustrations, I'd be happy to pay someone the cost delta between this hardware and a microfreak for the labor involved in setup and debugging.
If you know how to copy an image back to an SD card, I could provide you with a 1:1 copy of this setup (minus my Reaper Key, of course).
Would there be a version of that SD card compatible with a Pi 3B? (I can forgo the resource-heavy synth)
@@PiselliPirelli I could do that, but it will take some time. Just too much to do in my main job currently ;)
What is this, A DAW for ants? ;)
It should be at least, like, three times the size! ;-)
Re-PULSIVE-audio! JACK will haunt you for this blasphemy!
Arrr! Blimey mate, follow our im-pulse and keelhaul this daemon! (Captain Jack, ca 1684)