Raspberry Pi and music production

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i2productions
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by i2productions »

What I'm trying to say is, if the only way I get JACK working is by putting the turbo ethernet and force USB 1.1 on their own line(which means they're not doing anything) than what good is at least the USB 1.1 force? Obviously the ethernet needs to be throttled or disabled, because I also can't start JACK unless the driver is stoped. But then what about the force usb 1.1? In your tutorial is this possibly something specific to your interface, because what I'm saying is, it's preventing JACK from being started when it's in the first line with all the other stuff. (I understand what I need to do, just trying to get to the bottom of this so future users can look at this and make a decision.)
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by autostatic »

i2productions wrote:What I'm trying to say is, if the only way I get JACK working is by putting the turbo ethernet and force USB 1.1 on their own line(which means they're not doing anything) than what good is at least the USB 1.1 force? Obviously the ethernet needs to be throttled or disabled, because I also can't start JACK unless the driver is stoped.
If that is the case you don't really need the smsc95xx.turbo_mode=N option.
i2productions wrote:But then what about the force usb 1.1? In your tutorial is this possibly something specific to your interface, because what I'm saying is, it's preventing JACK from being started when it's in the first line with all the other stuff. (I understand what I need to do, just trying to get to the bottom of this so future users can look at this and make a decision.)
For my audio interface I need to force the controller to USB1.1 mode otherwise it's xruns galore. This can be different for other interfaces and that's why I phrased it like
The RPi has a USB2 controller that apparently can cause issues with USB1.1 audio interfaces.
There is a user that goes by the handle of GuitarExtended who is using an EMU 0404 I think. And he doesn't need to set the controller to USB1.1 either in order to use his RPi as a guitar effects processor with pd. So it's not a necessary option.
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by i2productions »

After getting everything working, my next unexplained hurdle was this distortion(a very noticeable and prominent distortion that would render Rpi useless for Pro-audio tasks) in audio using JACK no matter if I was capturing, playing back, or routing signal through. I happened to pull the USB dongle for my Logitech keyboard/mouse combo while playing a .wav file in Ardour, and the distortion was gone. JACK is now working the way I want it to(unfortunately I have no way to control it since at the moment, ALL keyboards and mice I own are wireless USB. Also all Logitech, and testing the keyboard mouse combo, and a separate logitech mouse yielded the same results. Not sure if this is something to do with USB, or if it's the wireless frequency somehow interfering. But I've tried moving my USB hub away from the pi and audio interface with no change, so I'm going to have to assume it's related to USB.
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by autostatic »

I've set up a repository in which I will put some Raspbian packages of software that is either not available or not up to date:
http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/raspber ... repository
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by autostatic »

Someone in the same boat as me: http://ampbrownie.com/
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

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j_e_f_f_g
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by j_e_f_f_g »

Auto,

Do you realize you're exactly the target audience for my eDrummer software? The intent is something that runs on the leanest possible distro (ie, no kde/gnome libs, no JACK or other sound deamons) so that max mem is available for drum samples, has minimal latency for slow cpus, and can be run headless.

You don't have vel sensitive pads, so the drum map Phil is using is overkill. But if you want to test, I can supply you with what works best for your system. And the "Pad combo changes kit" would be easy to implement. (Also, if you're going to run headless, I could do a non-GUI version).

Let me know if you're interested, and we can start right away.

Author of BackupBand at https://sourceforge.net/projects/backupband/files/
My fans show their support by mentioning my name in their signature.

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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by autostatic »

Hi j_e_f_f_g, thanks for the offer but at the moment I can do everything you've mentioned with my current set-up so for now I'll stick with that. Also I prefer using JACK, it's more flexible than ALSA. If I decide I'd like to add extra effects, route audio over the network or use the RPi as a drum machine and a synthesizer at the same time then ALSA only applications are probably not the way to go for me. But I will most definitely compile eDrummer for my RPi and see how it compares to my current set-up. I'll post the outcome in this thread.
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by English Guy »

Hi

Just got my Pi up and running with Raspian & Autostatics repo added (thankyou sir :D ).

At the moment just trying to get Hydrogen working with the internal sound, It plays slowly & the notes sound too low pitched to me. I have tried with Alsa & Jack & tried changing Hydrogen's sample rate.

I do have a USB interface I could try, but being able to plug the Pi into a TV HDMI socket & power it off the TV's USB socket would make it a very covenient no hassle drum machine when practicing guitar.


Any ideas please?

cheers
Guy
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by Shadow_7 »

Raspberry Pi does interest me. But that power thing and the sheer number of usb ports has me concerned. I've always thought that if it just had 4x usb ports that I could find a use for it. 1x mouse, 1x keyboard, 1x soundcard, 1x usb midi input device. Sure, this could be solved with a USB hub and other power options, but as a replacement for my desktop, sadly not possible without the extra ports to use existing hardware. No case, no display, and barebones that the pi is (even at $25), is kind of hard to choose it. 4x usbs and and an included walwart (even without case) @ $50 and I'd get one. Double the RAM would be nice, but at long as you don't run java or flash, it's existing specs are ample. And then there's that Arm v6 vs. Arm v8 32 vs 64 bit thing. But the hope that little thing brings to small budgets and low power usage is pretty sweet.
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by English Guy »

@ Shadow_7 - what I did was buy a powered hub that could also power the pi from one of its usb sockets, this made getting a hub effectively cheaper because you do not have to buy a psu. You lose a usb port on the pi connecting the hub &the one on the hub powering the pi, so you end up with four ports spare. The Pi limits the power the USB's can draw, so a powered hub is recommended.

I do not think the pi is a substitute for a modern desktop computer. It is a great project machine. I do not expect to do great multi track projects on it but I hope to get audacity & an interface working on it, it will be great for recording acoustic sessions as it is fanless.
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by autostatic »

English Guy wrote:Just got my Pi up and running with Raspian & Autostatics repo added (thankyou sir :D ).
Great! And you're welcome.
English Guy wrote:At the moment just trying to get Hydrogen working with the internal sound, It plays slowly & the notes sound too low pitched to me. I have tried with Alsa & Jack & tried changing Hydrogen's sample rate.
To be able to use JACK with the onboard audio you really need an updated Raspbian with the latest fixes for the ALSA driver of the onboard audio (mmap support). And I haven't tried Hydrogen myself on the RPi, I highly doubt if it will work properly because it is probably way too resource hungry with respect to the GUI. I'll try building eDrummer for the Rpi and you could also take a look at drumkv1 as alternatives to Hydrogen.
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by English Guy »

@Autostatic: thankyou (I have a feeling I am going to be saying that a lot). The other alternative I might try is to try a sequencer such as Seq24 or non with fluidsynth.

It is such a shame to be so close with Hydrogen. I wonder if it could be compiled in some way with unwanted features disabled to make it run lighter? Or perhaps dig out some older source code. It doesn't seem all that long ago that the Pi's specs would have been reasonable for a PC.
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Re: Raspberry Pi and music production

Post by autostatic »

Well, I've installed Hydrogen and it runs quite well actually :) This is with an USB audio interface though, I haven't tested the onboard sound with JACK enough, at the moment I only get xruns when using it.
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