Raspberry Pi Synthesizers – How the Pi Is Transforming Synths
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The article discusses how Raspberry Pi is being used to create innovative synthesizers, and the discussion revolves around the possibilities and limitations of using Pi for music production, as well as alternative approaches and technologies.
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Downsides: - if the software doesn’t get updated, you’re stuck running an old OS an old Mac that supports it. - you can’t just turn on the synth and use it, you need to find a cable, connect it to the Mac, launch the software, etc
(I do get that if you are very serious about making music you need a proper computer set up. I am just a mere amateur hobbyist.)
Arturia have tried a few different hardware-hosts over the years, but seem to be focusing on their Astrolab platform rather than supporting iOS (Android is a non-runner due to latency).
Novation's main offerings are about analog signal paths. Back in the early 00s they had a few weird integrations like the X-Station, but its the analog nature of the bass-station and subsequent *Brute line that maintained their USP and cachet. Things like the Circuit/Launchpad are obvious AIO attempts at taking the share from similar form-factor iPad sequencing and clip launching utilities.
Same reason I keep my Roland Fantom around - has everything built in to the device.
[Note: and the amount of tutorial videos on YouTube is huge.]
The iPad is a great choice for music - you get the variety of hardware synths with none of the annoying setup (power, midi, audio routing), at a cheaper price, but it still feels more immersive than sitting at a desktop PC and a daw.
There are things you can do to make computers more suitable for this stuff but it gets expensive fast and less convenient quickly. Toughbooks are tempting, but expensive, rackmount computer can be managed for not much and keeps the computer safe in its rack but now you more and bigger stuff to haul. Taking a disposable approach with rpi or the like is tempting but not exactly ideal. Computers/tablets are great and have their uses but are not a replacement for hardware yet.
The big problem for me with all things touch screen is that they get confused by water on the screen, which is an issue when it is hot and you are sweating or on a stage with bright lights cooking you. Not an issue if you just want to tap out beats but a serious headache if you want to adjust parameters. Connectors on tablets are also an issue, USB is not a very secure connection and the wireless options are not great. Give me a tablet with a plastic screen, 1/4" ins/outs, can run PureData and will not get confused by water on the screen and I will probably give up my hardware.
On the other hand, my Blofeld had wonky unresponsive knobs after just a couple of months, not that they were very good at the first place, who thought having knobs with no tactile feeling of grip was good idea?!
Personally the biggest win for actual hardware is that it's just more fun to play and use. I've tried various music apps for mobile/tablets and while it's fun for some minutes, that's pretty much it. But then I feel the same with DAWs, it's just not as fun as playing with an hardware drum machine + synth + sampler all hooked together.
No joke? I was sure it was a hardware issue, but guess I should give that a look, still have my Blofeld around here somewhere, thanks for sharing the "news" :)
> love the detentless encoders
I have no issues with them being detentless, makes a lot of sense. What I do have issues with, is using the smoothest material they could find for the knobs instead of something you can "grip", sometimes it just slipped between my fingers when trying to turn them, unless I make my fingers slightly humid first.
I get why you dislike the knobs, but they don't bother me. Many dislike them and I have seen various fixes like shrink tubing, tape and rubber bands as well as just replacing them. I just learned to pinch the knob a little tighter. Skipping their traditional coating on the knobs was probably one of the corners they cut to get the price down while keeping the same quality overall.
What complications do you run into outside of garage band, or you imagine you would run into?
I have at various points in my life used Garage Band, Logic, or various Linux software.
1. Mac Core Audio (Works out of box)
2. Windows ASIO (ASIO4ALL or just plugin a Scarlett/MOTU audio interface)
3. Linux Pipewire
And it doesn't hurt that when need more power/features you can upgrade to its big brother Logic Pro X which offers a very similar interface.
Alchemy in GarageBand has many presets with adjustable filter envelopes (sometimes multiple) and volume envelopes, so it can work as a subtractive synth stand-in. However since it's based on Alchemy Player you don't seem to get the full patch creation power of Alchemy in Logic Pro.
GarageBand's "synth" (named) presets that I've tried appear to be subtractive, and sound great, but seem to limit user controls to filter cutoff and a single envelope for both volume and filter (possibly with configurable envelope amount). Some presets have slightly different controls though (for example an FM amount.)
Fortunately there are lots of great AUs, including free ones, for traditional virtual analog subtractive synthesis (and FM, and everything else.)
And something like VCVRack is heaven to learn, experiment and understand what one can do with synthesis, step by step.
Now that I understand most of it, I am really considering buying a ARP 2600 replica.
So yes, the switch from software to hardware comes with time. But, at least for me, the first step is cheap apps on my already-owned tablet.
Small comments/interrogations regarding hardware vs software in this post:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45235398
May be you have some opinion regarding these.
I mean, it's terrific to have an affordable replica, especially for discovery, I'm not debating the price-point advantage (for both acquisition and maintenance), but this is not an on-par replacement.
In an analog (less so in digital, but still somehow) synth, the controls are the instrument itself: they are in a specific place, react in a specific way, and physically part of the device that outputs the sound, and they stay there: you cannot move one without the other. The instrument has its own character. It's still more abstract than a classical instrument like the violin or the piano where the physical action alone is done and felt in real time, of course. It's significantly more incarnated than software + generic (in a good way) controllers.
The good side of this is that after having software replicas or original synthetisers, there's room to build new exciting embodiments/physical instruments.
Experiences vary but sliding a slider on a screen is worth the benefits.
Conversely, the likelihood of making it big just by making some good damn music was never lower than it is now. Makes for a fine hobby though.
Is that statement backed by any facts? Otherwise it sounds like a soundbite that sounds good, but I'm not sure how true it is. Maybe what "making it big" has changed more compared to how many people make their living making music, which for me would be enough to be considered "making it big".
[but when you simply ignore the marketing , and are a bit picky in your choices, the current offer is 10000% more qualitative than it has ever been. And BIG THINGS happen behind the curtain of mass marketing]
I believe so: in an aging softsynth community I still mingle with occasionally, everybody who is still actively involved with music seems to have either moved on to genAI, or to soft-on-Rpi for better integration with real instruments (including synths of all kinds).
https://www.arturia.com/products/hardware-synths/astrolab/as...
This is without even referencing the huge cross-pollination and massive influx of development in the Modular Synthesis scene spurred on by things like vcv rack and its EuroRack ports.
In short, it has never been a better time in history to be a hardware synth enthusiast, and it's mainly down to soft-synths popularising the unique sonic qualities of historic hardware synths.
Disappeared from where? In terms of units moved I'm guessing there's an order of magnitude more sold today than in the 90's or 80's.
The beauty of a hobby is that you do it for yourself, not for others.
So even in a (terrible) world where 100% of commercial music was AI-composed, someone's hobby of writing music by hand would likely remain unaffected.
Pretty well, I believe. The joy of playing is largely the act itself, becoming one with your instrument and stepping into a world outside of time. Composition is an adjacent pastime.
Do iDevices not support hardware (USB) MIDI?
It's also not entirely uncommon for an App Store synth to offer both an iOS and a native Mac version so always check the store description to see if its universal. The ability to seamlessly bring your tracks over to a more full-fledged DAW on your Mac is really nice.
Example: Minimoog Model D Synthesizer
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/minimoog-model-d-synthesizer/i...
It's not just iOS.
Zynthian and Monome provide an AMAZING ecosystem for audio exploration. If you haven't checked that out as well, here's the links:
https://monome.org
https://zynthian.org
That said - I could easily just get another iPad, throw away the room full of synths, wire up my iPads and the Zynthian and Monome systems, and be quite satisfied.
*Based on what I read. Sadly, I don't own these devices.
That being said, the M8 workflow isn't all that bad, but it's definitely less visual than most other DAWs.
https://www.w3.org/TR/audio-eq-cookbook/
By chaining various combinations of EQ and non-linear distortion (lots of ways to implement this, probably involving more FMAs) and you can build very good simulations of common analog synth signal paths.
Note that gsliepen's example sample rate of 96 kHz is perfectly reasonable in this context; it's more than you need to exceed the limits of human hearing, but it's common to oversample your signal for processing to avoid problems with aliasing.
A synthesizer is a device that generates (synthesizes) sound. This is done using electronic circuits. There are many many many many different ways to create sound using electronic circuits, hence the many different types of synths on the market. These days however, we see more and more synthesizers using digital circuits or even embedded software to generate sound. It has reached a point where it's possible to take the firmware of a (very expensive) "hardware" synthesizer, run it on your computer inside an emulator and get exactly the same sound out of it. Heck, some commercial synths (Korg) are these days nothing more than a box with knobs and a raspberry pi, running their commercial synth plugin software.
The "piano keyboard" in your mental model is merely the controller - the device that generates the instructions on what note the synth must play. Piano keyboards are not the only type of control mechanism available to use. For every type of instrument out there, there probably is a controller version of that instrument, e.g. https://www.akaipro.com/ewi-usb
As a musical instrument it is closest in function and mode of operation to the singing human voice and nothing at all like a piano.
Lots of synths spent their whole lives never connected to a keyboard, but might live in rack mounts and be driven by sequencers or DAWs.
Literally the Swiss army knife of audio/synth hacking.
Do you think that making a VST is a realistic alternative to the linked instruments in the submission article? I'm guessing they're building hardware because they want something physical, it's pretty self-evident isn't it?
The precise and exact sound is less interesting, how you're able to conjure it at just the right moment and with precise controls tend to be more interesting for me personally.
(Only a very tiny minority of people want to record music. Music is mostly a realtime experience.)
So if you already have a VST, but you also have customers asking for actual hardware, why not slap your existing VST onto a Pi, and ship your "hardware" synth with this Pi inside? You end up supporting one software product across both lines.
And you're absolutely right about the documentation.
(Still have memories of trying to find the usb port that didn't introduce noise in my usb creative thingy...)
For things like the Korg synths which use the raspberry pi, they added their own DAC's too.
Now, processors are so fast and cheap, that the need for dsp is way down. I personally ported the firmware for a popular pedal where the chip used was no longer available at quantity, and while it was tricky to get the same performance on a dual core 240mhz processor with floating point coprocessor, as the 96Mhz processor it was replacing, I just had so much compute, that I was able to port all but the gnarliest simultaneous effects on a chip that cost $6 cheaper but also came with enough ram to not need that $3 component either. And I can tell you, saving $9 dollars off a BOM means the product can retail at least $50 cheaper in an industry where volume matters a lot (no pun intended).
We have passed the inflection point where dsp chips are generally not worth the cost in most audio equipment. I’m not sure I’d use a raspberry pi, their reliability is not what I’d want in my products, but a similar single board computer? maybe. I’m not sure where linux realtime kernals are at the moment, ignoring the added complexity of a full linux running to process audio, audio requires hard deadlines. You will hear pops and other artifacts if you miss these deadlines, and buffering audio is also not something you can do for long, artists can feel delays in the ms. But, a single board computer running at ghz speed, gives an awful lot of compute so long as the OS can gaurantee your audio thread won’t get starved.
I work in the field and clunky, shit software is the norm. In particular, radiology information systems (RIS) just kill me. How are they so crap?
1. Accurately dose the required ingredients based on a setting selected.
2. Do so in a repeatable manner. 5mg is microscopic and likely well beyond the margin of error for a small dose pump. So you'll need to get creative in how you manage your product dosages. Perhaps a "reel" of pre-measured 1mg doses? You say it's not for Nicotine, so I assume it's for harder drugs. What will the risk of a double digit % overshoot be?
3. Be small enough to fit into a handheld vape module.
Note that using RPi is not all sunshine and roses. There were times that compute modules were extremely hard to get.
“ Similarly, part of the complexity is in making an enclosure with appropriate controls and displays.”
lol
People also use this to make unique pedals.
[0]: https://rnbo.cycling74.com/
https://github.com/seclorum/simdsynth
Its an 8-voice polyphonic synth with 1 oscillator per voice, a filter, an LFO, and EG's for the Osc and Filter.
I've been extremely happy with the performance I'm getting, running on the Raspberry Pi - in both Monome and Zynthian systems!
Monome and Zynthian are both game-changers for FOSS audio hackers. I have both running side by side and they are just a pure inspiration for audio exploration. It's very rewarding also, to be able to put my own code alongside all the other great stuff from both communities.
https://shop.zynthian.org/
https://github.com/probonopd/MiniDexed
https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi
You can use the Pi 2/3/3a/Zero 2 to build things like an mt32 or DX7 emulator almost trivially, and they make for great DAWless modules.
Any Raspberry Pi, even the Pico, must be orders of magnitude more powerful than that old AVR and easier to program too. A lofi groovebox made from a Pico with a few knobs and buttons attached sounds like a fun project someone probably already made.
I mention this to make a point: you can't transform synths just by running some generic DSP code on a Pi and putting it in a box. Sound processing is also being transformed, and whether it's something like Hydrasynth generating poly aftertouch (but aliasing and not sounding that different from a VST) or Novation Peak/Summit receiving poly aftertouch (not generating :D ) but generating sound using custom hardware, sitting a VST on a Pi isn't going to get you a transformative synth.
Thing is, if you're able to dig into stuff like my DSP codebase that is actively under development AND plunk a VST synth onto a Pi AND do something interesting with the physical controls to direct the synth engine, that's starting to look transformative again. But just knowing about Pi isn't enough, you'll have to have a deep background in soundmaking and the ability to instrument-make in an interesting way.
If you have those things… game on. You can begin work FAR more cheaply than ever before, and that is how the Pi could be transforming synths.
I'm waiting for 24/96 audio hats to be common before I dig into this, even for stompboxes. I'm given to understand Electrosmith Daisy already has this, and that's a similar class of 'system on tiny board' that should be considered an audio Pi-like.