May be it is just my singular stupidity? I tried to install REAPER on pi 400 as described without thinking and got a fail. Tried multiple times and looked for the error in vain. Time passed by and I worked again on this. The crucial point is the pi 400 has another, a new 64 bit processor (not an ARM?) and you cannot longer install the arm 32 bit version of Reaper. This is erroneously shown in the video and I followed this blind. I actally installed the Linux 64 bit version and it works without troubles. I recommend Steinberg to write a remark on this and pin it at the start of the comments!
Thanks for your remark. You're right, "Bullseye" is the standard Linux now and it's 64bit. Some of my videos are pretty outdated now as Open Source is moving fast.
Let me correct that: MOST of my videos are pretty outdated now. I don't want to remove them from RUclips, though, because they're still good to give you an idea / inspiration (hopefully). ;-)
Reaper on raspberry pi is limited but within this limitation is when you can become very creative. There is a synth and a variety of effects available natively in reaper for raspberry pi. Creating your own synth Sounds by manipulating the synth engine on reaper is so much more satisfying than porting over synth V1 or Helm or something. Reaper works with Jack but should also work with ALSA. Thank you Floyd, I love your content!
Thank you! That's exactly how it is. Don't get my antics wrong, in the end of the day, integrating your own webaudio stuff into a DAW is super impressive and just isn't possible on other systems. But as I wrote in my Blog some days ago, I'm trying to be a tiny bit more entertaining from now an, just delivering lines about sysadmin isn't that entertaining in itself. :)
I was thinking of doing the same - I may wait until they make an 8gb 400. I finally got Zynthian working pretty decent but some tweaks needed still. Thanks for all your great vids bro.
Thanks for watching! Reaper is a great DAW, and it's stable and easy on system resources. (Ardour crashed each time I tried to load a synth plugin - I think that's a problem specific to the RasPi version and perhaps the plugin's fault).
Great video! I've watched it so many times I have your song on my brain! Many thanks, I feel that I will be able to hear something emanating from my Pi soon.
@@mr_floydst" DEWIT."? Acronym? Dutch garden tools? I'm feeling very old and a little stupid! I will thank you for making the video entertaining, do you have Patreon?
The illustrating song is cool, and also all your songs in your albums. Very gooood. You could make more promotion by using as illustration. The instruments, the movements, the creativity, the singing (AI and your voice). Alltogether pleasure to listen to
I've been using Reaper in Linux for a few months. The a2jmidi tool shouldn't be needed, and Jack typically isn't necessary either. PulseAudio can generally be thrown in a trash bin... I have it blacklisted to ensure it will never be installed. Instead, I've been using Reaper directly with ALSA, the underlying sound system. The only external tool it needed was something to connect virtual midi devices together. This could be qjackctl (using the alsa tab), or anything else with similar features. In my case, I'm using a daemon I made myself for other purposes... it auto-connects things and remaps notes for easier improvisation during songs. The issues I ran into when trying to do this sort of thing on a Raspberry Pi were: - The rpi kernel would drop roughly 1% of the note-off events from my Keystep, so notes would randomly get stuck. This is specific to the rpi kernel. I saw no problems with other devices either... just the Keystep. - The rpi kernel had (maybe still has) a limit of 7 usb-midi devices, and I wanted to have more instruments plugged in. - RPI onboard audio is unusable for quality reasons, so it needs a sound card or audio interface. The downside of not using Jack is that you wouldn't be able to connect soft synths or a browser-based reverb. This isn't a problem for me since I'm only using hardware sound sources and Reaper's built-in effects... but it is still a big factor to consider. So now I'm using Reaper in Linux on an old notebook. It works nicely, and lacks the rpi-specific problems. The main remaining issue I've had is that Reaper doesn't name its alsa midi devices... so they're simply numbered. This can make auto-connection a little tricky since the number can change from one day to the next. Also, it only has one input and one output device, so it can only handle 16 channels worth of midi data at a time and the user can't leave every instrument on channel 1. I haven't found this to be a problem, but it'd be nice to be able to create additional endpoints.
Hi, thanks for watching and for your detailed feedback. I agree, it's a totally different story on X86. Despite banging my head onto the piano in this video, I think Reaper+Pi are a perfect match due to reaper's small footprint on system resources. For sequencing external gear (or MIDI processing) it's a flexible, portable solution. And while I rolled my eyes at the various audio demons linux can use, setting up an "audio pipe" to the browser was quite cool. :-) Best regards!
A2JMidi, that's something to try! But has you managed to make use of the Gpio pins also for raw midi data out? It would be superneat... it would take 330k to the square years for me to figure it out tho, but this is the best video on the Pi400 and DAWS out there!! Kudos!!! (The PiAmiga is also very cool, but it's not about music...yet...)
Hi, thanks for watching! Doing that does not seem too hard, there are some tutorials out there... I could make my own video, though. One can't get too specific. ;-)
Do you feel any latency? And, have you tried any USB audio interfaces (something like those Focusrite ones). And, was your MIDI keyboard connected over USB? Worked out of the box? Thanks for the experiments and sharing!
Thanks for watching! I didn't notice latency, but then again I'm not the fastest player in the world, uhm. You can tweak the JACK settings to get lower latency, just like you can do on Windows. Yes, standard USB MIDI devices will work without any problems, and yes, standard USB audio interfaces will work right away, too.
Possible next video: Is the latency ok for live tracking? What if I wanted to use it as a compact ampsim or mixer/recorder for live purposes? It'll require an interface pcb or at the very least an existing usb interface (for which there won't be drivers, i assume....)
Hi, thanks for watching! I should really do an update on the current BullsEye 64bit - this was a big step forward for Reaper on the PI (plus, I talked about more stuff since I made this video - and some of the info is obsolete by now)
@@mr_floydst I’m only new to your channel so haven’t gone through backlog or know so much. Overall, the videos are awesomely informative, i just commented on that side of the tech as it’s what I’m interested in 😁
@@barticasun Oh, pardon, I thought I answered this! The song is here: floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/shelter I guess you'll like some of the other songs, too, then, e.g. floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/marooned :-)
Thanks for watching! There are some great DAWs on Linux / the PI. Reaper might get there sooner than we think (once they add plugin support, that is). Thanks for your suggestion, I will take a look at it.
It's pretty normal to run jack and a2jmidid because of the great, flexible routing. This is not a workaround; it's this way by design because of the forcibly it offers. There are some great LADSPA and LV2 plugins for synths and effects. Most synth packages can be used as plugins or stand alone packages and the stand alone versions can be rooted to multiple destinations (both audio and MIDI) using Jack.
@@davidpetersonharvey Please don't mistake my antics in the video for disregard - they're there to make you watch the video longer ;-) Routing your DAW into a browser and then back is super cool. It's up to the creators of Distributions to make life easier for musicians, Raspbian is not focused on that, but on the DIY stuff. That's ok.
@@mr_floydst thanks for the reply and the video. I need to get a Pi 4. I couldn't even run samplev1 on the 3+ because it would not steal after 3 voices and have all kinds of glitches. On my regular computer, I'm running Ubunto studio and Ardour is my DAW. I love Reaoer on Windows but my workflow is pretty worthless in Ardour at this point. Peace,.
Linux has a real issue with its multiple sound systems. The problem has been going on for years, and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. Still - you got there despite that. Well done!
Yes. Stuff like this always happens due to politics and power struggle - I hope they'll settle down on a standard some day. All of Linux' audio systems are flexible and powerful, but how many people really need to send audio to another machine over the network? ;-)
@@GertBoers Interesting! But this will only succeed if a majority of developers support that. That diversity has always been Linux' strength and weakness at the same time. It's a miracle there is only one kernel... oh wait... :-)
Nice video. I don't use a DAW, well, didn't. Recently I've dipped my toes in Ardour and LMMS. Would love to see you checking those two out on the Pi. :)
Hi Gert, thanks for watching! While preparing this video, I installed both of them. LMMS is a stable, simple to use and feature-rich DAW, even on the PI. The built-in synths and effects are quite good! The user interface is a bit outdated and way too small for big screens, though. Ardour seems to be more modern, but also much too complicated for even the simplest things like recording some notes. Also, it crashed several times while trying to use a plugin synth. I gave up on that.
You can solve all the audio stuff of jack and alsa by installing pipewire. It implements both alsa and jack and for someone using linux for years simplified a lot.
Thanks for doing all the things I’m dreaming about :) If you compare this to running a vst host on a pc stick, which will render the best sound quality and lowest latency?
Thanks for watching! Before filming this, I tried all the realtime kernel systems and even tried to compile my own. Seems on the PI 400, the realtime kernel doesn't work (yet) due to missing drivers (or something). On the PI4, that's no problem, you can easily run dedicated distributions like Zynthian or Patchbox OS, but overall, I think you're better served with a small PC and Microsofts' "no latency" audio driver added to Windows 10 some time ago (Peter Brown sometimes watches my videos and perhaps will be delighted to read this) ;-)
I use alsa with Reaper. But then I only use it for audio really. When I do use midi, I go via Carla. There's no doubt that JACK is superior, but I had so many issues with it, I just gave up. 9/10 I will log into Windows if I want a soft synth, record it there and export the audio to use when I go back into Linux. Though I am using a PC not a PI. Still this was very interesting and I like the comedy!
Thanks! Well, I went into this without prior knowledge and this isn't meant to be a "this is how it's done" tutorial, but rather a documentation of my own way of removing the roadblocks. The Pi's ARM CPU can't run X86 code, so a lot of options available on PC aren't at your disposal on the PI.
That propably would work, but I forgot about it when doing this video. :-) Now that you mentioned it, I remember coming up with aconnect in another video I did, haha. Oh well. All in all, this shouldn't be necessary just to record some notes. The audio situation on Linux is... complicated.
a2jmidid is the repository name. sudo apt-get install a2jnidid is the command to install I believe, then simply run a2jmidid in Terminal after starting jack.
Thanks for pointing that out. I think using the repository GUI is easier for people who are not into Linux (for example, hobby musicians). So I try to avoid the shell whenever possible.
Happy new year to you too! I've been messing around trying to turn my pi into a headless vst host, but not much luck and synthv1 is much easier. I'd love a video on patchbox OS and Orac on the pi if you've had a chance to play with that?
Thanks for watching! I'm afraid that's not possible - Linux _can_ run VST plugins wrapped in an emulation layer on X86/X64 PCs. But as the RasPi is using an ARM chipset, the VST plugins won't work. You can use one of the 2 other DAW: LMMS or Arduor. (LMMS has a tiny,tiny UI, but it's more stable and comes with a lot of good-sounding and useful plugins. Ardour crashed everytime I tried to load a soft synth)
BTW I did videos on Zynthian and Patchbox OS. There's a playlist with all my PI stuff: ruclips.net/video/ae5TYhnhp3w/видео.html Patchbox OS is the one comparing the PI to the ZOOM pedal.
@@mr_floydst they are indeed, used since 07! I thought you might try reaverb or reverberate when mentioning reverb. Lv2 plugin support is coming btw, which will help linux builds.
I had a gew headaches on pi4. mostly because I was impatient and didnt spend time reading about it. I did try it on linux computer ;ater and its good for me. did the js plugins not work? there is plenty of tools in there including decent reverbs, delays, eq's etc. even the plain old synth can be made to sound good (thanks kenny gioia for showing how simple can be layered into great). sws extensions, reapack, sitala , helm etc cover a lot of ground. there is also a midi bridge for vsts into wine but I have most of what I want from reaper and their recommended basics. so havent really tried them and not on a pi4. cheers and thanks for posting
Hi, thanks for watching! In these videos, I'm just capturing my own progress in "the field" and some ideas I have along the way ;-) Please don't mistake my sarcastic tone for disresptect. My main goal here was to show you can pipe the sound from your DAW to whatever you like, for example a web browser. Needless to say that is totally awesome and can't be done in any other OS ;-)
I would have loved to hear that 'chord' at the beginning; sometimes you come up with the nicest sounds by just dropping your hands (or head) onto the keys... (oh) just realized you played it mid way... kind of sounds Herbie Hancock-ish...
thank you Floid happy new year for you too good luck and health so that your dreams come true .... tell me the voice is in the song Vocaloid if so I would be happy to see a vocaloid tutorial from you because the voice sounds nice :)
Hi, thanks for watching! It's not Vocaloid, but EMVoice (you can download a free trial of one octave both male & female). Funny thing is, we're so used to actual artists using effects on their voice that this robot voice comes across as relatively authentic. (If you listen closely, even the breathing noises are in the right places)
I think my comments disappeared. Is this song on any streaming platforms? The vocal melody has been stuck in my head all day. I need to have this song on my phone!!!!
Just found you on Apple Music, this song is crazy with the 80's guitar (it's so tasteful and minimal which is perfect). Well done! Your vocalist is amazing too, esp loved the reverse vocals part.
Thank you very much for your kind words, this means a lot to me. I see you already found it yourself. There's also a video ruclips.net/video/jGjU2thmE_U/видео.html and Bandcamp floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/shelter On my RUclips home there's a playlist where I listed my musical output best to worst, haha. Best regards!
Thanks for watching, once again. Some things about Linux' general design really makes me scratch my head. There are 4 different sound systems, and most of the time, you need to run at least 2 of them, and a gazillion desktops to choose from, but not one of them is _really_ good. This is the result of "anyone can do anything and no one ever decides in which direction to go". :-)
Is reaper any good? I keep hearing about it... I use Ableton, but I don't want to upgrade and I really only use it as sequencer for external gear, vst host, and to time stretch samples... Can reaper do all that? What's the learning curve for someone coming from Ableton? I don't need to run it on Linux, I'm just open to trying a different DAW on win 10
I never used Ableton, but the approach to sequencing is very different as far as I've heard. Reaper is more like Cubase in its workflow. Timestretching is one of the things Reaper does very well.
@@mr_floydst wow. That's a surprise to me given your pedigree. I thought all synth tubers at least had a passing knowledge of Ableton (no disrespect, it's not everyone's cup of tea). I have used many sequencers in my day, starting with Amiga trackers in the 80s, and never really enjoyed arranging with Ableton (Cakewalk was nice for thst) so Reaper seems worth a shot given it's free to try
@@dyscotopia There's so many things I never tried, and same for you I guess ;-) I grew up with Cubase on the Atari and later used it on PC but then switched to Reaper because all the people on our Discord server use that, so it's easier to collaborate on tracks together.
Hi, thanks for watching! Yes, it's my music. I'm planning to release the full version this or next week here... And that will include some guest artists from the Netherlands, if everything works out as intended - I've already got a super awesome guitar track but negotiating to get a real vocal track, too. :) In this video, it's not a real singer, but a plugin (EMVoice Lucy). But I think it sounds pretty convincing, the expression is really good and even the breathing noises are where they are supposed to be.
I'm not sure if I understood your question correctly - I wrote this song, and the vocals were pre-recorded and just added on top of the synth tracks. The song is here floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/shelter . If you want to have the vocals as seperates, I'll have to search my archive ;)
@@mr_floydst than congratulation for the lyrics and music. I am sure i cannot write better music to this nice singing, but generally the biggest nice compoment is a voice, which is hard to get. So a general request if you would enable your audience to follow your teaching to propose a voice stem to use.
In the latest release of Raspbian and Reaper, you don't need to do all of the hoola-hoop shown in this video. Try installing Reaper only, then go to it's audio settings and select e.g. Pulse Audio as audio driver. That should work, though you'll get horrible latency. Just try some of the audio systems on offer there, one will work eventually. ;-)
@@mr_floydst it doesnt work, Ive tried on a 3b and a 4 rpi, it says it cannot open my midi device and no sound comes out. At least with jack midi is comming to Reaper. I guess it has something to do with pulseaudio being non stopped while launching jackd server. I am using no audio interface just attempting to use 3.5 mm as sound playback do you think that could be the problem?
Hi! The last time I tried, it didn't work - the R24 didn't show up as an audio device. Perhaps things have changed (it's been more than a year since I tried). I'll try it once I have time and come back to you. :-)
Hi, thanks for watching! For the moment, I'm just using Raspbian. (Not much time to spare at the moment to try new things). I'll post a video update once I found out something interesting to share, though. :) Do you have any suggestions what I should try?
It's easier when using LMMS, but there are enough videos on that topic out there. :-) Reaper is fairly popular in the Windows world, for good reason: it's small and stable and has some really useful capabilities.
Thanks for watching! I think it's easier to just use LMMS. Though Reaper is more suited for the RasPi thanks to it's small footprint, but the lack of native plugin support is a show-stopper, unfortunately.
@@mr_floydst if you have plugin availability issues you can use Carla (a Host) for some Win or MAC OS plugins hosting! on KX repositories, they have some plugins too, also the new update of Raspberry Pi OS that uses PulseAudio instead of ALSA finally x'd Ubuntu Mate has a nice 64-bit use of the Pi and support, watched a video about setting it for the Pi seems good if you wanna go on with your proyect :)
Thanks for watching! I can do that some time in the future, if that's what you mean. And of course, there are other (easier) options on Linux/RasPi: LMMS, for example. But I chose to use Reaper for this video specifically. :-)
Thanks for watching! No, this is running an ARM processor, which isn't compatible with X86/Intel. It's possible to run a virtual machine and then install Windows on it, but I guess doing so would not be optimal.
You might want to consult the Linux Musicians Forum (linuxmusicians.com) next time instead of Googling for 220 years, ha ha. ;-) P.S. PulseAudio and Jack are two flavors of audio servers and are not really meant to be used together. Musicians use Jack (and hate PA with a passion), general users use PA.
Thanks for watching! I know that forum. Please don't mistake my snarky tone for real disregard for open source software. In fact, piping the audio through a browser is a very impressive thing I really wanted to show in a video. I know there are a lot of actual VST plugins around (which I talked about in later videos). Best regards!
@@mr_floydst Ha ha, I know that you like Linux. But, like you discovered, it can have a steep learning curve. Nowadays less so than in the past, but making music on Linux is pretty incomprehensible. Especially if a DAW does not fully support Jack and needs a pipe to and from Alsa for it (brrrrrrr, Reaper). And don't get me started on VST's, there's: - Linux VST - Windows VST - Apple Macintosh VST - 32 bit versus 64 bit (the former don't work in Windows no more) - VST version 2.4 and ver. 3 And then you have Linux audio plugins (i.e. VST alternatives): LADSPA and LV2. Pfffffffff.... No wonder there's a separate Linux Musicians Forum! ;-)
Thanks for watching! Uhm, well, this video was targeted at viewers who watched me struggling with Linux and the PI since last year, so I fast forwarded on some of the things I already explained earlier. :) If you like the track, I posted the full version (with wicked guitar parts) here: ruclips.net/video/jGjU2thmE_U/видео.html
Thanks for watching! I agree, though it's up to the creators of distributions to simplify these things for the users. Raspberry PI is a machine for people who enjoy solving computer problems, so this video is not representative on Linux in general. :-)
May be it is just my singular stupidity? I tried to install REAPER on pi 400 as described without thinking and got a fail. Tried multiple times and looked for the error in vain. Time passed by and I worked again on this. The crucial point is the pi 400 has another, a new 64 bit processor (not an ARM?) and you cannot longer install the arm 32 bit version of Reaper. This is erroneously shown in the video and I followed this blind. I actally installed the Linux 64 bit version and it works without troubles.
I recommend Steinberg to write a remark on this and pin it at the start of the comments!
Thanks for your remark. You're right, "Bullseye" is the standard Linux now and it's 64bit. Some of my videos are pretty outdated now as Open Source is moving fast.
Let me correct that: MOST of my videos are pretty outdated now. I don't want to remove them from RUclips, though, because they're still good to give you an idea / inspiration (hopefully). ;-)
Thank you once again for paving the way for us to follow. Appreciate your efforts, Floyd.
Thanks for watching! :-)
Reaper on raspberry pi is limited but within this limitation is when you can become very creative. There is a synth and a variety of effects available natively in reaper for raspberry pi. Creating your own synth Sounds by manipulating the synth engine on reaper is so much more satisfying than porting over synth V1 or Helm or something. Reaper works with Jack but should also work with ALSA. Thank you Floyd, I love your content!
Thank you! That's exactly how it is. Don't get my antics wrong, in the end of the day, integrating your own webaudio stuff into a DAW is super impressive and just isn't possible on other systems. But as I wrote in my Blog some days ago, I'm trying to be a tiny bit more entertaining from now an, just delivering lines about sysadmin isn't that entertaining in itself. :)
@@mr_floydst you're doing a great job! Funny and just the topics I like.
Also i propose to try lmms+audacity+ built-in effects or sf2 instruments, that runs also on pi zero, although limited by cpu
I was thinking of doing the same - I may wait until they make an 8gb 400. I finally got Zynthian working pretty decent but some tweaks needed still. Thanks for all your great vids bro.
Thanks for watching!
why not use an 8GB pi4?
@@mr_floydst Well done. Cool plugin too
Thanks!
It's great to see an update in a RPi DAW reference
Thanks for watching! Reaper is a great DAW, and it's stable and easy on system resources. (Ardour crashed each time I tried to load a synth plugin - I think that's a problem specific to the RasPi version and perhaps the plugin's fault).
@@mr_floydst What about Milky Tracker?
@@JuliusLC I never used it, but it runs in PI without problems.
Great video! I've watched it so many times I have your song on my brain! Many thanks, I feel that I will be able to hear something emanating from my Pi soon.
Thanks for watching! The PI 400 is quite capable, actually.
BTW the finished song is here floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/shelter ;-)
Beware! I've been imagining the punk version of your song in my mind today!
DEWIT :)
@@mr_floydst" DEWIT."? Acronym? Dutch garden tools? I'm feeling very old and a little stupid! I will thank you for making the video entertaining, do you have Patreon?
@@Marcus011265 Thank you very much ;-)
"DO IT!" ;-) - an answer to your idea to create a punk rock version of that track. ;-) :-) :-)
Oh sweet I just got the PI4 400 (for retro gaming) will have a go at this :) thanks
Thanks for watching and good luck with that! :)
@@mr_floydst I'll start of doing the VST host thing 1st ;)
The illustrating song is cool, and also all your songs in your albums. Very gooood. You could make more promotion by using as illustration. The instruments, the movements, the creativity, the singing (AI and your voice). Alltogether pleasure to listen to
Thanks
I've been using Reaper in Linux for a few months. The a2jmidi tool shouldn't be needed, and Jack typically isn't necessary either. PulseAudio can generally be thrown in a trash bin... I have it blacklisted to ensure it will never be installed. Instead, I've been using Reaper directly with ALSA, the underlying sound system.
The only external tool it needed was something to connect virtual midi devices together. This could be qjackctl (using the alsa tab), or anything else with similar features. In my case, I'm using a daemon I made myself for other purposes... it auto-connects things and remaps notes for easier improvisation during songs.
The issues I ran into when trying to do this sort of thing on a Raspberry Pi were:
- The rpi kernel would drop roughly 1% of the note-off events from my Keystep, so notes would randomly get stuck. This is specific to the rpi kernel. I saw no problems with other devices either... just the Keystep.
- The rpi kernel had (maybe still has) a limit of 7 usb-midi devices, and I wanted to have more instruments plugged in.
- RPI onboard audio is unusable for quality reasons, so it needs a sound card or audio interface.
The downside of not using Jack is that you wouldn't be able to connect soft synths or a browser-based reverb. This isn't a problem for me since I'm only using hardware sound sources and Reaper's built-in effects... but it is still a big factor to consider.
So now I'm using Reaper in Linux on an old notebook. It works nicely, and lacks the rpi-specific problems.
The main remaining issue I've had is that Reaper doesn't name its alsa midi devices... so they're simply numbered. This can make auto-connection a little tricky since the number can change from one day to the next. Also, it only has one input and one output device, so it can only handle 16 channels worth of midi data at a time and the user can't leave every instrument on channel 1. I haven't found this to be a problem, but it'd be nice to be able to create additional endpoints.
Hi, thanks for watching and for your detailed feedback. I agree, it's a totally different story on X86.
Despite banging my head onto the piano in this video, I think Reaper+Pi are a perfect match due to reaper's small footprint on system resources. For sequencing external gear (or MIDI processing) it's a flexible, portable solution. And while I rolled my eyes at the various audio demons linux can use, setting up an "audio pipe" to the browser was quite cool. :-) Best regards!
A2JMidi, that's something to try! But has you managed to make use of the Gpio pins also for raw midi data out? It would be superneat... it would take 330k to the square years for me to figure it out tho, but this is the best video on the Pi400 and DAWS out there!! Kudos!!! (The PiAmiga is also very cool, but it's not about music...yet...)
Hi, thanks for watching! Doing that does not seem too hard, there are some tutorials out there... I could make my own video, though. One can't get too specific. ;-)
Do you feel any latency? And, have you tried any USB audio interfaces (something like those Focusrite ones). And, was your MIDI keyboard connected over USB? Worked out of the box? Thanks for the experiments and sharing!
Thanks for watching! I didn't notice latency, but then again I'm not the fastest player in the world, uhm.
You can tweak the JACK settings to get lower latency, just like you can do on Windows.
Yes, standard USB MIDI devices will work without any problems, and yes, standard USB audio interfaces will work right away, too.
Possible next video:
Is the latency ok for live tracking? What if I wanted to use it as a compact ampsim or mixer/recorder for live purposes? It'll require an interface pcb or at the very least an existing usb interface (for which there won't be drivers, i assume....)
Hi, thanks for watching! I should really do an update on the current BullsEye 64bit - this was a big step forward for Reaper on the PI (plus, I talked about more stuff since I made this video - and some of the info is obsolete by now)
@@mr_floydst I’m only new to your channel so haven’t gone through backlog or know so much. Overall, the videos are awesomely informative, i just commented on that side of the tech as it’s what I’m interested in 😁
Hey pal, is the song available for stream anywhere? The vocal melody has been stuck in my head non stop since I watched this yesterday. I love it.
same here. very atmospheric vibe...not located it thus far :D
@@barticasun Oh, pardon, I thought I answered this! The song is here: floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/shelter
I guess you'll like some of the other songs, too, then, e.g. floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/marooned :-)
@@mr_floydst thanks Floyd much appreciated 😎👍🏻 #1983 #shelter
Whole album released on spotify . Cool
As always a great video.
Thank you!
This is why I settled for Tracktion Waveform on the Pi. It works nicely on Ubuntu Mate without the need for these workarounds.
Thanks for watching! There are some great DAWs on Linux / the PI. Reaper might get there sooner than we think (once they add plugin support, that is). Thanks for your suggestion, I will take a look at it.
It's pretty normal to run jack and a2jmidid because of the great, flexible routing. This is not a workaround; it's this way by design because of the forcibly it offers. There are some great LADSPA and LV2 plugins for synths and effects. Most synth packages can be used as plugins or stand alone packages and the stand alone versions can be rooted to multiple destinations (both audio and MIDI) using Jack.
@@davidpetersonharvey Please don't mistake my antics in the video for disregard - they're there to make you watch the video longer ;-)
Routing your DAW into a browser and then back is super cool.
It's up to the creators of Distributions to make life easier for musicians, Raspbian is not focused on that, but on the DIY stuff. That's ok.
@@mr_floydst thanks for the reply and the video. I need to get a Pi 4. I couldn't even run samplev1 on the 3+ because it would not steal after 3 voices and have all kinds of glitches.
On my regular computer, I'm running Ubunto studio and Ardour is my DAW. I love Reaoer on Windows but my workflow is pretty worthless in Ardour at this point.
Peace,.
Linux has a real issue with its multiple sound systems. The problem has been going on for years, and it doesn't seem to be going away any time soon. Still - you got there despite that. Well done!
Yes. Stuff like this always happens due to politics and power struggle - I hope they'll settle down on a standard some day. All of Linux' audio systems are flexible and powerful, but how many people really need to send audio to another machine over the network? ;-)
They are working on it and trying to tackle it with PipeWire.
@@GertBoers Interesting! But this will only succeed if a majority of developers support that. That diversity has always been Linux' strength and weakness at the same time. It's a miracle there is only one kernel... oh wait... :-)
Nice video. I don't use a DAW, well, didn't. Recently I've dipped my toes in Ardour and LMMS.
Would love to see you checking those two out on the Pi. :)
Hi Gert, thanks for watching! While preparing this video, I installed both of them. LMMS is a stable, simple to use and feature-rich DAW, even on the PI. The built-in synths and effects are quite good! The user interface is a bit outdated and way too small for big screens, though. Ardour seems to be more modern, but also much too complicated for even the simplest things like recording some notes. Also, it crashed several times while trying to use a plugin synth. I gave up on that.
@@mr_floydst Thanks for your reply!
You can solve all the audio stuff of jack and alsa by installing pipewire. It implements both alsa and jack and for someone using linux for years simplified a lot.
Thanks for pointing that out! I'll take a look at that.
Thanks for doing all the things I’m dreaming about :) If you compare this to running a vst host on a pc stick, which will render the best sound quality and lowest latency?
Thanks for watching! Before filming this, I tried all the realtime kernel systems and even tried to compile my own. Seems on the PI 400, the realtime kernel doesn't work (yet) due to missing drivers (or something). On the PI4, that's no problem, you can easily run dedicated distributions like Zynthian or Patchbox OS, but overall, I think you're better served with a small PC and Microsofts' "no latency" audio driver added to Windows 10 some time ago (Peter Brown sometimes watches my videos and perhaps will be delighted to read this) ;-)
I'm really thinking of getting a pc stick too. Perfect for traveling with the mpc
I use alsa with Reaper. But then I only use it for audio really. When I do use midi, I go via Carla. There's no doubt that JACK is superior, but I had so many issues with it, I just gave up. 9/10 I will log into Windows if I want a soft synth, record it there and export the audio to use when I go back into Linux.
Though I am using a PC not a PI.
Still this was very interesting and I like the comedy!
Thanks! Well, I went into this without prior knowledge and this isn't meant to be a "this is how it's done" tutorial, but rather a documentation of my own way of removing the roadblocks. The Pi's ARM CPU can't run X86 code, so a lot of options available on PC aren't at your disposal on the PI.
@@mr_floydst Normally you can use aconnect for midi devices on Alsa. Wasn't that an option? Still impressed by your investigation on using Jack.
That propably would work, but I forgot about it when doing this video. :-) Now that you mentioned it, I remember coming up with aconnect in another video I did, haha. Oh well. All in all, this shouldn't be necessary just to record some notes. The audio situation on Linux is... complicated.
I'd love a 64-bit version of this! Some instructions don't seem to apply to 64-bit bullseye.
Oh right! Bullseye! I need to take a look at that. Thanks for reminding me.
a2jmidid is the repository name. sudo apt-get install a2jnidid is the command to install I believe, then simply run a2jmidid in Terminal after starting jack.
Thanks for pointing that out. I think using the repository GUI is easier for people who are not into Linux (for example, hobby musicians). So I try to avoid the shell whenever possible.
Happy new year to you too! I've been messing around trying to turn my pi into a headless vst host, but not much luck and synthv1 is much easier. I'd love a video on patchbox OS and Orac on the pi if you've had a chance to play with that?
Thanks for watching! I'm afraid that's not possible - Linux _can_ run VST plugins wrapped in an emulation layer on X86/X64 PCs. But as the RasPi is using an ARM chipset, the VST plugins won't work. You can use one of the 2 other DAW: LMMS or Arduor. (LMMS has a tiny,tiny UI, but it's more stable and comes with a lot of good-sounding and useful plugins. Ardour crashed everytime I tried to load a soft synth)
BTW I did videos on Zynthian and Patchbox OS. There's a playlist with all my PI stuff: ruclips.net/video/ae5TYhnhp3w/видео.html Patchbox OS is the one comparing the PI to the ZOOM pedal.
Great, cheers! Missed the zoom video, will give it a watch!
The reaper reaplugs should be available for use..
Thanks for watching! They are. And they're quite good! My goal for this video was to find a way to use other soft synths, though. ;-)
@@mr_floydst they are indeed, used since 07! I thought you might try reaverb or reverberate when mentioning reverb.
Lv2 plugin support is coming btw, which will help linux builds.
I had a gew headaches on pi4. mostly because I was impatient and didnt spend time reading about it. I did try it on linux computer ;ater and its good for me.
did the js plugins not work?
there is plenty of tools in there including decent reverbs, delays, eq's etc.
even the plain old synth can be made to sound good (thanks kenny gioia for showing how simple can be layered into great).
sws extensions, reapack, sitala , helm etc cover a lot of ground.
there is also a midi bridge for vsts into wine but I have most of what I want from reaper and their recommended basics.
so havent really tried them and not on a pi4.
cheers and thanks for posting
Hi, thanks for watching!
In these videos, I'm just capturing my own progress in "the field" and some ideas I have along the way ;-)
Please don't mistake my sarcastic tone for disresptect. My main goal here was to show you can pipe the sound from your DAW to whatever you like, for example a web browser. Needless to say that is totally awesome and can't be done in any other OS ;-)
@@mr_floydst I like your sense of humour and very much agree with you.
it is all good.
I also liked the dexed touch. brilliant stuff.
thanks again
The song from the end of this video is here floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/shelter
or on RUclips: ruclips.net/video/jGjU2thmE_U/видео.html
I would have loved to hear that 'chord' at the beginning; sometimes you come up with the nicest sounds by just dropping your hands (or head) onto the keys...
(oh) just realized you played it mid way... kind of sounds Herbie Hancock-ish...
Jamming this way could cause some severe headaches for both you and your audience. Not recommended. ;-)
thank you Floid happy new year for you too good luck and health so that your dreams come true .... tell me the voice is in the song Vocaloid if so I would be happy to see a vocaloid tutorial from you because the voice sounds nice :)
Hi, thanks for watching! It's not Vocaloid, but EMVoice (you can download a free trial of one octave both male & female). Funny thing is, we're so used to actual artists using effects on their voice that this robot voice comes across as relatively authentic. (If you listen closely, even the breathing noises are in the right places)
oh cool, you got PI400 !!!!!! Floyd, are you able to try "Matrix Piano" on it ???
Of course. I'll report back to you. :-)
I think my comments disappeared. Is this song on any streaming platforms? The vocal melody has been stuck in my head all day. I need to have this song on my phone!!!!
Just found you on Apple Music, this song is crazy with the 80's guitar (it's so tasteful and minimal which is perfect). Well done! Your vocalist is amazing too, esp loved the reverse vocals part.
Thank you very much for your kind words, this means a lot to me. I see you already found it yourself. There's also a video ruclips.net/video/jGjU2thmE_U/видео.html and Bandcamp floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/shelter
On my RUclips home there's a playlist where I listed my musical output best to worst, haha. Best regards!
lol! yes, that's the linux adventures :-D thx for this video !
Thanks for watching, once again. Some things about Linux' general design really makes me scratch my head. There are 4 different sound systems, and most of the time, you need to run at least 2 of them, and a gazillion desktops to choose from, but not one of them is _really_ good. This is the result of "anyone can do anything and no one ever decides in which direction to go". :-)
Is reaper any good? I keep hearing about it... I use Ableton, but I don't want to upgrade and I really only use it as sequencer for external gear, vst host, and to time stretch samples... Can reaper do all that? What's the learning curve for someone coming from Ableton?
I don't need to run it on Linux, I'm just open to trying a different DAW on win 10
I never used Ableton, but the approach to sequencing is very different as far as I've heard. Reaper is more like Cubase in its workflow.
Timestretching is one of the things Reaper does very well.
@@mr_floydst wow. That's a surprise to me given your pedigree. I thought all synth tubers at least had a passing knowledge of Ableton (no disrespect, it's not everyone's cup of tea). I have used many sequencers in my day, starting with Amiga trackers in the 80s, and never really enjoyed arranging with Ableton (Cakewalk was nice for thst) so Reaper seems worth a shot given it's free to try
@@dyscotopia There's so many things I never tried, and same for you I guess ;-)
I grew up with Cubase on the Atari and later used it on PC but then switched to Reaper because all the people on our Discord server use that, so it's easier to collaborate on tracks together.
who is the singer in the background music? is it your music? greeting from the Netherlands
Hi, thanks for watching! Yes, it's my music. I'm planning to release the full version this or next week here... And that will include some guest artists from the Netherlands, if everything works out as intended - I've already got a super awesome guitar track but negotiating to get a real vocal track, too. :) In this video, it's not a real singer, but a plugin (EMVoice Lucy). But I think it sounds pretty convincing, the expression is really good and even the breathing noises are where they are supposed to be.
@@mr_floydst you are right. The voice is convincing. Wil check your bandstand account for the release of your new music.
I
You should next explore modular synthesis by running the new & free Cardinal plugin inside Reaper.
Thanks for your suggestion! I'll take a look at that.
@@mr_floydst This video should help... ruclips.net/video/GNTGF_r36lk/видео.html
Cannot find the song and the vocal stem. How do you get it? Who sung it originally? Grüsse nach Hannover
I'm not sure if I understood your question correctly - I wrote this song, and the vocals were pre-recorded and just added on top of the synth tracks. The song is here floydsteinberg.bandcamp.com/track/shelter . If you want to have the vocals as seperates, I'll have to search my archive ;)
@@mr_floydst than congratulation for the lyrics and music. I am sure i cannot write better music to this nice singing, but generally the biggest nice compoment is a voice, which is hard to get. So a general request if you would enable your audience to follow your teaching to propose a voice stem to use.
@@mr_floydst subscribed on spotify, your album is nice. Meanwhile found out the your singer is an AI (EM voice).
Hi I cannot get sound out of Jack! Midi records but no sound :( any ideas what may be wrong?
In the latest release of Raspbian and Reaper, you don't need to do all of the hoola-hoop shown in this video. Try installing Reaper only, then go to it's audio settings and select e.g. Pulse Audio as audio driver. That should work, though you'll get horrible latency. Just try some of the audio systems on offer there, one will work eventually. ;-)
@@mr_floydst it doesnt work, Ive tried on a 3b and a 4 rpi, it says it cannot open my midi device and no sound comes out. At least with jack midi is comming to Reaper. I guess it has something to do with pulseaudio being non stopped while launching jackd server.
I am using no audio interface just attempting to use 3.5 mm as sound playback do you think that could be the problem?
I'd like to connect my R24 to my raspbery pi 4 and then connect to Reaper, do you think that's possible?
Hi! The last time I tried, it didn't work - the R24 didn't show up as an audio device. Perhaps things have changed (it's been more than a year since I tried). I'll try it once I have time and come back to you. :-)
What version of linux did you end up using?
Hi, thanks for watching! For the moment, I'm just using Raspbian. (Not much time to spare at the moment to try new things). I'll post a video update once I found out something interesting to share, though. :) Do you have any suggestions what I should try?
Yeah! GNU/Linux and over open-source software are little hard to use, but it's a good way for artistic... :-)
It's easier when using LMMS, but there are enough videos on that topic out there. :-) Reaper is fairly popular in the Windows world, for good reason: it's small and stable and has some really useful capabilities.
@@mr_floydst Yes, exactly. Personally i use Ubuntu Studio in my computer, with LMMS, Ardour, Audacity, Bitwig and MilkyTracker software. :-)
I was thinking about doing THE SAME THING MAN XDDDDD really nice video
Thanks for watching! I think it's easier to just use LMMS. Though Reaper is more suited for the RasPi thanks to it's small footprint, but the lack of native plugin support is a show-stopper, unfortunately.
@@mr_floydst if you have plugin availability issues you can use Carla (a Host) for some Win or MAC OS plugins hosting! on KX repositories, they have some plugins too, also the new update of Raspberry Pi OS that uses PulseAudio instead of ALSA finally x'd
Ubuntu Mate has a nice 64-bit use of the Pi and support, watched a video about setting it for the Pi seems good if you wanna go on with your proyect :)
@@mendoxx097 Thanks for your suggestion! I'll take a look at that. Looks promising!
delicious pi !
Yes indeed! :-) Thanks for watching!
I installed Reaper withot problems. But if I start it, i get the message (sorry, in German) "Kindprozess >>home/REAPER/reaper
My first guess would be file access right problems. Well, it's a PI, why not try sudo ./reaper? ;-) Does that help?
It's kinda strange that we've already come to this point where you can have a fully functioning PC inside a small keyboard casing... Cool stuff!
Bought a PC for my older kid which is roughly the size of a match box. Can play Fortnite. :)
@@mr_floydst That's crazy, but awesome!
@@XavierRadix Yeah. Also, "not bigger than a matchbox" obviously refers to the PC, not my kid. :)
I guess I’m old enough to have used a Commodore (C64) back in the day, so I remember these style packages 🤓
@@Roboprogs Welcome to the club. I started on the Sinclair ZX81. :-)
Come on with raspberry Pi 4
You could use VCV Rack.
Thanks for watching! I can do that some time in the future, if that's what you mean. And of course, there are other (easier) options on Linux/RasPi: LMMS, for example. But I chose to use Reaper for this video specifically. :-)
Yeah maybe 8 gigs of ram will be better for VCV.
The QWERTZ keyboard threw this American for a loop.
Thanks for watching! I can totallz understand that reaction - sorrz to have confused zou. :)
😂🤭
Ha ha,- that's Linux. ;-)
Thank you for the video.
Thanks for watching! :)
Check out PiSound, Zynthian, and Norns DIY you might find them interesting
Thanks for your feedback! I already did. You'll find some videos on my channel.
can install windows 7 and ableton 9?
Thanks for watching! No, this is running an ARM processor, which isn't compatible with X86/Intel. It's possible to run a virtual machine and then install Windows on it, but I guess doing so would not be optimal.
@@mr_floydst saddly, but reaper is a good daw to live too
4:16 Now check out the hook while my DJ resolves it.
I got that reference. :-)
Bro ineed a/b variation styles
Thanks for watching. What are you referring to?
Psr550 styles
You might want to consult the Linux Musicians Forum (linuxmusicians.com) next time instead of Googling for 220 years, ha ha. ;-)
P.S. PulseAudio and Jack are two flavors of audio servers and are not really meant to be used together. Musicians use Jack (and hate PA with a passion), general users use PA.
Thanks for watching! I know that forum. Please don't mistake my snarky tone for real disregard for open source software. In fact, piping the audio through a browser is a very impressive thing I really wanted to show in a video. I know there are a lot of actual VST plugins around (which I talked about in later videos). Best regards!
@@mr_floydst Ha ha, I know that you like Linux. But, like you discovered, it can have a steep learning curve. Nowadays less so than in the past, but making music on Linux is pretty incomprehensible. Especially if a DAW does not fully support Jack and needs a pipe to and from Alsa for it (brrrrrrr, Reaper). And don't get me started on VST's, there's:
- Linux VST
- Windows VST
- Apple Macintosh VST
- 32 bit versus 64 bit (the former don't work in Windows no more)
- VST version 2.4 and ver. 3
And then you have Linux audio plugins (i.e. VST alternatives): LADSPA and LV2. Pfffffffff.... No wonder there's a separate Linux Musicians Forum! ;-)
Anyone else watching this have a clue what's going on? Cool track!
Thanks for watching! Uhm, well, this video was targeted at viewers who watched me struggling with Linux and the PI since last year, so I fast forwarded on some of the things I already explained earlier. :) If you like the track, I posted the full version (with wicked guitar parts) here: ruclips.net/video/jGjU2thmE_U/видео.html
@@mr_floydst no worries, if anything it's inspired me to get my pi out and do something with it! Keep up the good work 👍 thanks for the link
of course
Linux and audio = complicate simple Thinks
Thanks for watching! I agree, though it's up to the creators of distributions to simplify these things for the users. Raspberry PI is a machine for people who enjoy solving computer problems, so this video is not representative on Linux in general. :-)
that's why pipewire exists, soon Linux audio will be simple by default