Best Raspberry Pi for SunVox?

Multi-platform modular music creation studio
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mardem1976
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Apr 08, 2021 7:55 pm

Best Raspberry Pi for SunVox?

Post by mardem1976 »

Hello All,

I'd like to set up a small hardware synth to integrate into my workflow. To keep things very simple (and because I'm on a very limited budget), I was thinking of a headless Pi with a USB keyboard and SunVox. The plan is to create a synth in Sunvox (which I'm already halfway there - this app is easy, powerful, and straight up awesome), run it on the Pi at startup (from console, limiting other resources) and controlling every aspect from a standard USB keyboard, including note entry.

Couple of questions:
1. What is the best Pi to use for this? I would love to run a Pi Zero W, and I've seen people post success stories there, but will I have any issues with that device and patches with reverb, delay, etc.?
2. Can I remap all controls to keyboard commands? That is, can I decide which keys trigger which notes, and which keys adjust which parameters? There are plenty of switches on a standard keyboard, and if I can freely map them, I don't think I'll have any trouble controlling a simple synth.

Thanks for any help you can provide.
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spktkpkt
Posts: 58
Joined: Tue Jul 26, 2016 12:49 pm

Re: Best Raspberry Pi for SunVox?

Post by spktkpkt »

I can not help much in regard to the best Pi, but i guess it depends on the patches. I tried SunVox on a Pi2 and got really good results, but the OS was highly optimized (no GUI except SunVox, only needed services, pure ALSA no Jack, etc.).
mardem1976 wrote: Thu Apr 08, 2021 8:04 pm 2. Can I remap all controls to keyboard commands? That is, can I decide which keys trigger which notes, and which keys adjust which parameters? There are plenty of switches on a standard keyboard, and if I can freely map them, I don't think I'll have any trouble controlling a simple synth.
Yes, you can map nearly everything as long as you send normal CC values. I'm not sure, but i don't think SunVox can handle NRNP or other none MIDI standard messages. You should check the manual and MIDI mapping documentation of your controller. If your controller needs drivers or other special software to map controls, it propably won't work with a PI.
enzyme
Posts: 24
Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2021 12:49 am

Re: Best Raspberry Pi for SunVox?

Post by enzyme »

I use Sunvox on a Pi4B with pretty good results. Sometimes the latency needs to be increased for bigger projects but generally the performance is good, I have the buffer set at 512, but could probably set it much lower for general use. If multicore support is implemented in Sunvox, the performance will be even better! Nightradio mentioned that this was on the to-do list :)

One catch though... If you want to use Pixilang as well, with full features, then Pi3 is a better choice. Some of the graphics stuff is incompatible on Pi4 unfortunately.

The latest PiOS has most of the required drivers for MIDI, already built-in. It has to be a 'Class Compliant' device though, but once you're up and running, it is literally plug & play. Of course you have to set it up and map it in Sunvox though
railster
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Dec 08, 2020 1:39 pm

Re: Best Raspberry Pi for SunVox?

Post by railster »

I have used a Rasp Pi4b with Sunvox for more than a year, and it never crashed or had ANY problems. I have used Manjaro, and tested on Raspbian too, both works really well.
I wouldn't go with a Rasp Pi 0, as I don't think it has lot of processing power, go with a Rasp pi4 b with min 4gb of ram, you still could use it for other project.
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