New Raspberry PI W version released. 15 bucks for 5x speed reported.
Wonder what i will make with one of these.
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I’ve just always found that having the full weight of an operating system to manage and deal with blows them out of being an “appliance”. I mean I use RPi’s for my artworks where I need triggered video playback to sync with the robotic elements, but even then it’s a hassle.
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I wonder if it can run VCVrack.
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Yeah that’s a good question.
I don’t know if VCV rack has a raspberry pi compatible binary available anyway …
I should try to build it!
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Here ya go:
I would imagine the Pi Zero 2 is only able to run one or two modules at once - my Pi 4 could handle up to around 15.
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Wow 15 is not a lot … Don’t you think?
Really don’t know well VCV rack. I’m more into pure data but I’ve always considered it to be a good way to make a very versatile sound generator …
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I lied… It was 17! Here’s the quick patch I made.
Well considering the Pi is a £30 computer, I don’t think 15 is too bad.
You can’t expect to get the same performance as you can with a £700 PC with external audio card, <16GB of RAM etc.
I believe @BratAttack had an idea of putting a Pi and a 7inch display behind a Kosmo panel and using it to run one or two modules via VCV.
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Don’t forget Pure Data applications. The Pi and Teensy are superb for these.
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oh yes! LOOOOOOOOONG term PureData fan here - since about 2005/6 or so. I got to meet Miller Puckette when I presented a paper at the Linux Audio Conference in Cologne in 2008 - such a great bunch of people gathered together doing interesting things!
I’ve done a fair bit with PureData as a live headless audio effects unit controlled via network messages linked with sculptures. It’s so powerful on such tiny processors - the efficiency is pretty insane! I think at that point I was running it on a Raspberry Pi 3 with a small amount of RAM and still managed to get heaps of headroom to do more out of it.
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Good to meet another fan of Pure Data.
I am by no means a proficient user but have found it very useful with midi controls and audio triggers and processing. Do you have any good links to your own or other useful Pure Data applications?
I’m particularly interested in your mention of sculptures as I have a few long delayed art projects I’d love to progress. I bought the book Load Bang some years ago and while it’s a great reference I have found it tough to imagine the structure of a practical application.
I have a small pile of very old tablets, pi’s and android phones which I’d love to turn into modules.
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Yeah its strength is in its ability to be a chameleon linking so many things together all at once. Often if I have a difficult thing I need to have something interface with another thing, the easiest and fastest way is to knock something together in pd (ie network packet to midi trigger or OSC trigger etc).
It’s been about 18 months since I last picked up a pd project so I’ll have to have a little dig to find my effects patches I was running raspberry pis.
In sculpture I tend to use it as glue between several other things. I normally have a kind of “scene master” or “master brain” as I call it generally running on an Arduino with a network interface that talks to the rest of the sculpture’s parts that all act independently, but are orchestrated by the brain. So for pd I was last using it as a live sound effects processor that would change its behaviour depending on the timing and movement of other robotic parts. I had small electret mics with little circuits to drive them listening to acoustic sound sources like gongs and metallic strikes from solenoids and servo mallets, that then fed into individual raspberry pis around the place. When the lighting changed, and the installation mode changed, then suddenly the strikes would have super long nightmarish delays and reverb over them, or eq so the room resonated and changed with the physical components still striking in the same way. It was a hoot!
I would suggest that if you’re learning something like pd, that the best way to learn is to have a use that you’re aiming for rather than reading up on everything and then looking for a reason to use it. At least in my opinion this is how it really sticks for me. I have an aim to make something happen and then I learn the steps to get there along the way. Puredata can be nebulous and intimidating as it can go FAR deeper than you’ll probably ever need, and the hunt for plugins and versions can be exhausting.
I would also say that when you’re talking about jumping to tablets and phones, puredata can get a little hard as often you’ll rely on some plugin or functionality that might not be included of the build on the device. So I’d check what plugins are available there before trying to do something. It has been some time though since I last played in that world, so things may have improved. Back in 2007/2008 I had a hellish time building puredata to run on Gumstix which were the new kids in town for embedded Linux development but were incredibly difficult to build for, and even more difficult to deal with the very fragile hardware. After building a sculpture with a gumstix running puredata inside it, the night before a launch, I was sliding the board out to upload one last change and the audio connector snapped off the board. It’s funny now, but I nearly cried at the time. Raspberry pi has come along and brought us so far in the DIY embedded scene!
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Many thanks for your reply. My plan with the phones is to keep each instance quite simple either as a controller or a single oscillator or effect. I’ve been sidetracked by the developments in audio and midi over IP, Linux builds on Android, OTG android connections (which predate my original idea to make art/music from landfill) and the fact that my disability keeps my productivity limited to the odd blue moon.
In essence the idea is to have one device (or two) controlling the connections between each node module with some kind of simple web like interface.
While I’m bedbound it’s a pipe dream but I still come back to my notes as I’ve seen other projects develop.
I recently dallied with a couple of esp32’s as a possible web host for the interface; pipe dreams like all pipes only output what you put in.
Anyway, welcome to the forum and do expect the odd pure data questions from time to time. Cheers.
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