Topic by dv

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Topic: Has anybody tried Pianoteq on (Android) tablet/phone?

Android tablets/phones can run native Linux pretty well, inside one of many dedicated apps. So they could run Pianoteq (the ARM version).

The problem is that the apps, installed on a normal (not rooted) device, for "security" do not allow access to the USB, so you won't be able to connect Pianoteq to your piano controller ;-(  -- For similar reasons, some of these apps currently have even "broken" audio subsystems (they used to work). However, that can be a first step to test it out with minimal effort.

On the other hand, it is possible to install full fledged Linux within some apps on a rooted device. If I were 30 years younger (or rather, have the spare time and stamina I had back then with computing and electronics), I'd give it a try and report what I found. At the moment I don't have a spare Android device which I can "afford" to root just to see what happens. Therefore I am asking if anybody tried, and with that probably nudging somebody who did not even know this was possible...

Where do I find a list of all posts I upvoted? :(

Reply by randomgrace

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Re: Has anybody tried Pianoteq on (Android) tablet/phone?

Well, I tried connect my midi controller using iRig to my iPad and it went well (I used Alesis V25 if this is important). Could you tell more? I mean how what did you do while trying to connect to your mobile device?

Last edited by randomgrace (23-01-2022 12:58)

Reply by dv

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Re: Has anybody tried Pianoteq on (Android) tablet/phone?

randomgrace wrote:

Well, I tried connect my midi controller using iRig to my iPad and it went well (I used Alesis V25 if this is important). Could you tell more? I mean how what did you do while trying to connect to your mobile device?

I know nothing about iPad, iRig and friends, my post was about Android and Linux. I recommend you start a separate thread to attract people who care/know about iPad who may skip this conversation just based on subject

Last edited by dv (23-01-2022 14:58)
Where do I find a list of all posts I upvoted? :(

Reply by GRB

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Re: Has anybody tried Pianoteq on (Android) tablet/phone?

dv wrote:
randomgrace wrote:

Well, I tried connect my midi controller using iRig to my iPad and it went well (I used Alesis V25 if this is important). Could you tell more? I mean how what did you do while trying to connect to your mobile device?

I know nothing about iPad, iRig and friends, my post was about Android and Linux. I recommend you start a separate thread to attract people who care/know about iPad who may skip this conversation just based on subject

I rooted one Android Tablet, and one Android phone, but it's complicated and risky.   It would be nice if Pianoteq could run on Android.   Frankly I would rather have a table that could run a full fledged version of Linux.  I have a Rasberry Pi 400 which runs Manjaro.  It's usable but not fully smooth.   I can't see running Pianoteq on a Pi, but I guess some people must do it.

Pianoteq Pro 7.x - Kubuntu Linux 19.10 - Plasma Desktop - Hamburg Steinway

Reply by marcos daniel

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Re: Has anybody tried Pianoteq on (Android) tablet/phone?

Hi,

Inspired by the recent iOS app, I tried to run Pianoteq on Android. To do this, I installed Termux and Debian (which is quite straightforward from the Termux wiki) on a Samsung S8 phone (CPU: Exynos Octa 8895, Android 9). In order for the program to run, one must copy the PT arm-64 binary file to the folder /data/data/com.termux/files/usr/bin and then give it the execution bit (chmod +x). After logging into Debian, PT definitely runs, but the problem is that Android has a different architecture, which causes some issues:

1) Pianoteq is designed for the X server, and Android uses something else. There are ways of setting up the X server in Termux, but this is more hassle.

2) In headless mode, I got the following message three times: "ALSA lib seq_hw.c:466(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: No such file or directory." It seems that the sound architecture is somehow different...

3) Last but not least, the following warning: "Multi-core: could not acquire real-time scheduling, error 1 -- Operation not permitted."

In any case, just to have an idea of the performance, I exported the sample file (./Pianoteq --headless --wav a.wav), and the process took 39 seconds. Just for comparison, the same task (using the command line and the same options) took 24 and 12 seconds on two laptops with Intel i7 7700hq and AMD R7 5800u CPUs, respectively (running Windows 10 and 11).

Not a bad number for an app without multi-core nor priority.

Conclusion: I think it could run on modern phones/tablets, but Android is not very friendly with Linux apps, and as there are lots of different brands/models of phones and tablets out there (in contrast with a few iPads and iPhones), with custom Android versions, if I were Modartt, I wouldn't even think of porting PT to Android. I also read on the Termux wiki that Android versions ⩾12 kill processes with many subprocesses or high CPU load, which makes it very difficult to work with Linux apps (in fact, it kills Termux).

In any case, if someone wants to tinker with their phone, it would be interesting...