Topic by ghiromax

  • Avatar
  • ghiromax
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 13-08-2018
  • Posts: 3

Topic: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

Hi All from a PTQ mewbie, I'm "investigating" it since a while, loving the sounds I've heard and I think it's time to ask for some help. My goal is to build a Stage Keyboard based on a headless dedicated system running on a SBC (Single Board Computer) like Raspberry Pi, ASUS Tinker Board, Odroid XU4q -I want it completely silent if possible-  or any other solution even Intel based if needed like NUC. I'm also thinking to add a MIDI Audio interface like the Pisound of the HiFiBerry DAC+ if this will contribute to elevate the quality of the audio output and'or reduce the load of the CPU with positive audible effects. It will run the Stage version or maybe the Standard later on. The goal is to build a totally reliable stage instrument with great acoustic piano, Rhodes, Wurlitzer, Clavinet and maybe and some other classic stage sounds, with the maximum poliphony available and the lowest latency, of course within the limitation of the 48 kHz sample rate of the version selected. I already read several posts related to that, but I'm not sure I've found a common consensus on the feasibility of this project, it's possible limitations and the best HW on which base it. If it won't be considered a post of common interest private emails would be most welcome. I'm also prepared to invest some (little) money for having someone helping in getting the right solution working, I have NO programming skills and/or experience with linux installations, even though I think I can copy some code lines lines with proper instructions/support :-). Hope I'm not infringing the forum rules posting my email address here max.ghirardi(at)gmail.com If so please accept my apologies in advance and please instruct me how to allow other members contact me in case. Thanks in advance Max

Reply by marcos daniel

  • Avatar
  • marcos daniel
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 02-09-2014
  • Posts: 281

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

Hello!
I own an odroid XU4 q, but haven't tested Pianoteq on it yet. If you want, I can try this weekend. I guess its CPU is a little weak compared with an mid range laptop (I have used it a couple of times just to check it worked when it arrived).
The bad point with odroid is that it has not on board sound chip. I have two external USB cards but they are not for live playhind (ESI UDJ6 and miniDSP 2x4HD). I can try using those sound interfaces.
Raspberry Pi is definetively too slow for Pianoteq.
Odroid boot time is not very good.
Currently I use a W10 laptop with a NVMe SSD which boots very fast, I guess that a Intel NUC could have similar performance, but in a so small space I don't see any possibility of a fanless setup.

Reply by ghiromax

  • Avatar
  • ghiromax
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 13-08-2018
  • Posts: 3

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

Thanks a lot for your availability Marcos, would love to hear from you how Odroid XU4q works with Pianoteq. i don't know which version you do have, but as said, I'd like to have it an idea of it with the limitation of the Stage and Standard versions. The Studio seems to be waaay too complicated -and expensive- for me... :-) Will look for external sound interface. Actually the fanless set-up is not a take it or leave it condition, but is a quite important point .

Reply by eriks

  • Avatar
  • eriks
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Berlin
  • Registered: 22-12-2016
  • Posts: 55

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

Hi Max --

I'm running Pianoteq on a Tinkerboard with a Hifiberry Amp2, using it daily for practise. Pianoteq is started headlessly without any GUI at all. If I need to configure Pianoteq I'm using a X forward session from my Linux laptop.

This works flawlessy without any active cooling, but you have to know that the Tinkerboard's CPU heat managment throttles the CPU if it gets to hot which leads to a CPU overload from Pianoteq. As I've activated the CPU overload detection the piano gets automatically muted for a second in this cases. We currently have more than 30° C, which means the overload is triggered from time to time if I play to intensively, but under normal ambient temperatures this happens rather rarely. But nothing for a professional live situation I guess, the small ARM boards aren't just powerful enough.

Pianoteq can use the Tinkerboard CPU in a way that it reports a polyphone about 16 (if I rememer correctly), but as we have a "full-piano-synthesizer" here you only notice this in edge cases.

I have the Tinkerboard in the Hifiberry plastic case, place upright, so that the air can flow better. I was thinking about building something to use the stack-effect for better passive cooling.

Reply by ghiromax

  • Avatar
  • ghiromax
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 13-08-2018
  • Posts: 3

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

I was hoping for better performance Eriks... maybe good for home, but a bit of a question mark for stage ... thanks anyway for sharing your experience !

Reply by marcos daniel

  • Avatar
  • marcos daniel
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 02-09-2014
  • Posts: 281

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

I've just tried Odroid XU4's default distro (Ubuntu), and it does not work, at least not as easy as with a Rasberry or a PC... I wil try Debian or any other distro folks here suggest.
Here is the error:

terminal wrote:

odroid@odroid:~/Desktop$ ./pianoteq
ALSA lib seq_hw.c:466:(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: No such file or directory
pianoteq: seq.c:1153: snd_seq_nonblock: Assertion `seq' failed.
Aborted

Reply by JD

  • Avatar
  • JD
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 18-02-2018
  • Posts: 10

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

I tried this too. I did not have the fastest of the ARM machines that are made, but in the end, I decided not to use it on stage. I bought an Intel NUC (NUC 7CJYH) which I do use on stage to run Pianoteq headless and I'm happy with it.

Reply by MrRoland

  • Avatar
  • MrRoland
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 16-01-2018
  • Posts: 208

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

marcos daniel wrote:

I've just tried Odroid XU4's default distro (Ubuntu), and it does not work, at least not as easy as with a Rasberry or a PC... I wil try Debian or any other distro folks here suggest.
Here is the error:

terminal wrote:

odroid@odroid:~/Desktop$ ./pianoteq
ALSA lib seq_hw.c:466:(snd_seq_hw_open) open /dev/snd/seq failed: No such file or directory
pianoteq: seq.c:1153: snd_seq_nonblock: Assertion `seq' failed.
Aborted

You need to recompile the kernel.
There are instructions in the odroid wiki.
High resolution timer support is missing by default on the Ubuntu image. It is selected by default when you recompile the kernel.
Works excellent on my xu4

Reply by marcos daniel

  • Avatar
  • marcos daniel
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 02-09-2014
  • Posts: 281

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

MrRoland wrote:

You need to recompile the kernel.
There are instructions in the odroid wiki.
High resolution timer support is missing by default on the Ubuntu image. It is selected by default when you recompile the kernel.
Works excellent on my xu4

Thaks, I will try later!
Just curiosity, do you use run level 5 or just the console?
I wonder how much the performance could be increased by disabling the GUI.
Pianoteq runs that way on the RPi headlessly but as I don't own any screen and my digital pianos are far from my tv I could not test how playable is this way.

I've been thinking of a stress test like this:
1) Damper pedal down
2) an ascending scale from the lowest white key to the highest
3) damper pedal off

This repeated at different speeds until there is a pop/clock/overload. These experiments could be semi automatized quite easily.

Reply by MrRoland

  • Avatar
  • MrRoland
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 16-01-2018
  • Posts: 208

Re: Headless Raspberry Pi, Odroid, Tinkerboard for a Stage Keyboard

I run a unmodified full desktop.
My initial goal was to remove everything I didn't need, but I have no performance issues so I didn't bother to put some effort into gaining a bit more power.

I've got a 5 inch hdmi touchscreen attached.
Gives me a lot of control.