Topic by xhivo

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  • xhivo
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  • Registered: 21-10-2019
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Topic: Pianoteq on Android with Chrooted Debian with Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen

Hello,

I successfully installed Pianoteq 6 on my android phone, and It ran surprisingly well. First I installed Debian 10 on an SD card, then added some 32bit libraries, you are still going to get errors but just keep installing the missing libraries that give the error and you are finally going to have the necessary dependencies to run pianoteq.

The basic steps are:

1. Install Debian, follow this excellent guide https://github.com/RezaSR/ChrootDebianOnAndroid.
(You can make a new non root user if you want and install sudo, I didn't since I was just testing things out.)
2. Add apt sources I copy them from https://debgen.simplylinux.ch/ and apt update
3. Install alsa, any web browser, and lxde
4. Add multiarch - https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO and install the 32-bit libraries
(could be optional but do it anyways, since chromium and I assume other stuff do not like the missing /dev/shm)
First check if your shm is missing of course.
mkdir /dev/shm
chmod 1777 /dev/shm
5. Install Xserver XSDL on android and run it.
6. Once you get to the DE using XSDL you can install, download pianoteq from a browser and extract it with 7z.

The thing is, you still can't run pianoteq, but it should be verbose enough at this point to tell you exactly what library is missing, so install them one by one manually. Then, it should run. When it does you need to choose your USB audio interface as direct output, any class-compliant interface should be fine. I have a mid-range phone with a SD636 and 3GB of ram, these settings worked with the demo: 44100/128 with 44100 internal rate. Now you might notice that if you play with pianoteq GUI at 44100 internal rate, it's just hopeless... But, if you close the X session and start pianoteq headless from a terminal emulator, it is capable of 44100 internal rate at 32 voices.

Now, I would not use this as my daily driver of course. Since Linux is being run on top of Android, it is not perfect, but could be made very usable with enough work put into it.
For example: You could make an android app that installs everything automatically and you would just need to run the app when you want to play, as for the hardware you just need a USB hub and an audio interface. The real problem is the GUI, it affects performance a bit too much IMO. So my solution would be to make a mini touch screen interface that runs on an arduino or Pi zero, then you would use that to change instruments and presets via MIDI messages that you have to manually add the parameters for to pianoteq, one by one for every preset of every instrument.

I'd imagine on something like a snapdragon 855 the performance would be amazing. So maybe one day it will make a lot more sense for Modartt to add Android and iOS support.

My current work in progress is to use a fanless mini pc with an i5-7200U and make a simple interface to change presets with a microcontroller, and run pianoteq headless for better performance. Still waiting for the parts to arrive though.

Best,
Xhivo

Reply by Professor Leandro Duarte

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  • Professor Leandro Duarte
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  • Registered: 03-03-2019
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Re: Pianoteq on Android with Chrooted Debian with Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen

xhivo wrote:

Hello,

I successfully installed Pianoteq 6 on my android phone, and It ran surprisingly well. First I installed Debian 10 on an SD card, then added some 32bit libraries, you are still going to get errors but just keep installing the missing libraries that give the error and you are finally going to have the necessary dependencies to run pianoteq.

The basic steps are:

1. Install Debian, follow this excellent guide https://github.com/RezaSR/ChrootDebianOnAndroid.
(You can make a new non root user if you want and install sudo, I didn't since I was just testing things out.)
2. Add apt sources I copy them from https://debgen.simplylinux.ch/ and apt update
3. Install alsa, any web browser, and lxde
4. Add multiarch - https://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch/HOWTO and install the 32-bit libraries
(could be optional but do it anyways, since chromium and I assume other stuff do not like the missing /dev/shm)
First check if your shm is missing of course.
mkdir /dev/shm
chmod 1777 /dev/shm
5. Install Xserver XSDL on android and run it.
6. Once you get to the DE using XSDL you can install, download pianoteq from a browser and extract it with 7z.

The thing is, you still can't run pianoteq, but it should be verbose enough at this point to tell you exactly what library is missing, so install them one by one manually. Then, it should run. When it does you need to choose your USB audio interface as direct output, any class-compliant interface should be fine. I have a mid-range phone with a SD636 and 3GB of ram, these settings worked with the demo: 44100/128 with 44100 internal rate. Now you might notice that if you play with pianoteq GUI at 44100 internal rate, it's just hopeless... But, if you close the X session and start pianoteq headless from a terminal emulator, it is capable of 44100 internal rate at 32 voices.

Now, I would not use this as my daily driver of course. Since Linux is being run on top of Android, it is not perfect, but could be made very usable with enough work put into it.
For example: You could make an android app that installs everything automatically and you would just need to run the app when you want to play, as for the hardware you just need a USB hub and an audio interface. The real problem is the GUI, it affects performance a bit too much IMO. So my solution would be to make a mini touch screen interface that runs on an arduino or Pi zero, then you would use that to change instruments and presets via MIDI messages that you have to manually add the parameters for to pianoteq, one by one for every preset of every instrument.

I'd imagine on something like a snapdragon 855 the performance would be amazing. So maybe one day it will make a lot more sense for Modartt to add Android and iOS support.

My current work in progress is to use a fanless mini pc with an i5-7200U and make a simple interface to change presets with a microcontroller, and run pianoteq headless for better performance. Still waiting for the parts to arrive though.

Best,
Xhivo


Congratulations! Very interesting your procedure.

Really, I think a version of Pianoteq for android is missing. I currently use a Rockraley app called Synth FM, which makes frequency modulated tones like a Yamaha DX7, is very efficient with E.Pianos, but nothing compares to Pianoteq's acoustic modeling.

Respeito, Esforço e Sabedoria

Reply by Groove On

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Re: Pianoteq on Android with Chrooted Debian with Scarlett 2i2 3rd gen

Thank you for sharing. I’m enthused that you got such decent performance from the setup. It seems modern phones are more than capable of running Pianoteq and are superior to the the Raspberry Pi / Odriod route.

I’ll just sit tight with my MacBook Air until we see an Android/iOS port or at the very least a decent workaround like you did.