Topic by kingfisher

  • Avatar
  • kingfisher
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Lund, Sweden
  • Registered: 16-03-2021
  • Posts: 32

Topic: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

Pianoteq Std with Petrof AP275 + P284 C. Bechstein DG Steinway Model B + Okdo 4GB Raspberry Pi 4 host with HIFIBerry DAC2 PRO XLR hat.
400Euros plus shipping.

Can also be transported to the US in May to avoid excessive shipping costs


My Pianoteq project has come to an end, our church has discontinued streaming so I no longer need the license and Raspberry Pi 4 host.
This configuration is intended to be connected to a midi keyboard via USB and to a mixer or similar equipment via XLR (balanced connectors).

The Raspberry unit is self-contained and can be run without keyboard and screen by using VNC.
I have reinstalled from scratch today using the latest (Nov 2021) Raspberry 64bit OS https://downloads.raspberrypi.org/raspios_arm64/images/
as well as downloading and installing the latest Pianoteq version 7.5.3

The configuration was done using user Youfous script, https://forum.modartt.com/viewtopic.php?id=8268
and can be used to reinstall, uninstall or change the overclocking.

In the name of full disclosure the steel XLR case was for a Raspberry 3, so I had to use a Dremel to make all the ports accessible. To keep the temperature low I mounted a fan on the back of the case, this keeps the temp below 50C and should avoid any potential overheating problems.

I will include all original hardware, cables and case, plus an original Raspberry power supply since the Okdo power supply was not sufficient to drive the keyboard and mouse over USB.
The only thing needed to make it work in your environment is to connect to your wireless or wired network.

Here is a video I made to show the performance https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyIvITxxwMs
The photos are from last year, but capture the essence of the hardware and configuration.

And here is a video during actual use during a church service:
https://youtu.be/-0kqwShccf8?list=PLEY6...amp;t=1530

PunBB bbcode test

PunBB bbcode test

Last edited by kingfisher (25-01-2022 09:39)
Photographer, cyclist (and now self-made livestream and audio tech for small church in Lund Sweden) , ex-pat American from San Diego living in southern Sweden. IG:catchlight.se

kingfisher's Website

Reply by ankipruthi

  • Avatar
  • ankipruthi
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 14-06-2020
  • Posts: 21

Re: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

Honestly, this should be an official pianoteq product. Its a great design. I'd totally buy it if i didn't already have. I can see this being as a really useful "sound upgrade" box to anyone who has a digital piano but isn't satisfied with onboard sounds.

Just out of curiosity, what's the average round trip latency on this setup?

Reply by kingfisher

  • Avatar
  • kingfisher
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Lund, Sweden
  • Registered: 16-03-2021
  • Posts: 32

Re: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

ankipruthi wrote:

Honestly, this should be an official pianoteq product. Its a great design. I'd totally buy it if i didn't already have. I can see this being as a really useful "sound upgrade" box to anyone who has a digital piano but isn't satisfied with onboard sounds.

Just out of curiosity, what's the average round trip latency on this setup?

I don't know the roundtrip latency, but I found an article on USB latency on Raspberry Pi where they measured a rountrip latency of .3 to .4 ms.
https://projects-raspberry.com/on-usb-latency/
as well as a test of the HIFIBerry hat that measured a latency of 3.1ms with a 64samples and 48KHz https://symonics.com/tested-soundcards/

the configuration we used with the church's Yamaha NU1 was:
44.1KHz sample rate
256 sample size
polyphony of 96
for which Pianoteq calculates 5.8 ms of latency.

Our lead pianist who plays at a professional level and plays both a real piano as well as his sisters Yamaha NU1 did not notice the latency.

Last edited by kingfisher (25-01-2022 09:14)
Photographer, cyclist (and now self-made livestream and audio tech for small church in Lund Sweden) , ex-pat American from San Diego living in southern Sweden. IG:catchlight.se

kingfisher's Website

Reply by Jake Johnson

  • Avatar
  • Jake Johnson
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Atlanta
  • Registered: 04-05-2007
  • Posts: 4,501

Re: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

ankipruthi wrote:

Honestly, this should be an official pianoteq product. Its a great design. I'd totally buy it if i didn't already have. I can see this being as a really useful "sound upgrade" box to anyone who has a digital piano but isn't satisfied with onboard sounds.

Just out of curiosity, what's the average round trip latency on this setup?

I must agree that this small unit (module?) would be a great product for Modartt, or a licensee, to offer. I wonder how hard and expensive it would be to mass-manufacture.

Reply by hesitz

  • Avatar
  • hesitz
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 07-06-2019
  • Posts: 128

Re: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

Jake Johnson wrote:
ankipruthi wrote:

Honestly, this should be an official pianoteq product. Its a great design. I'd totally buy it if i didn't already have. I can see this being as a really useful "sound upgrade" box to anyone who has a digital piano but isn't satisfied with onboard sounds.

Just out of curiosity, what's the average round trip latency on this setup?

I must agree that this small unit (module?) would be a great product for Modartt, or a licensee, to offer. I wonder how hard and expensive it would be to mass-manufacture.

Hard and expensive, totally different business from Modarrt's. 

However, the Raspberry Pi itself (and the Hifiberry DAC) can be purchased in volume and a module easily put together for sale.  The Raspberry Pi 4 actually forms the brains of various consumer products out there, including e.g., several different Roland synthesizers.  That is, instead of developing their own brains for their device, even a big sophisticated manufacturer like Roland purchases Raspberry Pi's in volume to integrate into their products.

But it's also not hard for consumers to buy the parts and put the module together themselves.  Many have done it for Pianoteq.  You can buy a "kit" for say $80 of so from a retailer like pishop.us :  https://www.pishop.us/product/raspberry...udget-kit/    Then you can connect audio via USB output to an external DAC, if you have one, or plop on a HAT like the Hifiberry one for $20 to $60 more.  Apart from this there's just the setup of the microSDHC card with the Linux software and Pianoteq.

Reply by navindra

  • Avatar
  • navindra
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 06-08-2020
  • Posts: 115

Re: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

The box and overall setup is very nicely done.

The fan, however, is an absolute deal killer for me.

This is why I went with a Raspberry Pi 400 + external USB audio interface myself.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/app/uploads/2020/10/Raspberry-Pi-400-front-e1603976050533.jpg

vs

http://catchlight.se/image0.jpeg

A form factor like the OPs would be amazing without the need for a fan. It should be possible, right?

Last edited by navindra (26-01-2022 02:26)
Find me at the new piano forums @ PianoTell.com.

Bluebird by Alexis Ffrench on Pianoteq NY Steinway D.

Reply by kingfisher

  • Avatar
  • kingfisher
  • Member
  • Offline
  • From: Lund, Sweden
  • Registered: 16-03-2021
  • Posts: 32

Re: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

navindra wrote:

The box and overall setup is very nicely done.

The fan, however, is an absolute deal killer for me.

This is why I went with a Raspberry Pi 400 + external USB audio interface myself.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/app/uploads/2020/10/Raspberry-Pi-400-front-e1603976050533.jpg

vs

http://catchlight.se/image0.jpeg

A form factor like the OPs would be amazing without the need for a fan. It should be possible, right?

I tried running the unit without a fan but running overclocked with the DAC+Pro the temperature got up to 70 degrees. With the fan on the outside, the temperature stays below 50 degrees.
In all fairness this isn't intended as a home solution, but more of a stage configuration. In our church I put the unit on the floor behind the piano and the fan was never audible.
There are probably better hats for home use, where cable noise and interference aren't an issue. The XLR connectors require a cover to avoid breaking the solder connections, but with RCA connectors you could probably run without the case, and that in itself would help keep the temperature down.


PunBB bbcode test

PunBB bbcode test

PunBB bbcode test

PunBB bbcode test

Last edited by kingfisher (26-01-2022 07:48)
Photographer, cyclist (and now self-made livestream and audio tech for small church in Lund Sweden) , ex-pat American from San Diego living in southern Sweden. IG:catchlight.se

kingfisher's Website

Reply by dv

  • Avatar
  • dv
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 01-11-2021
  • Posts: 345

Re: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

Jake Johnson wrote:
ankipruthi wrote:

Honestly, this should be an official pianoteq product. Its a great design. I'd totally buy it if i didn't already have. I can see this being as a really useful "sound upgrade" box to anyone who has a digital piano but isn't satisfied with onboard sounds.

Just out of curiosity, what's the average round trip latency on this setup?

I must agree that this small unit (module?) would be a great product for Modartt, or a licensee, to offer. I wonder how hard and expensive it would be to mass-manufacture.

I agree that is a great product for a subcontractor to make, and totally different business model for Modartt -- however they could integrate the sales on the same website. Yet, to make it appealing, the price should be not much more (and better if much less) than buying the parts separately. As such, it becomes a really tough product: yes you can buy the parts in volumes, but:

- How many parts are you going to buy? The more the cheapest, but also the more risk of it remaining unsold, especially in a RPi5 or other things made the old stock obsolete. It quickly become an upfront investment, with risk of loss and must provide a ROI comparable to other options (e.g. stock market)
- How much is the labor going to cost? You make the math, but unless the company is based in China, adding even 1h of unpackaging, assembling, testing and packaging the final product is going to add an unbearable cost to the final product. And I fear that it is going to take longer than 1h.
- How many are you going to sell? For both volume purchase and economy of scale (efficiency of the labor) you need to sell probably more than there is a market for. I guess Modartt knows something about this last question (how many licenses they sell per week), but that need to be translated to how many would buy the finished box, which is just a fraction of the total linceses sold, but it could be more of that fraction since it attracts a different customer.

So I guess it would become a product competing with https://www.dexibell.com/prodotto/vivo-sx8/?lang=en (and you see how much that costs....)

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

Reply by Schwob

  • Avatar
  • Schwob
  • Member
  • Offline
  • Registered: 30-10-2019
  • Posts: 6

Re: For Sale Pianoteq Std on Raspberry Pi 4 with XLR hat 400€ + shipping

I would love to buy such a RaspPi 4 package with PianoTeq.

I think the Dexibells don't sound as good, no matter what they cost. There's hardly any piano expanders on the market anymore, so such a product might actually have a chance to make profit.

Every now and then I consider making one myself, but I just don't find the time. Even though I got some HifiDAC sitting on the shelv from previous product ideas. I once tried Zynthian on RasbPi3, but it wasn't powerful enough for low latency, so one might try the latest Zynthian on version 4… https://wiki.zynthian.org/index.php/Pianoteq – however they sell DIY kits only.