#49

If you’re curious on benchmarking your Pisound build, and have SuperCollider installed, I’ve created a benchmarking tool:

4 Likes
#50

long story short: would it still make sense to get a pisound or would (getting someone as I’ve no DIY skill) a fates make more sense at this point?

I’m way stuck into video synthesis at the moment
but have been thinking about combining the audio and video side after trying to get my video chops up the last couple years

I used to play around with PD and have a couple patches I’d love to use live besides my other gear in a small setup

the one I really want to be using is plibt wherein there are two unlinked 60s delays being fed by incoming audio and/or themselves there were only two controls sensitivity and volume

everything was randomized very heavily again and again coming based on the incoming audio

#51

Pisound is totally solid, well built, great support, OS optimized for audio.

1 Like
#52

i’ve been quite happy with pisound, great piece of hardware/sw.

with a couple caveats:

  • the gain stage is so hot that i actually need attenuation in front with normalized line level sources
  • it is both low-level and opinionated, meaning you kinda need to be comfortable with admin’ing a linux audio system to get the most out of it

specifically re: audio/video, you may be unpleasantly surprised by dirty ground noise when sharing ground between audio and video systems. (not specific to pi or pisound.)

2 Likes
#53

@zebra What are you using for attenuation on the pisound? Interested in trying this on mine.

Thanks
S

1 Like
#54

I’m not really a linux pro (more the opposite) but I was able to get a good system together following this guide. https://community.blokas.io/t/headless-pi-start-to-finish/612
For what I did with it (just headless Pd stuff) it worked better than the patchbox OS from Blokas. I had a patch that would only run glitch-free with my system, for whatever reason.
Mine was of course a different use case, so things might be quite different if the goal is to run norns on it.

3 Likes
#55

i guess in my experience i’ve mostly used the pisound and patchOS as a system where i wanted to run “whatever” - mostly supercollider and custom Jack programs. (norns stack runs fine, but haven’t found much of a need for it in that context - viz., not having norns-compatible screen / knobs / &c.)

in this context i found it necessary to e.g. disable lots of stuff related to bluetooth, puredata &c, to make bootup time acceptable, and in general was fighting (a little) against the expectations of the patchOS script collection.

so yeah, agreed: depends entirely what you want to do!

anyway my initial and continued impressions are of a super solid and useful system that i would totally recommend as a good audio addon to vanilla raspbi. (big caveat about line level input still applies. in fact i had quite a bad experience actually around this with an important commercial client, and ended up having to fly in to a trade show to make hardware modifications to reduce input gain. that was not ideal.)

2 Likes
#56

oh! sorry. i missed this. i used 2 resistors in an L-pair for each channel. small; 5ohms or something, i have forgotten (this was some time last year and my client has the board.) gain stage is plentiful and clean, so attenuation level not critical. but out of the box, there was no way to take a line output from a standard sony television without clipping. which is weird enough that i am now mentioning it three times.

in a musical context, its normal to be able to control the amplitude of whatever is feeding the Pi, so maybe not a typical problem.

#57

I’ve got an extra 3b+ laying around that won’t work with my video stuff as I have it setup
so I may just check out the pisound board and see if I can’t get this running

@papernoise thanks for the link I had a glance through it and after all the RPI video stuff I’ve been doing lately I think I shouldn’t have any problem! I know I’m just wanting to play with one or two specific pure data patches

1 Like
#58

I tried using a Pisound on a Pi 3B+ with Patchbox OS, in the case that Blokas sells for them, and the Pi would shut itself down due to overheating when I ran SuperCollider—not even doing anything, just with the server booted—unless I put it right in front of a desk fan. This was with X running, not headless.

I haven’t really experimented with it since then for various reasons, but nobody else on the Internet seemed to have this problem. Anyone have any suggestions? Try going headless? Don’t use a case? Try a different distro? Jam a tiny fan in there somehow??

1 Like
#59

No solutions here - but just wanted to say I’ve also experienced similar seemingly heat related issues with my Pisound :confused: Very often has trouble booting after being on for ~15 minutes prior, waiting another 5 minutes seems to fix it.

#60

Did you try posting this issue on the Pisound forums, or on github?

#61

Thanks for the reminder. I was getting a lot of noise, so mine has just sat on the shelf for a long time. I should give it another go.

#62

I’m surprised at the overheating issue: I routinely run supercollider doing my effects chain (see other posts for how much that includes) - and all my MIDI processing - for hours at a time, in just the normal Blokas enclosure - no heatsink, no fans - It never overheats. I’ve also run this same set up with an X server running & VNC out to my Mac … again, works for hours at a clip.

#63

Also never experienced any overheating or anything like that. Running the stock patchbox os.

#64

No worries and thanks for the details,

Will try similar method for sure

S

#65

in my experience with Pis I found that before I got a proper RPI power supply I was often running out of power when lots of things were plugged into it (webcam, mouse, keyboard, MIDI controller)

I haven’t had any of those pesky lightning bolts pop up since getting a new supply

I think 5.25v is the key the 5v ones I’ve used in the past will work but show signs of low power.

maybe something similar is happening here?

1 Like
#66

No overheating issues here either.

I’d echo @wednesdayayay comments, I found a decent psu with rPI is vital, before when I used an underrated one - I had no end of odd issues, and shutdowns.
( and seems to become more important with each successive pi model !)

1 Like
#67

@papernoise I have not posted on the Blokas forums on the Pisound Github. I guess I should. I neglected to mention that I had soldered header pins onto the Pisound (where it passes through the GPIO pins that the Pisound itself doesn’t use) although nothing’s attached to them. Maybe I damaged something in the process, although I don’t know why that would do this (and nothing else).

@wednesdayayay @thetechnobear I was using a Pi-branded AC adapter from Newark/element14 that’s nominally 5.1V 2.5A… for whatever that’s worth… using the HDMI port and a USB dongle for keyboard/trackpad. I think it still overheated when I SSHed in & wasn’t using either of those, but I don’t remember. Might try again.

Small shrug, big sigh.

1 Like
#68

Anybody doing anything interesting with these things still?

Stumbled across this cool little gadget but alas, the pisound is no longer in stock. Spoke with a customer service rep on their page and they informed me they should be available again come November so I’ll be excited to get my hands on one then.

For now I’ll have to just make do with a basic setup but that still obviously allows for a lot of complexity, especially with the higher spec’d pi4