1Q22 Challenge, Raspberry Pi / Reaper recording studio

andy_k

I'm just putting the finishing touches to a Firebird 1 type thing, strung up and settling in, so it doesn't qualify for the challenge.
But I have just ordered a load of bits to put together an audiophile quality RPI box, with the intention of it being a dedicated recording / mixing / playback device. Can't move forward with Windows, can't afford Mac M1, so I'm giving Raspberry OS a go.
Wish me luck.

paulnb57

Good Luck!

digitalscream

I'd suggest Reaper as a DAW, because it's lighter than Ardour.

Fast storage will likely be your problem (apart from CPU power), though. As far as I know, there's only one USB bus, so your storage will share USB bandwidth with your audio interface (assuming you're not going to try recording to the SD card), meaning that latency will likely suffer as soon as data's written to the drive.

You might want to try the Compute Module 4 with a carrier board that has either multiple USB buses, an NVMe slot or a PCIE slot you can use for either.

andy_k

Thanks for the advice,
I don't have very high expectations, but I am pretty sure I can get some use out of the bits I have ordered.
During the last couple of years I have suffered quite a lot with mental stuff due to the pandemic wiping out all my plans for the near future ( probably not alone there ), and my attention span for anything much music related has gone to pot.
Coming out of the pandemic ( if that is what is happening? ) I am looking at ways of making the 'hobby' of music a bit more affordable for me, I was hoping to move into the area of mobile recording as a business plan before the crisis hit, and now that area seems to have been hit very hard, my own band has only managed 1 gig in the last 2 years, and it basically costs me money to play these days. Our regular rehearsal space now insists on a monthly payment for rehearsals which have been disrupted by positive tests / irregular shifts etc, so it has got quite expensive just to hold on to the spot.
In the 2 years gone, I have continued to try to find ways yo keep the inspiration flowing by building gear, lost count of the partscasters I have done, which can never be sold for more than the sum of their second hand parts.
I moved on to building a few pedals from kits, which again work out expensive unless the parts are really cheap. Some people can seem to get away with building nice stuff which has value, but they are usually the exception, but now I at least have a couple of boards worth of grey boxes that make various weird noises, and I have got some riffs out of them, and the satisfaction of actually building something that works, instead of buying a cheap Chinese knock off, of a boutique overdrive.
I really wanted to build a nice 18 watt valve head, but I am not confident with my knowledge around high voltages, and the kits seem unrealistically expensive for me, so that is a no go for now.
The recording / mixing side of my plans was always dependant on hardware, and the computers I use are all still ticking along, for now, but I don't expect them to last much longer, with the Windows ones now coming to the end of life, one of my Win 10 laptops is already stuck in an infinite loop of failed updates, which is making it unusable and will eventually cause it to fail.
A decent studio can be built up around the new Mac M1, but again, the investment is considerable, and can't be justified.
My main machine right now is an ageing Macbook pro, which is still performing well thanks to Reaper, and some good plugins, so I will be sad when that dies and have to plan for something that will help me carry on with my mixing work.
I watched a few videos on the capabilities of the newer Raspberry pi, and some of the add ons that make it a good audio device, so I bit the bullet and ordered a few bits, at the very least I will have a nice DAC for streaming my library of mp3s and some of the high res stuff I have accumulated. I think the Pi 4 with 8 gig ram is up to it.
I mainly use Reaper for mixing and mastering, and don't really expect great performance with low latency, but if I can get a few tracks recorded it will be a bonus, I have had good results running Reaper on some seriously under powered stuff, at least for basic playback and mixing, so I think the RPI stuff I have got coming will get some good use.
At one point, I even got an old Windows 7 laptop with Reaper to recognise and work with an old Mbox2 IO that I could never get to work on a later OS, until Windows did it's update trick of frying the machine by getting stuck in a loop. Damn Bill Gates for that anyway.
I have a few spare SSD drives, and the capacity of new memory cards is massive, so I will be happy if I can at least get Reaper working as a mixing / mastering unit, through my TV, with audio either going through a DAC to my Hi Fi, or one of my IO's and some I louds, at least it will get me listening to music again, something else that has suffered for me a lot lately.
I'll get some progress pics up when it all starts to come together, at least it will keep me occupied.

digitalscream

Well, if you need any advice on getting Linux set up as an audio workstation, I can probably help you there; it can be a bit daunting if you haven't done it before. Also, hardware compatibility can be a bit hit-and-miss with audio interfaces, so...your mileage may vary quite a bit there. I think I've got a spare Presonus that works, if you need something cheap to get going. That said, I think the Mbox2 should work.

andy_k

Thanks again @digitalscream for the input, not much I can do until I get my parts in, so in the meantime I am doing a fair bit of research on how to proceed.
I have tried dipping my toe into Linux audio in the past, and there are many tangents one can go off on, it is pretty ridiculous how much can be done these days, with so little gear.
I have started to formulate some ideas of what can be achieved realistically with a Pi, at least with my first steps.

1, the case I have chosen is specifically designed for high quality audio, with a DAC, headphone amp and line outs, so I think it is a pretty good start for some quality listening / mixing. I will be able to use my existing Pioneer Hi Fi amp and speakers for referencing high quality material, and maybe use same during a mix? ( I am not talking studio quality here- but comparatively )

2, The OS, obviously there are many choices, or flavours here, and at least with the Pi I can easily swap out memory cards to try things. I have seen a few vids about editing configs for overclocking and customising the OS, so I will just have to see how it goes.

3, The display, I intend to use my TV as a monitor, which is at a distance and is less than ideal, but am also looking into the ways the Pi can be used as a headless device, at least for listening to and choosing tracks, via phone and external devices.

4,  Reaper, continues to amaze with its capabilities ( at least the versions on PC and Mac ) so I will see how I get on with it.
I have seen a good few videos showing it working well on the Pi, and the main limitations seem to be 3rd party plugins, which is good for me in this case, I will be able to concentrate on the native Reaper plugins which are getting better and better.
I have payed around with Reamote in the past, which is a good way of having custom actions as buttons on a phone / tablet, which can be used to control the program, and could be used in some form of headless use, maybe?

5, The IO, again, I will be experimenting, but have seen a vid where somebody enabled 2 x 2 channel IO, linked to remotely record 4 x stereo audio tracks with the press of a button. Remote drum recording etc?
I have a few things to try here, and have previously got an Mbox2 working on an ancient OS via Reaper, but my main goal will be to get a Zoom R16 to work, 8 mic inputs and fader control, which would be good. I have a few others to experimient with such as a Focusrite Scarlet ( which I know can work ) a Samson G track ?, a Boss Micro BR ( might be good for guitar) etc etc.

Plenty to consider here, and I can't wait to get going really, if only to gain a greater understanding of a different platform, and to streamline my process. At this point I have invested about £130 in parts, which isn't bad if all I end up with is a decent DAC and a way to have all my music available to listen to.
I'll try to keep up a diary of my progress, in case anybody else wants to try it.

digitalscream

Okay...

1 - I have no idea how well the DAC will perform - I doubt it'll do low-latency I/O particularly well, but if I'm honest I've never tried it. Quality-wise it should be OK, though.

2 - Yeah, pretty much anything will do. I'd be tempted to go with Ubuntu, purely because it's the easiest one to deal with (and it's what I use day to day), but your mileage may vary there.

3 - Any old monitor should do, but if you're mixing then I'd advise something that's better-than-1080p resolution. Possibly even have a second screen too.

4 - There's no realistic way to use Reaper headless. At least, I can't think of one besides field recording...what would you use a headless Reaper unit for?

5 - You should be able to use anything that works on a full Linux machine. I've had 14 channels of input working on an old Core 2 Duo desktop in the past, so...sky's the limit, with Linux-compatible hardware.

Good luck

andy_k

Slight progress,
Case came in, it is pretty neat, Geekworm DacPi, ( who thinks of these names???)
About the same size as a Fuzzdog 1590B, slightly wider, seems well made with ventilation and cutouts for ports etc.
It comes with a small board (HAT) which has audio line outs and a 3.5 Headphone socket, and a connector which fits the 40 pin header on the Pi.
Also included is a large heatsink which is there to replace the need for a fan ( designed for audio after all ), and this mounts via sticky pads and screws directly on top of the processors and ram on the Pi, looks very neat.
A couple of keyhole screw holes on the base of the case are drilled to allow it to be mounted onto a vertical surface, I see these being used to attach it onto the cabinet I have my 42 inch TV on.
I have been bingeing on vids to try and wrap my head around the idea of using a Pi as a workable device for music production, and am pleased to see there are many people who are already doing it, so I am not breaking any new ground here.
Obviously there is a limit to what can be done, but plenty of folks on the Reaper forums have got it to work with good results, and I have concentrated a bit of time on trying to get as much preparation done before I can plug anything in, still waiting for the Pi.
Re, OS, I am thinking of setting up something which will allow some form of multi boot to try out a few of the OS while I get to grips with how stuff works in Linux, there are a few on a shortlist at the moment which seem optimised for the Pi, but also seem designed to highlight how much can be done, Twister OS is basically a full Windows PC experience, which looks great but I fear may be too bloated. It is built on top of the Debian based 32 bit Raspberry Pi OS, and 64 bit is in Beta for now.
There are a few others which seem to be good for dedicated music streaming, Volumio and Max2play, which make the device act as a stand alone streamer / DAC which can be controlled by any phone / tablet / PC on same network.
A couple of the OS's are aimed at gaming and emulation, which is another thing that looks good on the Pi, but would be a distraction. There are a few vids of Quake and Doom running at up to 100FPS on the Pi, which is pretty staggering, I always used to use Quake as a bit of a benchmark on any computer and could NEVER get any good results, amazing really.
I think my next step, until I can get anything actually plugged in, will be to at least get down to a shortlist of OS to actually try, probably starting with the official currently supported one, although I will be looking at some of the others that seem to incorporate useful stuff like WINE, and will start with a basic Reaper install to see how I can get my IO options to perform.
Reaper on its own will be perfectly fine for some of my basic mixing, with its built in EQ and compression, but the lack of VST support might be a bigger problem, hence the idea of getting used to something like WINE to see what can be done.
When I have got more than a little black box to show, I'll get some pics up here, and I really can't wait to let the frustrations begin, which is why I want to do as much prep as possible.

andy_k

More slight progress,
I have become a victim of global chip shortage, the Pi I ordered went from a 3 week delivery to a 20 week delivery, so order got cancelled.
A lot of searching finally got me to be able to order a Pi 400, for the not unreasonable price of £65 delivered, via Amazon.
This is the model with 4 gig ram, built in to a keyboard, it is basically the same parts in a different layout, with one less USB port (used for keyboard ).
This has meant my original 'build' has had to be aborted, at least until I can actually buy a Pi to fit the DAC case, and my DAC part of the project will be on hold.
I am still going to be trying to get some form of music making done on the Pi400, as I think it will be a neat little set up if I can pair it with my Zoom R16, hopefully it will give me an 8 channel input for recording, and 8 faders to use in a mix.
Obviously, it all has to integrate with Reaper, but that piece of software hasn't let me down yet.
I am seeing videos of people getting Windows 11 up and running on the Pi, so I think it will still be an interesting, if less 'buildy' challenge.

digitalscream

andy_k said:

More slight progress,
I have become a victim of global chip shortage, the Pi I ordered went from a 3 week delivery to a 20 week delivery, so order got cancelled.
A lot of searching finally got me to be able to order a Pi 400, for the not unreasonable price of £65 delivered, via Amazon.
This is the model with 4 gig ram, built in to a keyboard, it is basically the same parts in a different layout, with one less USB port (used for keyboard ).
This has meant my original 'build' has had to be aborted, at least until I can actually buy a Pi to fit the DAC case, and my DAC part of the project will be on hold.
I am still going to be trying to get some form of music making done on the Pi400, as I think it will be a neat little set up if I can pair it with my Zoom R16, hopefully it will give me an 8 channel input for recording, and 8 faders to use in a mix.
Obviously, it all has to integrate with Reaper, but that piece of software hasn't let me down yet.
I am seeing videos of people getting Windows 11 up and running on the Pi, so I think it will still be an interesting, if less 'buildy' challenge.

Have you considered getting a Compute Module instead, with a carrier board? You might give yourself a lot more options (particularly since PCIE cards can join the party).

andy_k

Certainly seems a reasonable direction to go in, unfortunately, same problems with supply at the moment.
I'm going to definitely be seeing if I can get something done on the Linux platform, but plugins will obviously be a bit of a problem, unless there are reasonable workarounds, WINE etc.
I don't like to have all my eggs in one basket anyway, so it could be a useful alternative tool for basic recording / mixdown, and i'm sure things will be developed much more in the future.
Interesting times for sure. 

digitalscream

andy_k said:

Certainly seems a reasonable direction to go in, unfortunately, same problems with supply at the moment.
I'm going to definitely be seeing if I can get something done on the Linux platform, but plugins will obviously be a bit of a problem, unless there are reasonable workarounds, WINE etc.
I don't like to have all my eggs in one basket anyway, so it could be a useful alternative tool for basic recording / mixdown, and i'm sure things will be developed much more in the future.
Interesting times for sure. 

Erm...you know that WINE won't run on a Pi, right? Just checking...

andy_k

Pretty sure it does, I'll let you know.

andy_k

Not saying it is perfect, but it clearly works.

digitalscream

Interesting, box86 is a new development since I last looked at it. It is, however, 20-30% slower than native; that's impressive, but it makes it useless for anything to do with audio and it'll likely cause your audio to be choppy as hell.

Still, give it a go and let us know, if you're of a mind

andy_k

Small progress,
Pi 400 arrived, amazingly neat little thing, about the size of a basic Mac wireless keyboard, with all ports and connectors along back edge.
I don't have a desk set up, so initially I have it sitting directly in front of my 47 inch Toshiba TV, tied in to that position by the length of the power adaptor lead and the HDMI cable.
I tend to sit about 8 foot away from my TV, so this is clearly a slight issue, it will get worked around.
For the first boot, I decided to use the official OS, Raspberry Pi OS, which is an optimised version of Debian.
This was flashed onto a 32 gig micro SD, which is placed in a slot on the back edge.
I had a cheap wied mouse connected for initial set up, and once I had got first boot, and a few updates done, the desktop was all there, slight issues with scaling, and I found that these were solved by a setting on the TV which was doing some auto scaling.
It is a bit fussy about power up order, as I have a few things connected via HDMI splitters, but a quick flick through inputs usually has the Pi detected fine.
Everything feels very familiar with the OS, and it was fairly easy to find menus to get icons and text to be scaled up so I can read them from my seated position ( 8 feet away)
At the first re boot, I attached a wireless keyboard / trackpad dongle to the only available USB 2 port ( leaving 2 x USB 3 ports free ), this worked first time, so now I can sit on my sofa and use the OS, one advantage the Pi 400 has, is that it has a power on button  ( F10 ), so it can be left plugged in.
At this point, I had a break, and just tried to get used to the power cycle, signal detection, boot process, and for a while this was a little frustrating, until I realised the TV was doing some of the scaling.

Second session, I tried the terminal, and had to scale the fonts to get it usable from my seated position, and also have some problems with the scaling on the Chromium browser. Web pages are only readable from being sat directly in front of the TV, which made the next few steps a bit tricky, installing some repo's and Apps to get some more use out of it.
Once I had a few things installed, such as Pikiss, and Piapps, ( names???--all acronyms) there were a few things to do.
I got WINE and box86 installed, ready for experiments, and went to Reaper site to get the ARM version installed.
Reaper installed quite easily, still amazingly quickly really, although first run gave warnings about sound device, and scaling was tiny, I didn't go further with it at that point, but glad it ran.

Third session, wouldn't boot, just seeing small blinking cursor on a black screen, so decided to try a different OS, running on a different device, 64 gig USB 3 stick.
Realisation, that all my previous set up would have to be done again, including wireless network, keyboard, Blutooth mouse, scaling, software etc etc, this took a couple of hours, and I ended up in Twister OS, which is a much more polished experience with many many more options, quite overwhelming really.
During this session, I downloaded Quake 2 and had a little play, amazing performance, actually blows my mind that all this is possible running from a USB stick, on a £65 low powered device.

Fourth session, tried to research why I was getting my first OS black screen, and found that it was probably a corrupt file which would be harder to diagnose, than to simply start again, so that's what I did, Raspberry Pi OS, all set up as before, without WINE this time, and tried getting Reaper to work.
Solved some of the scaling problems by using theme editor, but more will be needed as menus are still too small to read from a distance, this is probably something more to do with screen resolution, and will probably always be a compromise.
The plan was always to be able to mix rather than record, so I didn't try my interfaces yet, but did have a go at opening up some projects, stored on a USB 3 SSD, first attempt was a fairly big project, which is a remix / re recording of the original DOOM soundtrack, as one big mastering session. I had some issues with this project, as the audio is stored in a series of sub folders, and I was having difficulty getting Reaper to locate them, and at this point I did not have audio device sorted. I aborted that idea, and went for a few smaller mix projects, one of my own recordings, with chopped up audio, but also some midi.
I cycled through a few of the audio settings, and had success with Pulse audio, which shows 2 in 2 out, but is just playing back through HDMI. project ran fine.
Next project was some basic audio of some multitrack elements, again played fine, with resource meter in Reaper showing something like 6%, which is just ticking over.

That's where I stand with it now, it's still far less than ideal, both ergonomically, and sonically, but there is a lot to wrap your head around here.
This project was always going to be about managing expectations, and there was always going to be big trade offs with performance, but generally, I am amazed with what is possible, I think we are very spoiled by some of the manufacturers of hardware these days, in that most things just work, until they don't, but we can't fix them, so it is useful to me to try and understand HOW it works, and I am really only scratching the surface here.
At least the Raspberry Pi platform is aimed at beginners and there is a large community of support for open source software.
It is a good exercise, in focusing my efforts in one direction, ( in this case, mixing on Rpi, with Reaper ) to try and get some better understanding.

Next efforts, getting networking working, and interface in Reaper.

digitalscream

Good work

It does seem a bit odd that you're doing so much with scaling. Scaling is supposed to be a core part of the display manager, so it should be set once per display and then everything on that display inherits it. Look for a DPI setting somewhere....apologies if you've already tried that, but that's all I've needed to do in the past.

andy_k

I am enjoying watching everybody's challenges progress, some really nice instruments being made out there, but I decided to try something as a more personal challenge with this.
I could have done another partscaster, or pedal, but I think I have ran my course with them, again it is about managing expectations, and working with what tools you have, or have access to.
In my case, funds are a problem, and that would always be a limiting factor, but I am happy with the things I have built so far - always trying to use it as an excuse to understand why some things sounded better than others.
The next step there would have been to be doing major woodwork, which I am not geared up for, so I chose to make this challenge more of a cerebral one, and try to understand how the computer part of music production actually works.
I have already got a fair bit of background using PC and Mac DAW's, and have hit a bit of a cliff with moving forward in those platforms, so I thought I would maybe get back to basics and see if there is another route I can take, pleased to see there may be possibilities.
Reaper has already made a lot of things possible for me, that otherwise wouldn't have been achievable, and I am hugely grateful that they seem to be supporting Linux with their product, and the Rpi is a cheap way to get some results, I hope.
At the end of the day, I want to be making music with this stuff, whether it is a guitar, a pedal, or a PC, and I have to keep working at it for some inspiration, which is a struggle really.
It is good to have something to focus on, and I do get a bit OCD about these things, making mistakes and learning as I go.
Before the challenge began, I was putting the finishing touches to a Firebird that I cut out myself, and had just finished setting it up when I realised I had missed the bridge post string ground---DOHHH.
So that is another half finished project, that is now on the back burner, and I am finding the idea of my current challenge being only limited by my background knowledge an interesting proposition.
I am realising that some of the compromises I am having to make, might involve some creative work arounds, but that's all part of the process.
I really like the idea that I can use different SD cards for different OS, which will help to try things out, while streamlining an OS for music production, a bit time consuming, but once a problem is overcome, it can easily be solved the next time it crops up, so I am taking it step by step, and can always have a blast at Quake, just for a distraction.
Re-scaling issues, I think it is more a problem of ergonomics for me, I am typing this on an 11 inch chromebook, and can't really expect the same scaling on a 47 inch 1080p TV from 8 feet away, and my main Reaper rig is a 13 inch MBP, so I am used to how that looks.
Reaper is almost infinitely customisable though, so it is something else I will have to get to grips with, at least templates help me there, with the end goal being a  mix project that can have 8 tracks of fader control, via my Zoom R16, with a lot of functions being triggered by commands on a tablet ( wireless remote )
Hours of fun to come I am sure.

andy_k

Small update.
working on first OS, official Rpi , managed to find how to mount my NAS drive, and see all my shared media, once mounted it just appears as a folder on desktop. Got a little distracted and watched Idiocracy again, such an accurate film of how civilisation is going.
Streamed pretty flawlessly throughout, via VLC, quite familiar with that piece of software anyway.
Saw there was a link to download DOOM 3, which is a pretty awful game, but much more graphically demanding, took about 10 mins to install, and ran amazingly well full screen, seems this little machine has the processing power of a PS3 somehow.
I took a break then, and today I just thought I'd see if a different OS, Twister, made me feel a bit more at home with the way things work, this time, there are many more applications already installed, and it has options to switch between themes without re booting.
In short, there's too much going on on it. Seems like an exercise in showing off the potential, and my first instinct is to strip out what I don't use, which will probably break something.
I think my plan will be to work on the most basic OS, which runs from a 32g SD card, and have my Reaper projects running from a 64 G USB3.
I know Reaper itself can be run from a USB ( portable install ) so this might be a good way to have projects and templates which can be worked on in my other computers, and just have Reaper itself running on the OS install.
Once I have it working, I can make a back up of my OS, including software and settings, to another SD, before I get too carried away with trying to set up ( in case I corrupt my original OS)
It is useful to be able to work from my NAS, but that will involve importing / exporting stuff and I am not fully clued up on networking either.
I realise a lot of this must sound a bit basic to anybody who has worked with Linux before, I have tried myself and always found audio was difficult to get working, even with something like Ubuntu Studio, and I remember thinking again it seemed like an exercise to prove how many ways Linux can do everything, a bit too complex to get anything done.
I feel this time, things have moved forward slightly, in that Reaper is supported, and WINE can be easily set up for some things.
Next step, interface for IO and maybe fader control?

andy_k

Couple of ropy pics of todays progress, coming on......

That is the fairly big DOOM remix project I mentioned earlier, 23 tracks, each consisting of around 24 tracks of audio.
I had a bit of a struggle getting it to load initially, as all stems and reference tracks were stored in different folders in the project, just a case of getting Reaper to look in the right folders ( folders are a bit deep in Linux )

Next pic, is the project running with resource monitor showing what is going on -not a lot really, but theres a fair bit of stuff being displayed and played here, only a couple of Reaper plugins at the moment, Loudness monitor, and Limiter on master bus...
 

You might notice the small tablet in the first pic, a 7 inch screen displaying Reaper Remote, connected and controlling a few functions, I have set this up before, pretty easy, but has to be on same network, specific port etc etc, it's not as useful as Web remote, but for the moment I have not got that working. Web Remote is fully customisable with buttons for any function in Reaper apart from fader control, it's been a while so it might be there now, 




As you can see, Reaper Remote is a bit limited, but it does allow arming and muting, plus playback controls and a running counter, it works on anything, so a phone could be used to control recording remotely. WRB is quite a lot more advanced, as it allows complete customisation, and is much more useful for anything specific, ie, adding tracks and navigation around a project, I am definately going to try and get back into it.

Finally, the view from across the room, where I am listening to it play through my TV via HDMI. It would be easy to run a headphone out into my HIFI amp for better sound, but for any kind of proper mixing I will be attaching an interface, eventually I will be getting another Pi to use in the DAC box I originally wanted to use, but global supplies etc etc.

Pretty pleased with todays progress, stuff is starting to sink in, still a lot of mysteries to solve, next step will be IO and fader control, but you can see ergonomics is a bit of an issue, I think I have proved to myself that the Rasperry Pi is definitely capable, the limits are with my own knowledge, and ability to solve problems, I think I got a bit lucky today, and I still have to pinch myself when I think all this is running off a Micro SD and a USB3 memory stick. Mind Boggling. 

TTony

I admire your persistence!

Nowadays, with anything computing related, if it doesn’t work first - maybe second - time, I usually find something else to do instead!  Long gone are my days of building and tweaking PCs.  Those days were the mid-80s, so the PCs back then had a tiny fraction of the power that you’ve got in that little keyboard box.

I setup a pi with volumio some years ago - it just sits there now doing its thing, fuss-free.