I couldn’t find a dedicated thread about using the console for music production, so I was hoping we could use this as a home base.
I’m not super savvy with Linux - sharing tips and tricks would be very much appreciated!
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Will probably integrate a teensy with mine and get dirtywavem8 headless running.
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That’s an excellent use for the uConsole. I was running a headless setup before getting the hardware M8.
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SUNVOX, SUNVOX, SUNVOX!!!
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what is this hardware??? cool!!! looks like a black berry keyboard on a pi with a printed case… nice
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Milkytracker. A good one for uConsole display resolution.
I also tried Renoise, it works well but the UI looks a bit tight and it tends to consume more cpu-power than other lightweight tracker apps.
When you mount modland library as a virtual file path on the Linux OS, you’ll get enormous MOD music tracks which can be played on the tracker apps.
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Man, you’ve read my mind! XD
This forum is the only place in internet I’ve found about Uconsole + trackers!
I’m planning to use a uConsole (CM4) just for the same task.
Questions, how does it perform in terms of latency? Can you record notes on the fly? ALSA driver is available for the uConsole?
Thanks and happy tracking!
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In my experience (A06/CM4) the latency is good. I’ll recommend pipewire instead of raw alsa and jack because of the flexibility.
The wow moment for me was that I can sample directly from Firefox+YouTube into headless M8, by rerouting the Firefox audio out endpoint to M8 input.
“The synthesizer can browse internet!”
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O0h, I’d be curious to hear more about method of achieving this.
Im glad theres a few people interested in incorporating music with this device, ive heard of a DAW called Reaper as well as SunVox (gonna try both when i get mine). Also would like to try out some trackers mentioned here as well as maybe incorporating m8 headless to the expansion some how. Also while browsing on youtube i found a guy who used WoR (windows on raspberry) to create a portable dj system that looks hella cool but i have no idea if itll work on the cm4 boards, heres a link of the video and if your planning on setting it up on pi os theres a program on piapps which is basically like pi imager. Link to both WoR project and github in youtube description, would love to know if anyone tries it and see if it works or not while im still waiting on mine to come through (UK order so might take some time). https://youtu.be/AViCBF5iBqo?si=HvRK8kVtKQjl4eHM
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So was browsing some more music software and found a tracker called OpenMPT, looks like another version of Milkytracker with a lot more channels, dont quote me on this i do not have experience with both so dont know limitations of either one just saw a crazy amount of channels when OpenMPT was started up. But heres a video on it showing the basics and theres some pretty cool features but does look like its keyboard heavy on inputs (using func number keys too), especially for shortcuts. Dont worry its still can be mouse/trackball controlled too.
Link to website/download in the video description.
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Just looked into pipewire and damn it looks great, just wondering do you need to have jack and pulseaudio pre-installed before getting pipewire or can you just go straight into getting pipewire?
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just wondering do you need to have jack and pulseaudio pre-installed before getting pipewire or can you just go straight into getting pipewire?
The design of pipewire allows audio applications of all kind (alsa, pulseaudio, jack etc.) to connect to it. The way they achieve this is to provide adapter audio libraries that replace the existing ones.
For example, if you install pipewire-pulseaudio, it will replace the entire pulseaudio support stack, and all pulseaudio apps will connect to pipewire instead. Same for pipewire-jack and pipewire-alsa.
End result? Everything is now low latency pro audio app. (Edit: the app itself may still request for a looong audio buffer, but pipewire can align them properly with small buffer low latency clients)
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I wonder if it would be possible to patch cm4 with a real time kernel which should decrease latency to a minimum. Anyone tried that with a uConsole?
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I have a tough book CE-01 as well - installed SSD with linux - boom great
laptop - take it camping and ham radio events. They make a 12 vdc adapter when I’m in the field…
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I was just thinking last night about running Sonic Pi on it when it arrives.
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Oooo good choice, have the keyboard and mouse built in would make it really to use
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It would be really cool to run LMN3 trackion engine based DAW on uConsole, the only thing that is missing to make it full featured is rotary encoders but perhaps an expansion card could solve that together with DAC and MIDI IO.
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My mind keeps revolving around uConsole music production ideas, and I remembered about zynthian : Zynthian: Open Synth Platform
It seems like a go-to choice to try for audio stuff since it’s patched with real time kernel for low latency and stuffed with good synths & effects.
Does anybody have idea how hard would it be do make screen and keyboard work under custom raspbian build?
Yh would be cool, midi wont be a problem but the encoders might be another story, not so sure on the screen