Is Pisound right for me? Here’s my use case …

Pisound
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Hi, everyone. I’ve had my eye on DIY DSP and related for a while now. I work in technology and digital product, so I’m comfortable with a lot of the concepts and learning that may be required, but I don’t have much first-hand experience yet.

Can anyone weigh in on the suitability of Pisound for my use case(s)? I think it may check all of the boxes, but I’m nervous about making the investment.

Most of my hesitation comes from the fact that I’m a long-term MacBook Pro user who has always assumed that music production requires a lot of compute and memory resources.

Thanks in advance for your ideas and advice!

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Basically, I’m looking for a cost-effective, simple (non-DAW), self-contained (few-to-no external hardware or software dependencies), and portable (battery powered) solution to:

  1. send, receive, route, and manipulate audio and midi, to and from a 1st-gen Polyend Tracker (or similar)

  2. handle traditional and experimental multi-FX processing for a bass guitar (practice, improv, recording)

  3. live-loop audio clips — and potentially MIDI — in real time (practice, improv, recording)

*** At this point, I am VERY interested in Zynthian + PiSound. Is this a viable combination in 2024 with a Raspberry Pi 5?

I have also spent time in recent months learning about and using Pure Data, VCV Rack, MiRack, SooperLooper, and MOD desktop. All good tools that I’ve enjoyed.

FWIW, I have a few class-compliant USB MIDI controllers: A Midi Fighter Twister (16 knobs), plus a Logidy UMI-3 and KMI Soft Step 2 (12+ configurable foot switches).

I also have a lightning — not USB-C — iPad I can leverage, which is powerful but requires adapters and dongles and an interface, which seems to add complexity and reduce self-contained portability.

So, what do you think? Is Pisound for me? Am I likely to run into any blockers or pain points if I go this route? THANKS!

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Hi! All the processing power depends on what the Pisound is placed upon, by itself, Pisound provides a high quality and low latency stereo audio input & output as well as DIN-5 input and output ports, and last but not least, The Button which can be used to execute various scripts & programs.

We have been developing Pisound ever since Pi 2 and we’ve seen the performance revolution of the Pi’s. Ever since Pi 3, you could achieve quite a lot running MODEP, Pi 4 and Pi 5 are steps in even more powerful direction.

For best performance, go with Pi 5 + active cooler. (if it gets too hot, it would slow itself down, but with the fan, it can run at its top speed)

The trickiest part would be to get the entire Linux system working as you like. Going with established projects like MODEP or Zynthian is easy to get started. If you want to customize, like having custom MIDI controls achieve some different things that are outside of their capabilities, you’ll have to roll up your sleeves.

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Thanks, @Giedrius. That helps a bit. Sounds like MODEP/Zynthian + Pisound + Pi5 with Active Cooler may be my ticket. This is just new territory for me, and it would be an unconventional “do it all” solution compared to the guitar-and-bass world’s typical effects-and-midi advice. Thanks again!

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@bkbigfish I’ve been working on a MODEP-based setup running on a Pi 4. From my experience, the Pi 5 should easily be able to handle 4-5, possibly more instances of NAM with standard models loaded with the bufferred option set to ON. I agree with it being somewhat unconventional, but that’s where the fun lies IMHO!

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NAM - Neural Amp Modeler, right? Somewhat aware of that one, but haven’t tried to do anything with it yet. Need to learn more, @KAOSS, but I appreciate the input!

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@bkbigfish yeah if you’re planning to do some guitar work, I highly recommend checking either NAM or AIDA-X. The reason NAM exists and sounds so good is why I jumped head-first into the MODEP ecosystem in the first place. I had dialled in some tones I really enjoyed in Helix Native, and I couldn’t believe how close the NAM standard-mdl profiles sounded to them! That convinced me that the hype surrounding it was definitely justified.

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Interesting. I’m primarily a bass player, but I like to do stuff with pitch-shifting, modulation, and time-based effects. I’m guessing NAM won’t help me out much on that front, but I will definitely check it out. Thanks again!