Need help with midi piano setup

Pisound Support
1

Hello friends!

I have a weighted MIDI keyboard and my goal was to get some good classic sounds out of it, something like piano or hammond organ, but without using mouse, keyboard and monitor.
First I was aiming for something like the Roland XV-2020 Synthesizer Module, but had in mind that it cant produce a sound as good as modern software based setups.
Then I saw the pisound module, and the next thing i can remember is that I have purchased one…
I´m new to this software-based-setups, and after some reeding in the docs and community I really cant see whats the best for me or whats even possible.
Should I use “Pisound and LV2 Plugins with Carla”, “Pure Data”, this “MODEP” thing, or the “Samplerbox” setup in the community ?
This question is probably dumb, but before tweeking around and playing with the other stuff, I want this setup working…, with the best sounding piano, organ and so on.

If someone could give me a little advice and some clarification, it would be appreciated.
Thanks for the patience

2

(Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on piano emulation, though my wife does own a high-end Kawai digital piano.)

I don’t think PiSound is going to fit your needs. The open source audio tools that I’m aware of are good at emulating synthesizers, creating experimental electronic sounds, or doing more straightforward sample playback and manipulation.

Digital pianos, on the other hand, use custom software based on very large libraries of samples — at least one per key, often multiple samples at different velocities — recorded in professional studios, combined with code that emulates the resonance that one set of strings triggers in another. I’m not aware of any open-source implementations of this; I think the overhead of all the recording makes it unlikely as a volunteer effort. But I could be wrong.

If you have a PC or Mac lying around, there are commercial software packages that do a pretty good job of emulating pianos. I don’t recall any names offhand, but it should be easy to search for.

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I have used with success the arm build of pianoteq, a commercial product that uses pyhisical modeling to emulate acoustic/electric pianos, clavinets, clavicords, harpsicord, and various other instruments (no organs).

I have the “stage” version which is the cheapest one I think it’s around 100€

I think you can download a trial version which has a time limit of 20 minutes and some notes disabled.

HTH

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4

+1 pianoteq is fantastic… (on the mac :wink: )

I saw mixed feedback on the pianoteq forum about it on the rPI3
https://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic.php?id=5351

its definitely pushing the limits on the rPI3, and Im tempted to try with the newer rPI3, perhaps overclocked too. for sure, if you can get reasonable performance, I’d be tempted to dedicate a rPI to it!

so definitely worth trying the demo - funny i didnt think about using a demo license for this, and didnt want to sacrifice a ‘pianoteq seat’ in case it didnt work, so might give it a try now :slight_smile:

5

Thanks for the clarification and for the good advice.
That really sounds interesting! Are there more high-quality synthesizer for linux, like pianoteq with other instruments around?

Can you tell us how you set it up? Maybe some extra step for the noob (me)?.. Is it also possible to launch it headless?

6

Thanks for the clarification and for the good advice.
That really sounds interesting! Are there more high-quality synthesizer for linux, like pianoteq with other instruments around?

For organs (haven’t tested it personally) there is setbrfree, it’s in the debian repository I think.
As for synths there is yoshimi which is very good.

I have used with success the arm build of pianoteq

Can you tell us how you set it up? Maybe some extra step for the noob (me)?.. Is it also possible to launch it headless?

Yes it can run headless with the --headless option

basically I put the pianoteq binary in /home/pi/bin and then I configured the pisound app to launch this script:

#!/bin/bash

. /usr/local/pisound/scripts/common/common.sh

if DISPLAY=$(find_display); then
	export XAUTHORITY=/home/pi/.Xauthority
	export DISPLAY
	echo Using display $DISPLAY
	unset NO_GUI

else
	echo No display found, specifying --headless
	NO_GUI=--headless

fi


su root << EOF

/home/pi/bin/pianoteq $NO_GUI &

EOF

HTH

PS: Mark is right, pianoteq is usable but I don’t know if I would rely on it on a raspi for live performance for example… given a very complex performance or long sustained notes it may glitch… But for practicing or recording is enough for me

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7

Hello. I want to share a little summary on my progress.
Thanks to the help here I got everything working! In the first place I didnt want to spend that much money, but I bought the Pianoteq-Stage version and also the Honehner Collection…
I set it up with this detailed howto

and made it headless. (I just left out the EOF-stuff, because it didnt work for me somehow…)
And Im really impressed! I totally dont regret it, going for the raspberry+pisound+pianoteq solution.

so @emillo, can you share your settings for (host,internal) sample rate, buffer and polyphony?
I just want to optimize a little, because for me its gambling.

And by the way, I also used the berryboot-loader in first place, so that I can choose between the raspbian (for the “piano”) and a MODEP image (for guitar)

Thanks

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