Orac 2.0 for the Raspberry PI

Patchbox OS ORAC
183

its not “.patchbox” , its “patchbox.” :wink:

I assume since its working for ‘some’ (ive no idea what percentage) of us, that patchbox OS is publishing its name to the network, but for some reason on some network setups that name resolution is not working…

patchbox. what is going on is there is no domain name declared.
e.g. often it would be something like patchbox.local
(this is mac, can’t remember what windows default is)

and because the patchbox name is not in the same domain as your computer (e.g. .local), it needs a full qualified domain name (FQDN) , because your computer will add its default domain if you dont.
(e.g. ping patchbox on a mac, will try patchbox.local which is not its name!)

interestingly on bela, when it registers its name it does register it in the local domain … so perhaps this is something that patchbox OS could do?
that said, Ive seen similar questions on Bela about name resolution, so its not perfect either.

I think unfortunately all of this is not only related to how patchbox is installed/setup, but also how your network and your OS is setup :frowning:

anyway, this should all be on a new ‘patchbox OS’ topic, so that others can see it, and chime in,
to see if any common theme is found…

similarly Ive not had any issues with the hotspot, just works on my windows and macs ,
(note: I think my default, when connected via a hotspot, you wont automatically gain access to the ‘host’ computers internet connection … you might have to share it - I’ve had issues with this on Bela!)

184

yeah, making a drum synth would be alot of fun…as you say the basics of it, detailed in quite a few places - and from that basic starting point, you can ‘go wild’ :slight_smile:

Ive been wanting to make some more modules, but just been snowed under with the more ‘techie’ stuff on orac… but hopefully that is easing up a bit.

185

Well the WiFi hotspot isn’t working for me. I’m trying to connect the Lemur template (I’ve restarted Lemur and the rPi with no success). In “Host” I put 172.24.1.1 in Port I have 6100. No luck.
The iPhone doesn’t see the hotspot either - I’m guessing is a problem.
Trying to set this up to be usable in jam and improvisational settings where WiFi is not available.
@M_Rollers if it works for you i’m wondering if you could describe what you did to get it working?

@thetechnobear
Yes I think I will take this to the PatchboxOS forum as well.

186

I am using Windows 8. I connected to the pi hotspot and launched the PD editor and put 172.24.1.1 in the “edit hostname here” box. I hit hit the pisound button for the MEC, then loadbang. Then all the fields filled, w/ a1 : Brds Mono at the top. I’m not connecting thru a router because I don’t have home internet.

187

Thanks for that.
I don’t have a piSound (yet) so MEC is set to run on boot.
Interestingly enough, working the other way around I managed to get PatchboxOS to connect to my iPhone hotspot just now which might do for the time being. Only concern with that is getting the correct Host address which ended up being 172.20.10.11

188

@Makrotulpa glad I could help. I’m a total noob at this. Now that it’s working I’m about to devour the videos again. :slight_smile:
@thetechnobear thanks for this, looking forward to learning pd! I think you made it easier to get into, for me anyway.

2 Likes
189

Hi Mark, i tryed a little To understand how is designed a module but its not realy easy… i think it Will be great To explain just à bit how To make tweekable some paramètres ! Anyway, my drum synth is in stand by, but the 24sampler is very Well indeed To Bégin. Do you know if there is a way To change the gain of each plot? Last question, does the easter egg work on raspberry pi? Thanks

190

Have you watched my earlier videos on ‘ how to create an Orac module’
Those talk about how to setup parameters etc , which is the same in Orac 2

No Easter Egg will not work on rPI, since it depends on rest of the Organelle support.

If you had the right hardware (oled, pots, encoder etc ) you could theoretically write an abstraction that supported your hardware. But unfortunately it’d be specific to you, hence why I’ve not gone that route.

1 Like
191

yeah ! you did it! it’s exactly what i need!! i ’ m starting playing with module, the first thing i have to ask is wher do i put them modified? i tried the /patch/media/orac/usermodules file but it never saw it on the orac interface?

192

~/media/orac/usermodules

the directory already exists :wink:

you should create a sub-directory for the category, and you can ‘re-use’ one , e.g. synth, or have your own.

if the category/patchname is the same as an existing ‘factory’ one, then it will be used in preference to the factory one.
e.g. so you can have a modified version of basicpoly, by putting in
~/media/orac/usermodules/synth/basicpoly

but if you want to keep the existing one you could
have your own version in another category, e.g.
~/media/orac/usermodules/mysynths/basicpoly

or rename it…
~/media/orac/usermodules/synth/mybasicpoly

which ever you feel is more appropriate, where you wanted listed in the browse modules menu

note: module developers should not ‘expect’ their modules to be in a particularly directory… you’ll see code in the samplers about how to find sample directory, and code in things like seq2 about how to reference a preset directory (to save data)

193

That’s what i dit ! But i nothing was shawn on the remote interface.i Will try again tonight, maybe i forgot rebooting or something like that

1 Like
194

@fpa, @thetechnobear
I recall having to issue this command for the usermodules to work:

sudo ln -s /home/patch/media/orac/usermodules /usr/local/orac/usermodules

I think I took it from a past comment on this forum

195

no that should not be necessary… i think that was just a hack for the initial beta, I believe this should have been fixed in beta 2

@fpa, if you start orac manually , or use journctl to look at its logs (details above somewhere I think), then it will list what its loading at startup.

you don’t need to reboot, but you will need to restart orac for new modules to be picked up.

196

@thetechnobear , I’ve tryed another times and i’m positive, the directory doesn’t work yet.

197

ok, just checked and indeed theres a small issue…

I fixed the code, and I updated all configs for all platforms EXCEPT patchbox :wink:

no worries, its simple to fix manually, you need to override the userModuleDir in /usr/local/orac/orac.json

so

sudo vi /usr/local/orac/orac.json

then change orac.json to read:

{
	"dataDir":	"/home/patch/data/orac",
	"mediaDir":	"/home/patch/media",
	"userModuleDir": "/home/patch/media/orac/usermodules"
}

note: addition of , on mediaDir line, and there is no comma on userModuleDir line
(this is standard json format, lists of items do not have a comma on last item)

with this change it works fine for me

p.s. Ive now fixed in dev, so will be ‘fixed’ in next release.

you can verify this when Orac starts by using the command

journalctl -u orac

first thing you will notice is at the bottom it says:

May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: mainDir : .
May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: dataDir : /home/patch/data/orac
May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: mediaDir : /home/patch/media
May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: moduleDir : modules
May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: userModuleDir : /home/patch/media/orac/usermodules
May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: currentPreset : demo1
May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: Preset : Init
May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: Preset : demo1
May 30 12:36:14 patchbox pd[3147]: Preset : demo2
May 30 12:36:16 patchbox pd[3147]: preset loaded  : demo1

then if you look up in the log you will see modules being loaded, e.g. here you can see I have added a synth called synth/testsynth1
(in /home/patch/media/orac/usermodules/synth/testsynth1)

May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: synth/sampler
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: synth/sampler24
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: synth/tuneddelay
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: synth/tuneddelaymono
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: synth/wavescanner
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: utility/arper
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: utility/chordroll
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: utility/clock
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: utility/empty
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: utility/midiout
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: utility/noterepeat
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: utility/t3dosc
May 30 12:36:13 patchbox pd[3147]: KontrolRack::module found: synth/testsynth1

note: user modules will appear after factory ones

journalctl is a very useful command , as it shows the logs of orac (or mec) , so if you have errors (e.g. if your module.json is incorrectly formatted) then it will appear in this log.

198

Like some of the others I too am having remote connection issues. Orac is running I can hear the drums and synth but the remote is doing nothing. Have tried using the PD and the Lemur versions on WIFI and custom local connections (Pi Hosted and Mac hosted) hit the button to launch MEC, launched MEC with the patchbox config used “patchbox.” and the numerical address for the pi but nothing is happening. Is there a walk through video available? I’m sure I must just be missing something or doing something wrong.

I think I’m right in thinking the PD remote will not run on the host Pisound. For me it would actually be really useful if it did so I can eliminate the need for a secondary device to control orac on the pisound when I have mouse&keys and a monitor available.

Thanks for any help.

1 Like
199

on your mac if you ‘ping’ patchbox. does it work? or ssh into patch@patchbox. ?
if it does its not the network, if it doesn’t its the network…
(you can also try patchbox.local , this is how some macs are setup)

(do it with the mac, first, as you have more diagnostic tools :slight_smile: )

also, have you remembered to start MEC?

it should do, then you just use localhost as the hostname…

BUT…that means launching X windows, and having a keyboard/mouse/monitor attached.
a whole load of hassle that I personally didn’t want :slight_smile:

(oh, and you still need MEC and Orac running !)

200

Thanks for the help, just managed connection over the pisound hosted local network using the “patchbox.local” target in pd from my Mac. Ping test was very useful, it failed on all but the ps hosted local network. Any advice on troubleshooting my main WIFI to fix this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again can’t wait to get stuck in.

201

Have you connected to your WiFi network via patchbox?

202

Yes I did, working internet connection and everything.