Yoshimi Pi

[Folderol]

Hi Will,

Hope you and yours are all well and sane!

Did you get my email a from a couple of days ago? I am super interested in getting hold of a YP....

Stephen

email replied

[Folderol]

Just had a very interesting result

For a while I've been experimenting off-and-on with the part build yp008, and various OS images. I've now got it running with the Rosegarden sequencer on board. This is far from lightweight software! Nevertheless I was able to run a moderately complex 10 part project with no detectable Xruns. This was also with the little screen at it maximum resolution of 1920x1080

The proof:

[Martin Walker]

That IS impressive Will.

Martin

[Eddy Deegan]

DD image?!

[Folderol]

I've got some clean-ups to do, but I should be able to put an image up somewhere soon-ish.

It will now auto-connect to the 'net but only if the line is active at startup (or reboot). I still haven't been able to get it to auto-mount USB sticks though

P.S.
I discovered what was causing the occasional startup failure. I'd made a mistake with some of the startup software, that was slowing down a critical part of the sequence, such that the initial holdup circuit timed out before the 'on' lock was set.

[Folderol]

Ho-Hum I've hit a speedbump

While I always understood that not all SD cards of a given size are actually equal, it hadn't occurred to me that this was also true of different cards from the same manufacturer and model. It seems that by pure chance the one I used to generate the image file was at the top of the size range, and the other two that I've got are not big enough to take the transfer. Just to complete my misery, the go-to utility for shrinking Raspberry Pi images seems to corrupt this one. Oh, and I can no longer find the original devuan image on-line that I started with.

The (sort of) good news is the image works perfectly on a 32G card, and this card works exactly as it should do in yp003.

Anyway, until and unless I can find a way to reliably shrink the image, I can't risk putting this out as a re-flash option

P.S.
With hindsight, I should have used an 8G card for development - it would be more than big enough and would ensure it could be copied to working ones.

[Folderol]

Progress!

I've spent most of the day on this, but all the suggestions I got from world+dog failed to produce a usable compressed image

However...
Putting my web search foo into overdrive I was eventually able to find a compressed image of
a recent (May 2021) build of 64 bit devuan beowulf. I've tested this on one of my 16G cards and it worked perfectly, even though the image is classed as 'experimental'.

With all the extras needed for Yoshimi and Rosegarden (including some example files) the completed build uses less the 4G of the card in total. Therefore the idea of getting an 8G card and building on that as my reference, then flashing to 16G ones is perfectly feasible.

I shall sleep well tonight

[Folderol]

... and we have a result
I'm currently uploading a 3.3G zipped image - so you'll have to unzip it before burning a card. It's taken over an hour to get to 20% (standard ADSL upload rate), so I'll leave it running when I go out.

It's actually 15G and will fit on all the 16G cards I can get hold of, so I'm cautiously optimistic. If in doubt get a 32G card which it will definitely be OK on. It's got lots of extra toys so do have a good poke around 'Apps'.

To Show off Yoshimi and Rosegarden at their best, if you are using the supplied screen, then before running either of these use the Resolution app to change to 1280x1024, and they'll position nicely on the display. I suggest also moving the CPU monitor to the bottom right, so you can see the sort of work it's doing and how hot it's getting.

As well as the previous help entries, there is the (still not complete) new user guide, and a text file 'New_Features'. A double click will load it into a text editor.

Have fun, make notes, and ask questions tomorrow

[Eddy Deegan]

Hurrah, well done Will

[Folderol]

Well, About 11 I went to bed with it still running
Anyway it's finally here
I won't be doing that again!

[James Perrett]

Will this image only work with your Yoshimi Pi's or can it be used with any Pi 4? Our lad now has a Pi 4 so I was wondering if he could use it?

[Folderol]

Will this image only work with your Yoshimi Pi's or can it be used with any Pi 4? Our lad now has a Pi 4 so I was wondering if he could use it?

It will work with any Pi4, but you won't of course get the power management that our extras provide, so it will auto-start and a shutdown will leave it drawing standby current. We handle several GPIOs so if you lad starts messing with those all bets are off!

[Eddy Deegan]

Thank you very much for taking the time and trouble to do this Will. Safely downloaded at this end, and a card on order to deploy it to

[Folderol]

Let me know how you get on... Oh, and from the 7th to the 12th I'll be off-grid at the NFFF

Moving on, some numbers, all deg.C to the nearest 0.5

Ambient
22.5

Processor

Idle (no Apps)
63

Yoshimi idle
67

Yoshimi playing arps from keyboard to Ghost Ensemble
69

Yoshimi + Rosegarden with East to West demo loaded but idle
69.5

After two runs
72.5

Yoshimi + Rosegarden with Well Really demo loaded but idle
71.5

After two runs
73

Some explanations:
The Pi starts to throttle at 80, so this is safe but not ideal.

Tests were done with 008. 003 seemed to give a similar result for the first static test, so I didn't bother beyond that. The first measurement was made after idling for about 2 hours to ensure the temperate was settled, for the same reason the other idle measurements were made 30 minutes after the state had been set.

When yoshimi is idle, it isn't really! Even though there is no sound, (silent) audio is being calculated, generated and sent to the interface, so the difference with running values are pretty much down to the calculations being made at each note on. The more parts there are enabled, the more work is being done, and the tests are done with; just one part , 10 parts and 15 parts.

Rosegarden adds some extra work of course, and this is almost entirely dependent on the running status.

The received wisdom is that the small finned heatsinks make very little difference in an enclosed environment unless air is being moved over them, or unless they have thermal connection to a metal enclosure. The second option would be very difficult to arrange with any reliability, but there is space inside for a 30mm fan blowing across the board, so that's a possibility. This would be easy with 004 onwards, not so much with the earlier ones. I'll see if I can get hold of one and do further tests, for both performance and noise.

In an extreme situation for 004 onwards, it would be possible to cut a hole, in the blank side and fit a larger fan there drawing in outside air, but I'd prefer to avoid that!

[Folderol]

Ho Hum an error in the arpeggiator call, but fixable.

In Apps, while holding down Shift, double-click on the 'QmidiArp' icon. This will open a new window with two files.

Again while holding down Shift, double-click on 'AppRun' which will load it into a text editor.
Add ' -a' to the command so it becomes:

qmidiarp -a

(don't forget the space)
Resave it, and the job's done.

[Folderol]

Having loads of free time - HAR! I've managed to build a pair of apps, the first of which will fetch-build-test the latest version. Once you're satisfied it's tickety-boo you can run the second to actually install it. This way any kind of build failure won't break the existing install.

The first time these are used it will be necessary to use the synaptic package manager to install an extra system file, so I'll wrap all of this up with instructions and post it somewhere.

I'll also include an archiver program (never thought it would be needed) but on this occasion it will have to be unarchived from the terminal window - instructions for that will also be in the text file. Actually I might just put the text file here when it's all ready to go

[Martin Walker]

Ooh, thanks for this Will - being a total beginner at Linux, having an app to streamline the Yoshimi Pi update process could help bypass a world of pain

Looking forward to the official write up.

Martin

[James Perrett]

Our lad is now enjoying experimenting with Yoshimi. On the recommendation of a friend of mine we set up a Patchbox system on his Raspberry Pi 4. Patchbox is a slimmed down version of Raspbian specifically set up for audio with Jack and Alsa already configured. We then downloaded Reaper and, after a little bit of fiddling with Jack, we managed to record and play some Midi.

We then downloaded Yoshimi - it was actually very easy once you get used to using apt-get for every new bit of software.

He's just come in to tell me that he has his USB Midi keyboard talking to Yoshimi and he's set up the audio output to feed into Reaper so that he can record it. I can hear some interesting sounds coming out of his room.

[Folderol]

Well, that's good to know
Which version did you get?

[James Perrett]

I'll have to check tomorrow.

He was very chuffed to find that Yoshimi responds to the filter and resonance controls from his keyboard. However, it didn't seem to respond to the reverb control (controller 91) or chorus control (controller 93) - is there a configuration setting somewhere to set this up?

[Folderol]

Good to know he's getting into it. I'll be interested to know how deep he goes down the rabbit hole

Both Reverb and Chorus are effects that can have their controls MIDI-learned.
to do this, Right-click on the control you want to learn while holding down the Ctrl key, then wiggle the physical control you want to learn. Since V1.7.4 almost all controls can be learned, and most will affect playing notes not just next note.

There is a 'gotcha' with the MOD wheel. It only works on voice patches that have the AddSynth and/or PadSynth frequency LFO depth set above zero! However, the physical wheel can be learn linked to any other control (as can the pitch wheel)

If he gets stuck there is a link to a supplied user guide in the Yoshimi dropdown menu. This is quite heavy going for older versions, in which case, a more friendly one is here:
http://yoshimi.sourceforge.net/docs/user-guide

This is really for Versions 2.0 or later, but apart from the filer the majority of the info also applies to earlier versions.

Finally,
If in doubt hover the mouse over a button or control for info and hints.

[James Perrett]

Thanks Will,

That's all very helpful. He's using the standard SD card in there at the moment but we'll give this a try the next time he gets back to using the Patchbox SD card with all the music software on it.

[Folderol]

Just a note that Yoshimi Pi 008 and 009 are still unclaimed. From time to time I run these and keep the software updated so they always have a recent version of Yoshimi itself.

Price is negotiable! Also I have another one on special offer.

So for those interested please form an orderly queue of Priv. Mail

008 is pale green and 009 is mauve.

[Arpangel]

I was shocked today, my partner, who isn’t the slightest bit computer orientated, said, while I was driving the car "why aren’t we using Linux?" (nearly ploughed into the car in front) She does have this habit of going off on tangents that have nothing to do with what we’ve currently been talking about, I said "what!" what are you talking about!
She said, maybe I’d get on with it better than those other "things"