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Piano Expander based on Pianotec and Odroid-N2
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- Last edited 4 years ago by Bernhard Naegele
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Contents
Intention
- The intention behind this project was to bring the best piano emulation software together with the best fitted application processor module to build a real rugged high quality piano expander for stage usage.
- While reading in the Pianoteq User Forum I have seen some interrest in running Pianoteq on Raspberry PI.
- For my opinion the Raspberry Pi is a nice application processor module, but it is really not good suited for audio applications. You have to add an expensive extension board for getting good audio performance.
- Some other application processor modules are not so well knows as the Raspberry PI, but have sometimes better CPU performance and much better audio peripherals integrated on the silicon or on the board. Therefore there is no need for cost sensitive components to get a usable audio device.
- The Odroid-N2 seems to be such a CPU board. It seems to have better CPU performance (6x ARM 64bit Cores running up to 1.8 GHz) in comparison to the Raspberry Pi 4 - is thermaly integrated into a well designed heatsink which prevents the cores from thermal throttling even at high cpu load.
- In addition to that it is equiped with a high performance audio DAC.
- So - why not using an Odroid-N2 in conjunction with Pianoteq 6 to design an High-Performance-Piano-Expander with as few as possible external components?
Hardware
The "Easy-Solution"
- For those who don't want to have a robust "Stage-Solution" and for those who have an external HDMI-Monitor for desktop-usage there is the possibility to use the Odroid N2 module just out of the box with nearly no additional cost.
- This solution could look like this:
Block Diagram V.0.2
The Module "Odroid-N2"
- Hardkernel: Odroid-N2 with 2GByte RAM, Odroid shop with short introduction and benchmark informations
- Hardkernel: Odroid-N2 with 4GByte RAM, Odroid shop with short introduction and benchmark informations
- Odroid-Wiki: Odroid-N2, many informations about Odroid-N2 and the related soft- and hardware
Mechanical Design, still work in progress
Software, still work in progress
- This small tutorial is based on the tutorial which was written by Edgar Bustamante for the the Raspberry PI 3. It is really good - therefore I use it on some parts as a blueprint.
This tutorial will explain in detail how to setup the Operating System on an Odroid-N2, how to make the suitable change which are needed for running Pianoteq 6 and how to install and setup Pianoteq 6 Stage in a Odroid-N2. This process is very similar to the installation on a Raspberry PI. Pianoteq 6 running on an Odroid-N2 is just one way of getting a standalone piano expander at high audio quality while keeping the price relatively inexpensive.