Hi @earthhwalkerr a warm welcome in Zynthianland.
Whole Internet is too wide (and infected by AI generated not so usefull content) that’s why you’re in the right place for asking your questions about Zynthian.
Zynthian can run “standalone” on a RBPi (<=> with no hardware controls and even without display).
The boss @jofemodo, said elswhere here on the forum, that Zynthian runs quiet well on RBPi 5 but some problems may appear on the edge.
For example, regarding RBPi5, support of midi over UART (<=> with 5 pins midi DIN connector) is quiet new in the RaspberryPi Os (wich is the base of Zynthian).
You can burn the latest version of ZynthianOs (*) on a SD card and give it a try with just a common HDMI display, a mouse and your favorite USB-MIDI controller(s).
Zynthian “built in” hardware controllers (rotary encoders, push buttons) are working with RBPi5.
(I’ve forgot that RBPi5 has no built in audio output: a cheap “class compliant” USB DAC, or a cheap I2S DAC wired on the PI GPIOs will work).
(*) link point to “ORAM”, the development version, wich introduce a bunch of new features and will be soon the next stable. Let’s go for it IMHO.
Because Zynthan is so versatile, one can try to achieve this or that with it and may encounter some troubles => feel free to give feedback so that Zynthian goes better