There is an amazing history behind this main board. In the next days i will tell you the tale of how a mysterious benefactor and open source lover financed this development and more.
Stay tuned!
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this is very exciting. great supporter for a great project 
it looks like this carrier board will be able to serve as a base for any audio/midi diy project relying on RPi4.
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I would like to say that the new Z2 main board is working flawlessly:
Note the 5 inch DSI display and the all-to-the-right controller’s layout 
Regards,
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Well now.
Since as you know, I’m actively building a controller and am adopting v5’s conventions, is there anything else I need to know about where to place my physical controllers?
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Also, is there a projected date for availability? Will there be pre-funding? How can I send you money sooner lol
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I would put the controllers in the right side, although current layout will be supported too, of course!
We prefer to not pre-fund at all. It’s a popular but dangerous practice (see this, for instance) and we prefer to work without this kind of pressure. Too much pressure is not good for any project. We go slowly because we go faraway!!
Regarding timing, our goal is May-June, what it’s quite adjusted, indeed! 
All the best
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I actually respect that a lot. I’m positive it’ll be worth the wait. :>
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Does this mean there’s a new screen layout?
This is very cool. I really love this 5inch display.
z2 Main v0.7 board looks very nice too 
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On the subject of screen layout, I assume that’s what the Kit section of the webconf is about, but is there a guide to the differences between the many options? Being as I have physical knobs I wanna turn off the dummies but not exactly sure what to change to. Staying with v4 layout cause that’s where they are on the prototype panel.
Further to this, I got that Cirrus Logic card working this morning, and it sounds extremely nice. Nice little hidden treasure, I bought it very early on when the drivers weren’t ready and as a result it’s just been sitting there.
Extremely full-featured device. Line in, Line Out, Mic in, coax digital which is nice, cause most musician-grade USB interfaces have coax rather than optical, and a pair of mics on the circuit board, which I have not yet tested but will. I never noticed cause they didn’t put headers on but it’s even got a tiny amp for speakers, which pretty much decides that this device will live in a certain spot where someone else wired up a couple of speaker wire runs to another room. Very handy.
Even more interesting is gonna be that this uses a 5102 codec according to the driver, and I bought a very cheap 5102 codec from aliexpress a while back on a whim, it was being talked about here and FOMO kicked in so I spent the tenner. Anyways, I’m gonna get that sucker wired up and do some side-by-side.
The sound is extremely nice, it’s running on a Pi3 with the most recent pi os fully updated, I’m listening to Pink Floyd on FLAC, only 44.1 but we’ll get to trying the higher bitrates. My target was to get a song playing before work this morning.
There were a few stutters which I’ll try to investigate, brief pauses in playback but they seemed to be random so I’m sure that some optimizations for audio will fix it.
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Well, it’s time to unveil the V5:
Some basic 3D renders:
In the next days i will unveil more details and “the history” behind the fantastic Z2 Main Board.
Of course, feel free to comment or ask whatever you want
Enjoy!
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Can’t wait to get one 
If I may give an opinion to the Zynthian Gurus (thank you), I wouldn’t abandon the slightly inclined front… This is because not everyone has the Zynthian on their desk and under their eyes. I hold it above the Yamaha piano and if it’s not slightly inclined, I struggle to see the display…
Or you could think about making the tilting display with a simple support on hinges… I had designed one with Fusion360 to be printed in 3D, but then I preferred to have the tilted front like the V4…
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I have a flat cased Zynthian (similar format to the V5) which I sit on an incline and still can’t see the bottom edge of the screen. So maybe a flat design is good to allow you to angle it to your preferred position. It may be easier to mount a cuboid than a wedge into a bracket or frame.
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For my enclosure, which is similar to the V4, I had to print a support to put the Zynthian on the piano… Maybe on the V5 one could think of a simple rotating foot like the ones that testers for electronics have… it’s just an idea not to have other objects if you use this tool live…
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How about adding some mounting screw threads to the base to allow it to be mounted to a stand, e.g. vesa mount? Ideally these are blind threaded holes so that any screws are limited in reach, i.e. long screws won’t go beyond the threads and hence protect the innards.
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Well, this is impressive. I really like the button pad, the workflow improvement will be massive.
Is there already a price range for the full kit?
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Yes, it’s a good idea. I think of when I used to play outside and had a Yamaha CP70b piano and the legendary Poly61 and had to rent a van to carry stuff around… With the Zynthian so many less problems… too bad I don’t play live anymore. …
With the threaded holes anyone can also 3D print raised rubber feet…
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