Merry Zynthians and Happy New SD Image

Software Updates
1

It’s been a hard month preparing the new SD image, but finally it’s here. Its name is Gorgona!

belen_zynthian_final.jpg1500×1129 433 KB

If you already have a Zynthian Box, i’m pretty sure you would like to try Gorgona right now. You can choose between two different versions, compiled for RBPi3 and RBPi2:

RBPi3

Download “Gorgona” SD Image for Zynthian for RBPi3 (8 GB)
SHA1: 37df1cdcea224f680e215b3e18ae28a99c3e9ca1

Download “Gorgonilla” SD Image for Zynthian for RBPi3 (4 GB)
SHA1: 54ce50f85e7c41459893d8ca06d68c2077fa265b

RBPi2

Download “Gorgona” SD Image for Zynthian for RBPi2 (8 GB)
SHA1: 6bf51ecfed2b949545dece7e3d6839c5fef2b80c

Download “Gorgonilla” SD Image for Zynthian for RBPi2 (4 GB)
SHA1: eeffc74019012411333bcae927b69144fae2acd2

The only difference between Gorgona and Gorgonilla versions is the amount of soundfonts (SFZ and SF2 files) included in the data directory. All the rest is the same.

New features and improvements:

  • MOD Plugin Host & User Interface: mod-host + mod-ui
    This is the main dish of this release. MOD Devices team have developed this amazing software for the ModDuo and they have shared their work with all the world, releasing it under GPL. So, thanks a lot, MOD’s team!! You are really great! And also thanks to Holger Wirtz, for his great contribution making MOD’s software to work in zynthian!
  • A lot of LV2 plugins:
  • Dexed, an amazing Yamaha DX7 emulator that can import DX7 SysEx files. Thanks to Holger Wirtz by creating this native port to LV2.
  • MDA EPiano, sounds like a true Fender Rhodes. Waaarm!
  • MDA JX10, a Roland JX10 emulator with a lot of mind-boggling presets.
  • TAL Noize Mak3r, a true ears-breaker with really fat sounds.
  • and many more …
  • Refactorized GUI, that scales to any screen size and uses customizable fonts and colors.
  • Default Snapshot: you can save a default snapshot that will be loaded at startup.
  • Audio Test function, available in the admin menu.
  • MIDI Test function, available in the admin menu (if you want to hear something, you have to load some synth before!)
  • Improved Network Info function, available in the admin menu.
  • Improved initialization system, using systemd units
  • Auto-Expand SD partition on first startup, to fit the whole size of the SD card.
  • Zynthian Setup Script: Now you can build your own image from scratch using the setup script. If you are interested, read this post in the forum.
  • And a lot of little improvements and fixes…

Accessing the MOD User Interface

You can access the MOD web interface following the next steps:

  1. Connect your Zynthian Box to your local network (or directly to your computer) using an ethernet cable.
  2. Load the mod-ui synth engine
  3. Point your browser to: http://zynthian.local:8888
  4. Enjoy!

screenshot_modui_rhodes_vintage.png1573×934 1.62 MB

If you your browser can’t find the zynthian.local address, probably you are using a windows version that doesn’t support the link-local feature and you can’t connect your zynthian box directly to your computer. Don’t worry. You can connect it to your local network and obtain its IP address by using the Network Info option in the admin menu.

Technical Details

Here comes some brief technical details useful to start hacking the new Gorgona image:

SSH/SFTP access:

login: root
password: raspberry

User pi doesn’t exist any more and … it’s a good idea to change the password :wink:

Base Directory:

/zynthian

Almost all the zynthian stuff like synth engines, audio plugins, soundfonts, zynthian user interface, setup scripts and other specific software is in this directory.

UI configuration file

/zynthian/zynthian-ui/zynthian_gui_config.py

This file contains some configuration parameters for the Zynthian User Interface:

  • Logging level
  • Wiring layout
  • Font & Color scheme
  • etc.

Stopping/Starting Zynthian UI

You must use systemd-style commands to stop & start any system service, that includes the zynthian UI:

# systemctl stop zynthian
# systemctl start zynthian

If you want to run the zynthian UI in the console (i.e. inspect the logging/debug messages), you must stop the zynthian service and run the zynthian UI as a normal script using:

# systemctl stop zynthian
# /zynthian/zynthian-sys/sbin/zynthian.sh

Play & Enjoy!!!

5 Likes
4

Image loaded…it is very nice!!!

What is the user/pwd for SSh or Ftp???

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Hi @jofemodo (:santa:)

M A N Y - T H A N K S for this xmas-present :gift: and for the time you are spending for your project (I know how much time is costs :wink:).

And of course: Many thanks to the developers of the tons of open-source-software which is inside Zynthian!

Regards, Holger

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@videobelu

User: root
PW: raspberry

The user pi does not exist anymore.

Regards, Holger

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Thank you very much!!!

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Many thanks for this wonderful Christmas gift. I’m currently downloading the image and looking forward to test it.

@jofemodo, as initiator and team leader, and @C0d3man, as developper, you are really doing an amazing job.

Congratulations!!!

I wish a nice Christmas for all Zynthian community members!!

1 Like
9

Download completed. I must say that it sounds much better than previous image (what I’ve tested so far). I think it will take a couple of months to explore and discover all new possibilities you gave us with the new image (I’m newbie in this world).

What a terrific job!! Vaya pedazo de curro!!!

By the way, nice audio test.

1 Like
10

Hi @zynthianers!

Thanks a lot for your comments and feedback!! I really love you! :heart_eyes:

I’ve updated the original post with some technical details useful for those of you who want to hack the new zynthian image.

That’s all by now! Enjoy a lot … and give some feedback!! :wink:

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thank youuuuuu!! merry xmas :smile:

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Hi Zyntianiacs,

merry X-Mas for you! Have nice days!

Regards, Holger

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Hi friends, i will try when i’ll return home, its a while i dont write. It was great made grafic interface with tablet, i will try to connect with it

14

Hello guys!

I downloaded the Zynthian image and tried it on my raspberry, but the system is not booting because I use another sound card (Behringer UC6102)

What configurations should I change so that the system can start with my sound card?

I also have a 7 inch HDMI touchscreen, is it possible to display the zynthian-ui on it? What configures should be changed for this?

Thank you!

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Hi @rod_amaral,

a Behringer UCG102 is a USB interface? This will not work out of the box.

Normaly the system should boot but you won’t here anything. Can you mount the first partition of the SD-card? There should be a file named config.txt. There should be a block like this:

# Audio Device Driver:
#dtoverlay=hifiberry-amp
#dtoverlay=hifiberry-dac
dtoverlay=hifiberry-dacplus
#dtoverlay=hifiberry-digi
#dtoverlay=iqaudio-dac
#dtoverlay=iqaudio-dacplus
#dtoverlay=audioinjector-wm8731-audio
#AUDIO_DEVICE_DTOVERLAY

Comment out the dtoverlay=hifiberry-dacplus line, unmount and reboot. If this does not help you should try to write the image again to the SD card. Maybe the image is damaged?

But again: USB sound cards are not directly supported. You will have to configure the jack-audio service on your own. I think USB sound will add too much latency to the audio queue - if it will work you will not have much fun…

Regards, Holger

1 Like
16

Hi Rod,

It is possible to show the Zynthian UI on an external HDMI display. The easiest way that I’ve found to do it is to remove the references to the Adafruit display from config.txt

Old

PiTFT Config

#dtoverlay=pitft28-capacitive,rotate=90,speed=32000000,fps=20
dtoverlay=pitft28-resistive,rotate=90,speed=32000000,fps=20

New

PiTFT Config

#dtoverlay=pitft28-capacitive,rotate=90,speed=32000000,fps=20
#dtoverlay=pitft28-resistive,rotate=90,speed=32000000,fps=20

Then remove the 99-pitft.conf file from /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d directory. You could rename it to 99-pitft.bak

This is an ugly hack. X11 will try to start the Adafruit display but it’ll fail since the drivers are missing. Then the system will drop back to HDMI.

I’m not sure which HDMI display that you’re using. I’m using a 5 inch display with non-standard resolution (800x480). So I needed to add some extra lines to the config.txt file to enable this mode.

The latest version of Zynthian has scalable UI, so it is very easy to adjust to UI to match the resolution of your display. The zynthian_gui.py file has settings for resolution that yo can tweek to your requirements:-

width=320
height=240

Hope this helps,

.Andy

1 Like
17

Hi! I have it working and all is lovely, and I can SSH into the Zynthian… but I can not get the MOD web interface to work. No matter what I do, it tells me the server refused to connect. I’ve tried with zynthian.local:8888 and I’ve tried with the IP address, and I’ve tried from Linux and Windows 10… no luck at all. Am I missing something obvious?

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Have you started the MOD-UI engine from the zynthian UI? :wink:

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I thought it was something obvious… now at last I see it, and it is awesome. Thanks.