Not to take away from Zynthian as a platform. But your “smallest MPE box” requirement made me think of the Haken Audio EaganMatrix Micro. Which was originally designed for the kick-ass open source Warbl2 wind controller, but can also be used with other MPE instruments such as the Linnstrument. Can’t have a direct connection between both, though, because they’re both USB clients. So you’d need some other device either way, to provide USB Host functionality (incl. MIDI routing) and power.
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Hello from Vienna. New to this thread and Zynthian. I plan to use Zynthian as sole live sound source with my Roli Seaboard rise (aka 49). So far i’ve got Pianoteq running with polyphonic bend and Surge with full MPE capabilities, and everything seems to be working fine. Maybe this weekend i’ll take it out…
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These are very good news,@captainburek!
Keep us informed and please, send some audio7video recording when possible.
All the best,
But if you need an USB-host (a computer) between your keyboard and the synth, IMHO, the “Haken Audio EaganMatrix Micro” is not a “small MPE box” at all. Indeed it’s not a MIDI synth because you can’t connect a MIDI keyboard and play. It’s more a “hardware audio plugin” for your computer.
I tell this because zynthian was originally created just because of this “issue”. This was the “itch” that started everything. I’ve told the history several times but it can be repeated for the curious:
How did you get the idea to create Zynthian?
I had the idea of developing Zynthian while trying to connect my digital piano with a commercial Hammond emulator module called Ferrofish B4000+. It was around 2015 and i was playing drums in a funk band in Barcelona. I was totally in-love with the hammond sound and Mark, the keyboardist lend a me the B4000 to play at home.
My Casio digital piano had an USB-B connector but not a standard MIDI-OUT. The Ferrofish module had a USB-B connector too, but i found that it was not possible to connect both devices directly: an USB host was needed in the middle. Most of times, a computer is used for this, but i didn’t want to use a desktop or laptop computer, so i thought that a smaller Raspberry Pi could do the task, writing a little script that auto-connected the devices.
I wrote such script and it worked really fine. My problem was solved, but along the way, bigger ideas had invaded my brain and i was really excited with them: Why not trying to run a software synthesizer in the Raspberry Pi? My favorite free software synthesizer, ZynAddSubFX, was my first candidate.
My first tries were really frustrating, as the RBPi’s analog audio output is very bad. The sound quality is terrible and the latency huge.
Then I found the HifiBerry soundcard and it was amazing. The sound was clean and rich. I was astonished with the possibilities and a name appeared in my head:
Zynthian = ZynAddSubFX + Synthesizer + Debian
the Zynthian Project had been born!
Copy/pasted + edited from here:
I can’t understand that more than 10 years after my initial itch, you still can buy a “MIDI synth module” that you can’t connect directly to your MIDI keyboard.
All the best!
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