Potential Zynthianer with some usability questions

Using Zynthian
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Hello all!

I’m contemplating making a Zynthian as it sounds like it might do many of the things I’d like. Ideally what I’m after is something to expand the capabilities of my current digital piano (Roland HP505), which has some nice piano and strings sounds but any of the more diverse sounds (eg GM banks etc) are fairly basic, and not too accessible, buried in 1 huge list of sounds that needs to be manually scrolled thru on a single line display. I’ve used the Pianoteq synth via my win10 laptop and love it, except for slight latency issues. I’ve listed below the key things i’d hope to get out of the Zynthian and would be keen to hear feedback from users on how well my expectations might be met:
*Live performance (just playing casually for my own enjoyment) use with Pianoteq, to give a new set of high quality piano sounds
*Live performance using soundfonts (SF2/SFZ) to complement the set of voices available in my piano
*Simple midi recorder that saves as .mid files
*Multi-track midi recorder - can Zynthian do this?
*General mess-about live-performance toy for playing with synths and sounds
*Sort-of “effects pedal” for electric guitar/violin

I have access to a Raspberry Pi 4, so am contemplating the self-build route rather than the nice official kit. My piano has a USB midi interface so presumably I can use this instead of the classic 5pin DIN MIDI interface? In searching and reading a few other threads on here it seems that will work, but I’m not 100% sure. Also, the official kit has 4x rotary controllers that interface via the screen module. I presume there’s a way to have rotary controllers if a different screen is used? (I have my eye on a 5" HDMI touch panel).

Lots of questions! If there are some discussion topics that answer these then please point me in their direction. I’ve made a few searches and found some useful info so far, but still have plenty to learn!

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Hi, welcome

Yes you’re right

Yes. You Can do it yourself with some Soldering or you can but parts (with Soldering too but using a ready made pcb) search in the shop for the v2 all in one board (it also embed thé midi circuit)

It’s true the 3.5 inch is a bit small.
HDMI displays are ok but this Can be a mess of cables (HDMI+USB for the touch fonction+eventualy a second USB cable for powering the display).
I’ve bought a 5inch DSI display on Aliexpress and I’m really happy with it.

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I can’t answer all your questions, and haven’t used Pianoteq outside of curiosity, and I certainly haven’t ever played for a ‘live’ audience outside of Mrs gr0k or some curious friends :sweat_smile: but as far as being satisfied with being able to have several patterns looping on the sequencer, and flicking between them through an external midi controller, whilst manipulating numerous parameters on synths, or using homemade or builtin soundfonts with filters likewise being manipulated (cutoff, resonance, volume, etc etc etc), or recording simple midi, or using it as an effects unit for external input, I’d say you’ll be more than well satisfied.

I’m no professional musician, but I think I’ve given the Zynth a fair workout, before and after getting the hardware (and therefore upgrading to a Raspberry Pi 4) and have done all of the quoted things and much more, and I’m having nothing but a great time.

Most of the issues I’ve run into are due to using unstable images or branches. It’s totally possible to have a stable image and use it more-or-less indefinitely without updating, but beware, the Zynthian is addictive! If you’re anything like me you’ll fall in love with it, and end up dreaming of the endless possibilities.

Take my words with a grain of salt, I’m far from seasoned or professional, but reading your post it sounds like the Zynthian is exactly what you’re looking for. If you can figure out how to download the stable image and have a play, you’ll have a great time. If you’ve got a bit of technical expertise I expect we’ll be seeing you a bit more often.

I might still be on my honeymoon period (it’s only been a few months since I started playing with it, and less than that before getting the hardware) but it was everything I wanted and more, and there are brilliant minds making things even better.

This should probably have been a private blog entry or something I’ve gotten much too gushy, but you get the point. The Zynth sounds perfect for you, and if you’ve already got a pi or other goodies lying around, it’s free to have a play.

You sound like you’re already a capable tinkerer, the best way to find out if it’s for you is to give it a go!

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The only think in your list that Zynthian doesn’t do is multitrack recording although there is some limited support for multitrack sequencing.

You can try Zynthian with a Raspberry Pi 3 or 4, HDMI monitor and mouse / keyboard. Flash the latest image, connect to network, boot then change settings in webconf. You can access all the functionality with keyboard / mouse. Although the user experience may be suboptimal you will get a feel for what it can do. Using the onboard sound allows you to get it working with no other hardware but if you have a standard compliant USB sound device then it may give better performance (lower latency and higher quality audio).

I recommend giving it a bash and seeing how it suits your needs. There is lots of advice and experience documented in this forum and at the wiki. Search and you will find information on what works well, what is more challenging and what is just not worth the effort. For example some cheap touch screens are more hassle than they are worth but as @le51 says there are some nice optoins. I like the idea of the DSI panel. When I got my 7" HDMI/USB panel there wasn’t such an option. In hindsight I would prefer the slightly smaller DSI option. The 3.5" screen is quite usable and is the standard supported configuration hence everything should work on it, i.e. we design UI to work on the smaller display but some modules may benefit from larger dispaly, e.g. step sequencer or XY controller. (I prefer the larger capacative touchscreen for XY and a stylus is essential for most smaller resistive screen operation.)

Play, try stuff out and ask what isn’t clear or can’t be found through search. Read lots of the forum. It is a rich mine of information and general Tomfoolery.

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Thanks for the replies so far! It certainly sounds like a fun project to embark on, and likely to do most of the things I want! I think I’m basically convinced here!

When I say “live performance” I don’t mean playing in front of an audience, just playing for fun/relaxation. I’m no that good that anyone would actually want to listen to me :rofl:

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That doesn’t stop some of us :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: . You will discover though that there is a price to pay once you have a working system and have asked for help here. Our own Mr @wyleu may come knocking with his cryptic eye glass emoji requesting a snippet or longer of some audio. Dont mind him, just pay him and he will desist. He is mostly harmless.

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Hi @scro!

Welcome to our little community!!

I think all the points in your list are well covered by zynthian, and some more :grin:

Live playing with a single keyboard is specially managed by the “stage mode” and include smooth transitions among presets, including delayed note/pedal release.

For playing several keyboards you should use the “multi-timbric mode” and set a different MIDI channel on every keyboard.

SF2/SF3 is very well supported by the FluidSynth engine. SFZ is also supported by the LinuxSampler engine, but the support is not so good and some SFZ files doesn’t work or work partially. Anyway, the official SD image include a good bunch of SFZs and you will find lots of SFZs that work OK with LinuxSampler.

The MIDI recorder is capable of recording several channels at once coming from different sources, so i would call this “multi-track” recording. Anyway,perhaps you mean a different thing.

Regarding using zynthian as FX-proccessor, you can create basic FX-chains from the Zynthian-UI, what is enough for most common use-cases. For creating more bizarre FX-chains, you can use the amazing MOD-UI web interface.

Regarding the hardware, i strongly recommend to use a good audio interface. From my experience, HifiBerry are very good ones, they have models with Balanced Audio Input & Ouput, and almost zero-noise. Of course, there are other options …

Regarding the display, i agree with @le51 & @riban: Buy a SPI display! The HDMI option is a wiring mess and consumes more power.

Regards,

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What I had in mind for “multi track” recording was some way of recording, say, a guitar melody part, and then, while playing back the guitar part add in some piano chords, and then add in some drums etc.

Taking it a step further and having a piano roll view of the recorded music would be really great, but maybe that’s going beyond the remit of a small-screened pi based synth and starting to break into the realm of full on DAW territory :smirk:

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You can kind of do this by using MIDI recorder and MIDI player. Playing back a recorded “track” whilst recording allows simple overdubs. It’s not really a multitrack recorder.

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I’m not clear about “recording the guitar melody” in the MIDI recorder, There is the remarkable commercial MIDIguitar app that runs on PCs and iOS devices, outputting MIDI chords from a (carefully played) or more reliably leads from a standard guitar.

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I just used guitar as a random instrument, rather than a specific desire to record specifically guitar. It could equally well be violin or hammond organ. This MIDIguitar app sounds interesting, all the same :grinning:

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Cobbled together zynth is making nice noises already! I’m liking it a lot so far :smiley:

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Without the input knobs, is there a way to modify the parameters, Ie just with the touch screen?

Also, if I change to a different patch in fluidsynth I stop getting any sound. Deleting the layer and starting again seems to be the only way that works so far.

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Hi @scro, well done in creating a Zynthianstein and kudos for the tablecloth - these things hold significance here in the forum :wink: .

Your power cable has a switch in it which may cause you some problems. It is useful but we have found such switches introduce extra resistance to the supply line and can cause reduced performance in the Zynthian.

You can control the UI with the touchscreen. Read the user guide in the wiki for full details but to adjust values, drag the control up of down. Beware it is easy to bold click or drag horizontally which can be interpreted as a different functions like MIDI learn. Touch the topbar of each screen to go BACK. A more comfortable way of controlling it is to plug in a USB QWERTY (or similar) keyboard. You can see the key mapping in the user guide.

Regarding Fluidsynth failing, I am not sure what is going on there. Will you detail the exact steps?

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Thanks for the quick informative reply @riban I was sure the widget values could be tweaked via the touch interface. However, despite my best attempts I still don’t seem to be having much luck. I’ve tried with a USB mouse too and still not got it to behave. I get occasional brief flashes of the coloured ‘arc’ representation of the value but it’s like something keeps resetting the value.

Edit: I think that’s the issue - something keeps resetting the widget value. I tried pressing the sustain pedal on my piano (continuous controller) and the sustain widget value continuously jumps between the pedal value and zero :smirk:

Further edit: setting the hardware to have encoders (even though I have none) seems to have allowed me to use touch input to alter the widget values now🙂. Perhaps there were some parameters needed to stop them constantly being set to zero?

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@riban I’m following the steps below, and not being able to change instruments within the chosen synth.

Layers> New synth layer>fluidsynth>Midi ch1>fluidbrass>trumpet

This gets me a nice trumpet sound. If I then want to change to, say, a piano sound I tried the following, with no success:

back>back>fluidpianos>Yamaha grand

So far the only way I’ve had success in changing the instrument sound is to remove the layer and create a new one. I have the same issue with other synths too. Perhaps I’m missing a trick somewhere?

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I seem to have somehow overcome the patch change issue. I’m not sure exactly what I did but now I can change patches without having to completely remove the layer and start again. It may have been linked in to configuring phantom control knobs solving the widget input issue. I highly suspect my Zynth will be getting a set of control knobs added once I get it clear in my head what hardware I need and how it all interfaces (I’m keen on keeping the form factor small, so don’t want a board as large as the zynaptic module.

I suspect some :face_with_monocle: will be due imminently (significance of monocled frown finally landed with me after reading some other posts :joy:)

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