Yes, its a great long-shot, but have anyone made some incarnation of QuasarBeach run on the rpi? (Fairlight CMI)
It looks to only be available on the x86 platform so will not run on zynthian which is ARM based. You could approach the developer and ask if they could compile on ARM64.
Hi @ledan. Furthermore, the Qasarbeach/Fairlight UX is inextricably dependent on the lovely CRT-like greenish GUI, and related vintage operational style.
Should you succeed in convincing the developer to properly compile it for ARM64, which would be nice, remember that the only way to viably use and enjoy the CMI recreation on Zynthian would be through VNC, on an external display.
Good luck, and let us know!
I will indeed try to do that. And i know that this question has been raised in the past as well. Maybe its possible to convince him that ‘constant dropping wears the stone’ and with luck we can have it
Lets give it a try
Hi Aethermind, one can dream right?
but yeah, i will propose it again on the list (as a few has before me). I know there is a Linux build of it, but as i understand it, its not perfect (apparently where where some audio/midi issues as i understood it). I’ll give it my best shot. Fingers crossed.
Oh, it would be absolutely awesome to have the green CRT interface but with a touch-UI via (for example) the official rPI 7-inch touch display (finger being the light-pen) but that is just me dreaming
Hi @ledan!
There certainly are significant technical obstacles to overcome, but having a portable Fairlight on the Zynth is not impossible to achieve, and I am definitely on the list of dreamers who fondly would like this.
As far as I can tell, this could be the roadmap:
1] Exerting some kind of gentle mobbing and/or effective persuasion, in order to warm the AdamStrange’s (dev) heart to the whole Zynthian concept and philosophy. I could also write him a note on this: numbers matter.
2] Having the dev properly compile the code for an Aarch64+Raspberry OS+LV2 framework, which would result in a plugin very different from the currently available Linux X86 binary. Plus, the code is not open-sourced and the app is donationware, thus Adam is the only one actually enabled to recompile it from source, with all the depos and libraries required to run on Zynthian.
3] Once (hopefully) gotten hold of the LV2 Aarch64 plugin, there is arguably only one viable path to integrate it in the Zynthian 5 UX and UI, that is asking @jofemodo and @riban to re-enable a physical HDMI output in a future Zynthian kit revision. I am afraid that constantly operating Qasarbeach on vnc through ethernet from another computer isn’t probably feasible, in terms of latency and overhead, even if the software itself should be relatively lightweight in CPU requirements (but I may be wrong on this). Again, the app is not open-source and therefore it is not possible to rework its UI (like Sooperlooper or PureData) to fit it center-screen in the Zynth display. Of course, this intrinsic limitation would cease to be an issue on a custom Pi5 build with touch-screen, but this would also be true for a Linux X86 mini-PC, that could use the already available plugin (providing it works reliably).
Best regards
Trademark CMI breathy flute + orchestral stabs Fond memories resurface
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I hanged a Fairlight poster in my room at my parents’ home, with the classical advertising stock photo, focused on the sheer majesty of the white desk with keys and computer keyboard, surmounted by the futuristic green-CRT screen with light pen.
My typical teenager dreams, of a sort of glorified fictional myself, were centered around taking part in some Alan Parsons Project/Jean Michel Jarre/Franco Battiato act, at the helm of the mighty super-machine then reserved for the very highest elites of musicians .