# Request/suggestion: automount usb-storage (soundfonts etc) for offloading sdcard read/writes

**URL:** <https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144>\
**Category:** Software\
**Created:** [August 9, 2019, 1:31pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144 "2019-08-09T13:31:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/lemonmale/32/2532_2.png) [@Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Lemonmale)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 1:31pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/1 "2019-08-09T13:31:29Z")

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Hello!  
New on the forum, tried the latest image and it works great, im using it “headless” no screen, no knobs etc. My plan is to use the rpi with a planned homemade keyboardenclosure. It will mainly be used to play epiano and aucoustic piano. I initially used a HDMI display to setup a default snapshot, once done the rpi can be hidden inside the chassi.

What i came to think of was that it would be quite great if usbstorage (where i would like to place soundfonts and other samples) was automounted and that fluidsynth + linuxsampler knew where to read this directory. Or even cooler if there was and added ui for this in the webconf.

Big thanks to the developers! Take care  
/B

Edit: clarification

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**Author:** ![Baggypants](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/baggypants/32/1911_2.png) [@Baggypants](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Baggypants)\
**Post date:** [August 9, 2019, 11:03pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/2 "2019-08-09T23:03:55Z")

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This looks like a job for [autofs](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Autofs).

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**Author:** ![wyleu](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/wyleu/32/514_2.png) [@wyleu](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/wyleu)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2019, 9:07am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/3 "2019-08-10T09:07:25Z")

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> [@Lemonmale](#):
>
> “headless” no screen, no knobs

AAah but we need to see hardware pictures, inputs, outputs and . . . 🧐

What platform are you observing the zynth from ? and how do you access the GUI?

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**Author:** ![Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/lemonmale/32/2532_2.png) [@Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Lemonmale)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2019, 9:40am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/4 "2019-08-10T09:40:00Z")

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I will provide some pictures when the wooden build is done 🙂 I initially used a HDMI display to set up a default snapshot. Now i don’t use the interface, it might change later(and the I might add a display) but the primary sound will still be epiano.  
For output I use a USB sabrent with a 3.5mm to 6.3mm converter.  
The actual keyboard will be a salvage from and Old digital keyboard.

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**Author:** ![Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/lemonmale/32/2532_2.png) [@Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Lemonmale)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2019, 9:44am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/5 "2019-08-10T09:44:20Z")

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Good idea! If I assume right the program would autostart and run in the background waiting for a usbstorage to connect, I would only need to ad a link from where fluidsynth or linuxsampler reads soundfonts. Would a symbolic link work? Regards

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**Author:** ![Baggypants](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/baggypants/32/1911_2.png) [@Baggypants](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Baggypants)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2019, 9:45am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/6 "2019-08-10T09:45:37Z")

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A symbolic link should work fine. But you could configure autofs to mount the USB over the existing directory.

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**Author:** ![Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/lemonmale/32/2532_2.png) [@Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Lemonmale)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2019, 9:51am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/7 "2019-08-10T09:51:22Z")

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Ah great! And it wouldn’t change the files already there? It would only add the mounted content?

Also, I tried to copy the files (before I thought of the idea) from my USB to the zynthian directory where the wiki says it looks, but none of the programs found any soundfonts. Do I need to set permissions for the files copied?

Note that I only have some knowledge about the Linux system

Thank you

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**Author:** ![Baggypants](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/baggypants/32/1911_2.png) [@Baggypants](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Baggypants)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2019, 1:18pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/8 "2019-08-10T13:18:20Z")

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If you mount over an existing directory then you can’t access the existing files. Zynthian has a system dir and a usr dir to read soundfonts from so you could pick one of them to mount over and place the ones you want to keep in the other.

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**Author:** ![Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/lemonmale/32/2532_2.png) [@Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Lemonmale)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2019, 9:45pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/9 "2019-08-10T21:45:25Z")

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Ah i see, will try it and report back.  
Thanks heaps!

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**Author:** ![jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/jofemodo/32/2_2.png) [@jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/jofemodo)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 12:01am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/10 "2019-08-11T00:01:17Z")

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Currently, automount is installed and configured in zynthian. When you plug-in a pen-drive, it should be mounted automatically on “/media/usb0”.

For getting FluidSynth & LinuxSampler to read the soundfonts from the pendrive, you should create a “soundfont” folder in the pendrive and copy to it the soundfonts you want to use. You have to use a very strict directory structure, that is different for SF2 and SFZ/GIG. Take a look to “/zynthian/zynthian-data/soundfonts” and use it as a reference.

After that, you should create a “soft link” from “/zynthian/zynthian-my-data/”:

```
mv /zynthian/zynthian-my-data/soundfonts /zynthian/zynthian-my-data/soundfonts.bak
ln -s /media/usb0/soundfonts /zynthian/zynthian-my-data/soundfonts

```

Of course, if enough people find useful this trick and start to use it, i would consider to modify the engine code for looking at the pendrive without needing a soft-link …

Kind Regards,

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**Author:** ![Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/lemonmale/32/2532_2.png) [@Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Lemonmale)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 1:03am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/11 "2019-08-11T01:03:36Z")

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Ah i see! Thank you for explaining. Will look into it further tomorrow.

If enough ppl find this useful, an Idea would be to have the system look in a document for places to look. Kinda like sources.list

Regards

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**Author:** ![Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/lemonmale/32/2532_2.png) [@Lemonmale](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/Lemonmale)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 1:11am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/12 "2019-08-11T01:11:17Z")

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Also since the rpi 4 have the USB 3 and seems to be superior over the microsd controller in speeds, it should load soundfonts faster than when on sdcards, if the soundfonts are big 🙂

Best regards

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**Author:** ![eamonn](https://discourse.zynthian.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/ac91a4/32.png) [@eamonn](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/eamonn)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 1:52pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/13 "2019-08-11T13:52:59Z")

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I can’t try it for now but this would definitely be usefull for me 🙂

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**Author:** ![mheidt](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/mheidt/32/773_2.png) [@mheidt](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/mheidt)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 2:41pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/14 "2019-08-11T14:41:28Z")

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I would implement like that:  
When a zynthian folder is found in the usb mount, link everything in that folder as symbolic link.  
@jofemodo, tell me where and and try something…

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**Author:** ![jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/jofemodo/32/2_2.png) [@jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/jofemodo)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 4:38pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/15 "2019-08-11T16:38:08Z")

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Let me think about it … and please, open a task in our wonderful Tracking System 😉

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**Author:** ![mheidt](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/mheidt/32/773_2.png) [@mheidt](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/mheidt)\
**Post date:** [August 11, 2019, 6:21pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/16 "2019-08-11T18:21:18Z")

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> <https://github.com/zynthian/zynthian-ui/issues/145>

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**Author:** ![jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/jofemodo/32/2_2.png) [@jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/jofemodo)\
**Post date:** [September 18, 2019, 11:34am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/17 "2019-09-18T11:34:26Z")

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Hi @zynthianers!

I just commited an implementation of this. Now you can access presets & soundfonts stored in a USB drive. Simply plug the drive and that’s all. The presets & soundfonts from the external USB-drive will be shown in the zynthian UI with “EX” prefix (external).

You have to use this directory structure:

- soundfonts

- presets

Some volunteer to write a brief explanation on the wiki? 😉

Enjoy!

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**Author:** ![jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/jofemodo/32/2_2.png) [@jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/jofemodo)\
**Post date:** [September 29, 2019, 2:04pm UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/18 "2019-09-29T14:04:42Z")

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11 posts were split to a new topic: [Zynthian + Vintage Keyboard build](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/zynthian-vintage-keyboard-build/3278)

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**Author:** ![sehrgut](https://discourse.zynthian.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@sehrgut](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/sehrgut)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2020, 6:31am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/19 "2020-08-10T06:31:48Z")

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> [@jofemodo](#):
>
> /media/usb0

I’m writing the wiki page for external storage right now. Does the presets search path get expanded only to /media/usb0, or to every usb mass storage device connected? (Or does the automounter only mount one in the case of multiples?)

Edit: Here’s the page. Can you check it for correctness, esp. with regards to multiple drives? [External storage - ZynthianWiki](https://wiki.zynthian.org/index.php/External_storage)

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**Author:** ![jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/user_avatar/discourse.zynthian.org/jofemodo/32/2_2.png) [@jofemodo](https://discourse.zynthian.org/u/jofemodo)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2020, 7:57am UTC](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144/20 "2020-08-10T07:57:27Z")

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Only one: /media/usb0

[Next page](https://discourse.zynthian.org/t/request-suggestion-automount-usb-storage-soundfonts-etc-for-offloading-sdcard-read-writes/3144.md?page=2)