I have a RaspTouch Amp (from https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/network-audio-players-rasptouch/rasptouch-amp-streamer-amplifier-es9023-tpa3118-2x30w-p-12102.html) for some time now and tried different OS images for it, but I was not really happy with any of them and haven’t used it much. It basically is a raspberry pi with a 7” touchscreen and a 60W Amp in a very nice case.
Also, I play music on a cheap keyboard with build in speakers, which doesn’t sound great.
So recently I found this awesome Linux distro called Zynthian and had to try it.
It runs wonderfully on the RaspTouch, the sound is great, the Synths and effects and piano sounds are awesome.
I want to share this great experience here, so others can do the same.
Here is a step-by-step explanation to get everything running. The setup took <30 minutes.
I downloaded the last stable official image from the Zynthian page (version 9/2020) and used the raspberry pi imager to put it on a microSD card.
After booting I opened the web interface of Zynthian.
I used the web interface to update to the latest packages.
I changed display option to ‘Generic HDMI Display’ (800x480).
I changed the soundcard to ‘HifiBerry DAC+ light’ (same ES9023 DAC? or at least compatible).
I changed the wiring to ‘DUMMIES’.
To get the power button to work, I followed the instructions from https://github.com/audiophonics/Raspberry-pwr-management in /boot/config.txt add :
dtoverlay=gpio-poweroff,gpiopin=22,active_low
dtoverlay=gpio-shutdown,gpio_pin=17,active_low=0,gpio_pull=down
Then I plugged in a MIDI keyboard via USB.
No further changes were necessary. The touch screen works great for controlling Zynthian.
I also posted this in the audiophonics forum.
So if you have a Midi keyboard and a RaspTouch you should absolutely try this.
All works great. Highly recommended!
