Tuesday, 29 January 2013

nanosleep() 'problem' solved

Excellent. Just more bogosity that has now been eliminated, stuff is sweet and smooth and running very reliably. Latency is lower than ever before, will try to set up 2 inputs on my scope to measure genuine delay between 'start bit of MIDI note out of keyboard' to 'I sense a disturbance in the Force'

Excellent progress at the new PIANA Towers (which overlooks Solsbury Hill by the way, for all you Gabriel fans out there). And offered as living proof of said view, here's the view of the hill snapped through my window during last week's outbreak of snowiness, with Teeny Tiny people on Teeny Tiny Toboggans whizzing down the slopes. Thinking about it, they are probably just far away. Which is apt, because their field is normally full of Teeny Tiny cows, I'm not sure where they were moved to for the duration of the snowy slopey activities.



Anyway, back on topic, I am aiming for a big public reveal of finalized PIANA hardware / kit in May - maybe even April - but in the meantime am working to build a prototype of the Raspberry Pi Chamber Orchestra, featuring 6 7 Pis, 6 synths and a synth controller, and 6 Teeny Tiny TVs. I just hope I can hand-build an op amp mixer that's clean enough, or it will sound pretty grim ...

All of this in my 'copious' spare time as I am now embarked on a massively time-consuming project on iPad.

5 comments:

  1. p.s I ought to add, the 900MHz clock is good for NTSC / composite output. With 720p HDMI resolution 3D graphics to drive I can't quite make it, probably due to increased memory bandwidth demands, so at 720p I need to overclock to 950. But the PIANA Raspberry Pi Chamber Orchestra (or RPCO) will only push out composite, so 900MHz is good to go.

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  2. As far as the RPCO is concerned. Who's gonna be second violin? JK Also, Are you building your own mixer? Why not just use a summing circuit? I'm probably missing something..,

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  3. By 'mixer' I do simply mean summing circuit - no pots - but with 8 stereo inputs, 8 Pis switching and 8 PICs on the Conductor board it could all get ugly if the wiring isn't clean.

    Re. second violin - I'm hoping to get local schools and their music departments involved, sample them, make them part of an instrument that could live for a long time.

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  4. You are such an ambitious DIY person. I love it! I just thought that making a summing circuit would be unnecessary because of the ready availability of cheap mixers and summing circuits.

    If you are keeping it local that is cool, but if you need samples of a violin that I have made myself, I would love to share. I work with a player here in Brooklyn and used them on my track 'sreason string'
    http://zackhagan.bandcamp.com/track/sreason-string-feat-mabis-chase

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    Replies
    1. Zack

      If I can't find a violinist at a local school who can't be pitch corrected into shape, I may take you up on that!

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