TO PG AND USERS.
just imagine for a moment REALBAND now its 64 bit running on a dual 4k display capable computer with usb 3 AND THE COMPUTER COSTS 35 BUKS !
eg for 200 buks pg sell the computer with RB ALREADY INSTALLED and the user just turns the computer on and instantly RB displays FAST. BAM ! NO LAG.
WELCOME TO UPDATED RASPBERRY PI 4 !! .
so for poor musicians you got instant recording studio with auto accompaniement !
a unique studio market leading solution at this price point. maybe a market slayer.
i would be SO STOKED. totally unique. come on pg how bout it ????
CHECK OUT THE BENCHMARKS OF THE PI 4 on the link.
https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-4-model-b/
and the benchmarks. (page down).

https://magpi.raspberrypi.org/articles/raspberry-pi-4-specs-benchmarks

also you could just hook up rb installed on a fast ssd over usb 3. record to the ssd.
best
muso.
ps out of interest, has anyone managed to run well RB on one of those cheap mini pen usb size computers ?
eg https://www.amazon.ca/Fanless-Stick-Windows-Computer-Support/dp/B08FLCWTNN/ref=sr_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=Computer+Stick&qid=1613224199&sr=8-10

nice idea but the memory needed to hold the realtracks would be extra - maybe the ssd you talk about. and so would a midi module and headphones/speakers etc. but maybe the idea of a BIAB/RB dedicated unit like a one game playstation might be an idea!

The better wishlist request would be for PG Music to release Band-in-a-Box and RealBand editions compatible with the Debian (Linux) operating system.

The Raspberry PI 4 operating system is Debian which is one of many Linux operating systems. Debian is the seed, or base, distribution for multiple Linux distributions branches like Ubuntu, Knoppix, PureOS, SteamOS and Tails.

Debian is considered a stable, reliable and secure operating system. Each stable release is supported at no charge for a minimum of five years.

The issues are driver support for external hardware such as audio interfaces, surface controllers, midi controllers and USB microphones as well as operating system support for DX, VST, AU and AAX effects.

I think a Raspberry Pi version would be awesome. Hardware-wise, the Pi 4 is probably powerful enough to run BIAB or RB - the CPU benchmarks roughly equal to an early Core 2 Duo (circa 2006), and you can get a Pi 4 with 8gb of ram (BIAB and RB use far less than 1gb on Windows and Mac, usually under 500mb of ram, so you could probably get away with a 2gb Pi), and since the Pi 4 has USB3 you could run the RT's from either an external or a 256gb Micro SD (although the USB3 speed on the Pi 4 is faster than the SD card interface). Pi 3 I don't think would be quite powerful enough, but maybe.

One issue that comes to mind would be in troubleshooting the Pi itself - we would need tech support people well versed in unix/linux to be able to do that, which with our current pool of tech support people that basically includes only me, having been a linux/mac/windows sysadmin in the past.

The main issue is computer/OS market share. I don't have up to date numbers, but to start:

In 2019, worldwide PC shipments surpassed 261 million units.
In 2019, Apple shipped an estimated 18.4 million Macs.
In the first year of sales (2019-2020), the Pi 4 sold 3 million boards.

Of the above statistics, the Pi 4 has slightly over 1% of the market share. I honestly doubt a Pi version would ever sell well enough to cover our development costs on porting from Windows/x86 to Linux/ARM - although now that MacOS runs on ARM that may very well help. I'm not a programmer though, so that last part is merely speculation, especially since BIAB for Mac runs on X86 or Rosetta only for now.

It's sooo easy to post these great ideas when you're not a programmer... There are YouTube vids about trying to use Pi for music production. Zero support for all the third party stuff we need. Want to use an interface? Nope. Want to use VST's? Nope. Want to use a keyboard or guitar based midi controller or mics? Nope. Good luck getting Steinberg, IK Multimedia, Native Instruments, etc to create compatible software to run on that system.

Years ago our Access programmer told me our office had the 5th largest database in the country. His favorite joke was when people came to him with a request and said "All you gotta do is..." He would tell them, right it would take me two weeks to implement that so talk to the boss about it.

Bob

At the very least, the Pi does support many audio interfaces, USB mics, and MIDI controllers. As long as the device is class compliant, it should work with ALSA or Jack or whatever the Pi uses.

That's another important consideration I didn't think of initially though - the built-in audio output on the Pi is terrible (think 8-bit) as it uses a general purpose digital IO to approximate an analog output. HDMI is perfectly good sounding so for many people it would be OK, but for those with a computer monitor with no speakers it would be awful, so that'd raise the price as we'd theoretically have to include a higher quality audio device of some sort.

Jazzmammal.
maybe i'm wrong but i understood many audio interfaces
now work with linux, as simon mentioned.
in addition there are now versions of reaper (experimental)
and traction waveform daw for the little PI.
why would they do that ? maybe planting seeds seeing a future market perhaps ?

JM. call me a "romantic" lol. (my wife says i am) , but i just love the idea of an upstart like the cheap PI storming the daw market. also, another reason being, people around
the world that have very limited funds , but high levels of creativity.
i reckon things will get very interesting in the next PI
version if it ever gets a 3 or 4 ghz processor.
JM. i guarantee if , in the 60's, george martin and the beatles only had 16 traks on a PI ,and no plug ins, they would still produce hits. cos they were brilliant doing that.

now i'm looking forward to my steak and kidney pie for lunch. lol.
best
oldromanticmuso.

ps simon if you surf the net , i understand there is a way to bypass that audio problem.

Justanoldmuso,

I'm convinced you could strand George Martin, Geoff Emrick and the four Beatles on a deserted island filled only with conch shells, non perishable food, cigarettes and beer and they would still find a way to create a hit record!

The ways around the audio issues on the Pi are either:

1: use HDMI (only works if your monitor has speakers built in, and supports audio over HDMI - not all do).

2: Use a USB sound card or audio interface (costs money).

3: Use a DAC that plugs onto the Pi's GPIO header (costs money).


I'm not certain of the state of DAC's on the Pi these days, since a number of them were discontinued. Most I know of are inexpensive and good, but don't have any audio input, only output.

That said, with some work happening on a Windows/x86 emulator on the Pi, it may someday be able to run Realband on it, though likely quite slowly or with issues.

Simon.
yep "but" an inexpensive 2x2 behringer usb recording interface is 60 buks.

my prediction is , (and i'm quite ready to get egg on my face), that if the little pi ever gets a 3 to 4 ghz processor and still costs under 70 buks, things could get very interesting.
my read of the pi foundation is these are very clever people.
with a beastly pi processor upgrade , say in the next release, a concomitant big rise in users could occur .
we will see.

i guess one problem, on reflection, of offering rb on the pi , is that there are lots of win specific command structures in the rb codebase and api's etc ?.

which makes me ask the question how the hey did reaper and traction waveform programmers do a pi daw multitrack software so swiftly.
i dont know bout traction , but i always understood there was a very small team of coders on reaps.
just a few people.
frankly i wouldnt be in favor of an emulation mode.

best
oldmuso.

It all comes down to how easily they can provide a faster Pi while keeping the price down. AFAIK they want to keep the $35 USD price point for the base version, so it'd be down to cost of parts and engineering (and heat management, might have to add a heatsink to keep in the 3ghz range).

And you're right, there are a lot of Windows specific API's used in RealBand. I'm also not in favour of running RB in an emulator on a Pi, but that's likely as close as we'll get.