Pure Data?

[CaptainBassline]

As a heavy Pure Data user I'm keen to know whether or not PDext will run reliably on the Pi, and whether there are any known issues or limitations... And also perhaps which is the best OS to use for audio-heavy usage...

Thanks

[ghans]

You can help out on the ALSA front , currently neither jackd nor pulseaudio run AFAIK.
I believe PD needs one of these sound systems.


ghans

[CaptainBassline]

PD is running via ALSA on my laptop reliably enough, so I guess it should be okay? Would it be best to hook up a USB soundcard to the Pi?

[CaptainBassline]

Update: Puredata and ALSA are running as well as can be expected, though the onboard analogue sound output drops out an awful lot. Since I have no HDMI devices at my disposal, I have yet to test Puredata's sound reliability through this medium.

Better (almost faultless) sound has been achieved by hooking up an MAudio Fast Track USB soundcard, and powered straight from the Pi USB surprisingly enough. Also, my Edirol PCR300 USB controller is also successfully talking to the Pi, though this needed additional power.

[GuitarExtended]

Hi,

The built-in analog output works fine with Pd, but you'll need to give Pd a bigger audio buffer (100ms is fine). You don't need this when using the hdmi output, no idea why.
But I confirm but the analog output works more than decently this way. Of course you'll have to make sure you patch doesn't suck all the resources of your Pi, but that's another story.

[CaptainBassline]

With the USB soundcard I can trim down to 30ms & 512samples with very few audio complaints which is quite acceptable. Using PD in headless (-nogui) mode is perfect and is the goal for many of my patches.

As for the HDMI sound, I've read somewhere on here that the GPU deals with the digital sound which explains the improved quality(?).

Resource friendly patching - a black art and the pinnacle of PD excellence....