Best Musical Uses for Raspberry Pi
3 min readIt has been a few years since I wrote “Can You Produce Music on a Raspberry Pi?“. Since then there have been a few changes and the deck of cards-sized computer has more power and more options.
Of course, it must be made clear from the start that any large projects will be better suited to higher end PCs, but for hobbyists and people wanting to learn on a cheap computer, the Raspberry Pi will be a great option!
Non – For recording and Producing Music
Non was the main option last time around and it certainly still is today. Featuring a modular design, it allows you to record, arrange, mix, sequence, and combine sounds into a full song.
Non isn’t limited to the Raspberry Pi, as a lightweight program, it can run on many low-end computers with minimum latency.
Created by Jonathan Liles, who set out to make a DAW that was “fast, light, [and] reliable.”
At 43k lines of code, it is an impressive feat, getting most software in that size is admirable, let alone a fully functioning DAW.
Non is open source and entirely free to use.
The only real issues with Non as a DAW are that it is very much a one-man project, he is releasing it for free and updates are infrequent.
Since the original article where I covered Non, nothing has officially changed in terms of features, with the last post on the website’s news section being many years old now.
The GitHub page for it shows some promise, with relatively recent updates and additions but this is not frequent and seems to be small additions.
If you do plan on running it on a Raspberry Pi, you will find you need more kit e.g. a soundcard, however, after the price of a Pi, you will likely have some money spare for these extra devices.
PiSound
Another music production and creativity tool, this time, a commercial option.
PiSound is a soundcard designed for the Raspberry Pi and comes bundled with software to get started.
You can make guitar effects or record sounds and many inspiring projects have been created as a result of its open-ended options.
Make a Guitar Pedal with a Raspberry Pi Zero
Once you have set up a Pi with Non to record your music, you could start building up your collection and buy a Raspberry Pi Zero for a guitar pedal.
The Raspberry Pi Zero is a much smaller version of the Raspberry Pi, which is very useful for projects which require small components.
It is a bit more fiddly than a normal Raspberry Pi but as a result can be used for much neater mounting along with other circuits.
This projects is all open source and so there is a community contributing lots of ideas and feedback, as well as ample documentation to get you through it.
It should be noted that if you are new to using Raspberry Pis, this project is quite a big one.
Not only will you need a Pi Zero, but you’ll also need a circuit-board designed for the job and a way to mount everything in a box.
There is no way to plug a guitar in one end of the Pi and then out the other.
Seq24 allows you to sequence MIDI for performance on a Raspberry Pi
So it certainly isn’t pretty, but this tool would be really useful for on stage MIDI triggering and sequencing, or combining with an all hardware setup.
Seq24 hasn’t been updated since 2010 but it would be a great tool to consider as it is lightweight and minimal.
Going Old-School, we have Tracker Software
Recreate the Struggles of a 90s producer with this old-school modelled software. MilkyTracker is based on FastTracker and works by coding in the notes vertically with the keyboard.
Arguably this represents a closer workflow to Mozart than Skrillex, with each note near enough hand transcribed at points.
It is a system unfamiliar to most for a reason – horizontal timelines and GUIs took over because they are way better to produce on.
Nevertheless, this is a fantastic retro tool to geek out on and many people will tell you their best songs were written in a situation where their options were forcibly narrowed.
For more cool projects with a Raspberry Pi, check out our guide to the top Pi projects over at Tech Ordeal.
