Old 03-09-2021, 10:51 AM   #1
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Default Monome Norns

Is anyone using this device, and a Reaper user? Im not sure this is right section of the forum, but it runs on linux on a raspberry pi running scripts written in Lua, so here I am

I'm just wondering if anyone here uses a Norns and if it has any crossover capabilities with Reaper Linux?

Not sure what I'm asking tbh, but I only found about Norns about 2 hours ago and I'm still trying to understand it

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Old 03-09-2021, 11:17 AM   #2
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I found a picture of what's inside one of those.



The card on the right is a Raspberry Pi 3 Compute Module.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-3/

I have not used either of those, but I have done some brief testing running REAPER on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and on a much more powerful Raspberry Pi 4.

REAPER ran better than I expected on the Pi 3 B+, and ran pretty well on the Pi 4 with 4GB of memory.

The Monome Norns looks like it's maybe something similar to Zynthian, which is another Pi based Swiss Army Knife music box.

https://zynthian.org/#concept

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Old 03-09-2021, 12:41 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Glennbo View Post
I found a picture of what's inside one of those.



The card on the right is a Raspberry Pi 3 Compute Module.

https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/compute-module-3/

I have not used either of those, but I have done some brief testing running REAPER on a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and on a much more powerful Raspberry Pi 4.

REAPER ran better than I expected on the Pi 3 B+, and ran pretty well on the Pi 4 with 4GB of memory.

The Monome Norns looks like it's maybe something similar to Zynthian, which is another Pi based Swiss Army Knife music box.

https://zynthian.org/#concept

.
Zynthian looks interesting, and very much like a competitor, but with more ins n outs.

I shall do some review reading/watching, thanks!
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Old 03-09-2021, 02:10 PM   #4
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OK, so at the moment Zynthian seems a little more geared towards synths, but also looks like its really primed to take the lead over Norns for features. I need to watch more Zynthian videos where its just audio based, as its more audio recording/sampling and mangling I'm interested in...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aq9Bavd7OqY

Zynthian has way more effects out the box too, but again, its the audio sampling and mangling I prefer the idea of.

Its a real shame Norns doesnt have the full size midi, but it also forces it to be more dedicated to audio in my hands. Less options, some restrictions, can be good for creativity I find.

Plus I have an RK-006 which has all the USB/midi ins/outs I could ever need in a zippo sized box anyway.

Both Zynthian and Norns are around the same price too. This is a tricky decision!
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Old 03-09-2021, 03:39 PM   #5
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You could get a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB kit like this and install Zynthian, but being 8GB with a heatsink case, you could also install REAPER and your own FX instead.

https://www.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspbe...329234&sr=8-21

Bear in mind though, that being an ARM processor, also means only plugins compiled for ARM will work. Things like ReaSample-o-matic and all the other ReaPlugins work. Plus there are companies like Modart's Pianoteq that are making plugins for ARM.
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Old 03-14-2021, 07:37 PM   #6
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Originally Posted by Glennbo View Post
You could get a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB kit like this and install Zynthian, but being 8GB with a heatsink case, you could also install REAPER and your own FX instead.

https://www.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspbe...329234&sr=8-21

Bear in mind though, that being an ARM processor, also means only plugins compiled for ARM will work. Things like ReaSample-o-matic and all the other ReaPlugins work. Plus there are companies like Modart's Pianoteq that are making plugins for ARM.
Great stuff. I understand. I didnt when I first read your reply but I've been doing some more looking into this and it makes sense now.

I bought Norns Shield last week, should be here this week. Its the cheaper, slimmed down, 3D printed version of the Norns. Just the card and a case. Needs screwing together, and an off the shelf Raspberry Pi to complete the set up.

Im considering a Pi 4 just as a media player or audio editor tho. I didnt quite realise how small and cheap they are, and how relatively powerful they'd become.

EDIT: And Pianoteq is great news.
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Old 03-14-2021, 09:02 PM   #7
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Great stuff. I understand. I didnt when I first read your reply but I've been doing some more looking into this and it makes sense now.

I bought Norns Shield last week, should be here this week. Its the cheaper, slimmed down, 3D printed version of the Norns. Just the card and a case. Needs screwing together, and an off the shelf Raspberry Pi to complete the set up.

Im considering a Pi 4 just as a media player or audio editor tho. I didnt quite realise how small and cheap they are, and how relatively powerful they'd become.

EDIT: And Pianoteq is great news.
I originally bought a Pi 3 B+ to experiment with, but then a computer died in my living room that was used for streaming live and recorded TV. I pulled the old machine out and replaced it with my Raspberry Pi 3 B+ running Kodi. It works as well as the Core 2 Duo it replaced, takes up a fraction of the space, and uses a lot less electricity.

The 4GB Pi 4 I got later is the one I briefly connected my Behringer UMC1820 8 input audio device to and recorded in REAPER for Raspberry Pi a three piece jam with bass, guitar, and drums. The drums were recorded on four tracks at once while playing back the bass and guitar tracks I'd previously recorded. The 4GB Pi chugged through it. I was kind of surprised as I was recording to the SDHC card the Pi boots from.
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Old 03-15-2021, 04:02 AM   #8
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I originally bought a Pi 3 B+ to experiment with, but then a computer died in my living room that was used for streaming live and recorded TV. I pulled the old machine out and replaced it with my Raspberry Pi 3 B+ running Kodi. It works as well as the Core 2 Duo it replaced, takes up a fraction of the space, and uses a lot less electricity.

The 4GB Pi 4 I got later is the one I briefly connected my Behringer UMC1820 8 input audio device to and recorded in REAPER for Raspberry Pi a three piece jam with bass, guitar, and drums. The drums were recorded on four tracks at once while playing back the bass and guitar tracks I'd previously recorded. The 4GB Pi chugged through it. I was kind of surprised as I was recording to the SDHC card the Pi boots from.
Thats great. All of it In the last few hours I noticed the Pi's power use, 5w. Its worth it for that alone. My Behringer standalone mixer does 16 tracks straight to USB drive absolutely fine (but the mixer is dying, and huge), so there had to be something smaller, digital, around, even if limited to stereo in terms of physical in/outs. But everything commercially available is huge, proprietary, full of stuff I dont need or any combination of those, and obviously expensive too.

Open source to the rescue! It looks like the Norns can record incoming all audio, while looping and doing playback of audio, and streaming incoming audio thru. Not sure how far it can be pushed in terms of tracks yet tho, but my very old pc's could do a huge amount of tracks without much effects/basic effects.

EDIT: USB 3 should be able to cope with many audio tracks too.

Last edited by maxdembo; 03-15-2021 at 04:20 AM.
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Old 03-15-2021, 04:32 AM   #9
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Ah, Zoom H5 works under Linux. It can record six ins simultaneously and has USB 2, which is loads of tracks. Works as a standalone audio interface.

Well, this is looking tasty

I have a Zoom H5.
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Old 03-15-2021, 06:17 AM   #10
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Also looks like the Behringer Xenyx UFX1604 work fine as an audio interface in Linux, which is the standalone mixer I have.

OK, this is looking good.
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Old 03-15-2021, 06:43 AM   #11
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Also looks like the Behringer Xenyx UFX1604 work fine as an audio interface in Linux, which is the standalone mixer I have.

OK, this is looking good.
Don't know if you've seen this, but before I turned my Pi 3B+ into the living room TV computer, I installed REAPER and had an Adafruit micro touchscreen installed on it. I never tried recording with the Pi 3, but it played back an eight track audio project without any problems. Touching and moving the faders on this small screen was tricky.

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Old 03-15-2021, 07:09 AM   #12
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Quote:
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Don't know if you've seen this, but before I turned my Pi 3B+ into the living room TV computer, I installed REAPER and had an Adafruit micro touchscreen installed on it. I never tried recording with the Pi 3, but it played back an eight track audio project without any problems. Touching and moving the faders on this small screen was tricky.

I have not seen that before

Thats really smart

I think I'm tempted to give a go to trying a raspberry pi 4, 8gb, with Reaper and either of these USB interfaces I have. Latency wont matter if I'm just using it to record USB audio in and nothing else. If either let me record to multiple tracks over Reaper with no drop outs, thats a game changer for me.
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Old 03-15-2021, 07:55 AM   #13
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I think I'm tempted to give a go to trying a raspberry pi 4, 8gb, with Reaper and either of these USB interfaces I have. Latency wont matter if I'm just using it to record USB audio in and nothing else. If either let me record to multiple tracks over Reaper with no drop outs, thats a game changer for me.
With my 4GB Raspberry 4, I was playing soundfonts with low latency using Carla for ARM while I had my Behringer UMC1820 connected.
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Old 03-16-2021, 05:52 AM   #14
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Just gave the Raspberry Pi 3b+ a quick go. Installed the Raspberry OS. Installed Reaper. Plugged in the Zoom H5.

Started recording immediately, 4 inputs, recording 7 tracks or so, then to 4 tracks, 3 playing back.

2.6ms latency, apparently. No effects running Reaper, just straight recording. Seems absolutely fine

I'll get a Pi 4 8gb next week.
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Old 03-16-2021, 06:58 AM   #15
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Veddy cool! With 8GB you could load SM Drums into ReaSamplomatic5k. They require 6GB so I never got to try them on my 4GB Pi 4.

https://smmdrums.wordpress.com/for-reaper/
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Old 03-16-2021, 06:59 AM   #16
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Norns has shipped. And just bought a Pi 4, 8gb, with beefy heatsink for overclocking
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Old 03-16-2021, 07:04 AM   #17
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Norns has shipped. And just bought a Pi 4, 8gb, with beefy heatsink for overclocking
Both my Pi3 and Pi4 are in heatsink cases. The Pi3 runs 24/7 and the Pi4 runs 12-15 hours a day.

The Pi3 is in one like this,



and the Pi4 is in one like this.



BTW, I expect to hear some samples of what you do with all this micro studio gear!
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Old 03-16-2021, 02:42 PM   #18
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Hefty heat sink gets us up to 2.1ghz CPU, and an extra 500 or 600mhz on the GPU. Strangely no one seems to overclock the RAM.

It'll just be an upgrade to my mixer really, so my mixer has a screen.

But yeah, I'll do some recording!
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Old 03-16-2021, 03:21 PM   #19
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All arrives tomorrow.
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Old 03-17-2021, 05:26 AM   #20
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BTW, I expect to hear some samples of what you do with all this micro studio gear!
TBF, it shouldnt sound any different from the usual garbage I make!

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Old 03-17-2021, 06:11 AM   #21
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FWIW Brian @ Monome lives near me and he's a good guy and they are a good company. Please keep us posted if you do anything interesting like running REAPER on the thing! (Maybe in command line mode or via API calls?)
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Old 03-17-2021, 06:50 AM   #22
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I'm gonna see if I can get some form of older version of BFD working on an overclocked Pi 4 8gb

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Old 03-17-2021, 06:53 AM   #23
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FWIW Brian @ Monome lives near me and he's a good guy and they are a good company. Please keep us posted if you do anything interesting like running REAPER on the thing! (Maybe in command line mode or via API calls?)
Command line/API thing is unlikely But I'm not totally opposed to the getting into the coding thing.

Norns will stay as Norns for standalone for now, more than anything, with its standard Pi 3.

Pi 4 tho, that will be for Reaper only.
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Old 03-17-2021, 09:25 AM   #24
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Veddy cool! With 8GB you could load SM Drums into ReaSamplomatic5k. They require 6GB so I never got to try them on my 4GB Pi 4.

https://smmdrums.wordpress.com/for-reaper/
Kit downloaded, manual bookmarked.

I'll give that a try tomorrow. Awesome stuff. Thanks.
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Old 03-17-2021, 10:31 AM   #25
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Kit downloaded, manual bookmarked.

I'll give that a try tomorrow. Awesome stuff. Thanks.
That kit sounds very good too. My one and only complaint about the samples is that the floor tom is tuned more like a third rack tom.

I'm sure it could be pitched down, but I never took the time to figure out how to do it. Other than that, the samples are a nice sounding set of Vintage Ludwig drums comparable to the vintage Ludwig kit that is my default kit in Superior Drummer 2.

I use this real BeBop kit of Ludwig drums for recording, but use sampled scratch drum tracks for my metronome.
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Old 03-25-2021, 02:25 AM   #26
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Out for delivery!
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Old 04-01-2021, 09:05 PM   #27
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Norns is FANTASTIC
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Old 04-09-2021, 10:38 PM   #28
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New Norns Community site, showing some scripts currently available, in case anyones wondering what this little box of joy can do...

https://norns.community/
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