Project -WATCHING YOUR BACK- backing track player

[Dorffen]

Hi,

First and foremost cadeau to the exceptional help and support which is one of the reasons i decided to base this project on moOde-Raspberry pi.

I started this thread to post updates on my project (and hopefully there will be) and btw, tips and suggestions are welcome.

Project -I am watching your back- is in short, a ‘pedal sized’ audio player to play backing tracks for home practise + rehearsals and live when our drummer, who suffers from severe PTSD, is off grid.


Project hardware:


- dedicated guitar pedal alu enclosure. I will decide which type & size later.

- momentary stomp box switches.

- Raspberry pi 4b 4gb. I’m aware that this is overkill for this project but could be useful for other projects later on.

- Raspberry pi DAC pro HAT.

- OLED 0.96” 128x64 SSD1306. As Kent already mentioned, this might be too small. I’ll give it a shot tho, and do some tests before final decision, as i will not have much room to play with in the enclosure. For this project, the screen will obviously need prober protection too which will be a 3D printed mount-frame with protection glass. Considering trying a fresnel lens as protecton glass, though not sure if it will contribute in a positive way in regards of readability in the intended use situations.

- jack/XLR output.

- A1 SD.

- USB pen storage.

- Raspberry pi psu.


Primary project goals in random order (not sure all is possible and in case of conflicting features, I’ll go with the feature most useful for the project):

- on floor, stable and rugged, dedicated offline audio player.

- read only environment to plug/unplug power like normal fx pedals.

- foot controlled play&stop, next and prev with 3 momentary buttons.

- local display showing above mentioned info. Maybe only ‘loaded song’ or ‘next & prev’ is sufficient.

- playing most common audio formats but primarily wav and mp3 in different qualities.

- wireless audio file transfer from android mob to USB memory.

- 6.3mm TS jack L/R and/or XLR L/R output to active speakers/monitors and/or PA FOH mixer.

More could be added later on.

Most are in the mail atm.

Kind regards, 
Rock


Edit 19th may: added photo of the few parts received in writing moment.
   

Edit2 19th may: brain raised the question if ventilation of the enclosure is necessary. Google answered yesnomaybe… first prototype will probably be without but with the option to add custom 3D printed sweat, beer and insects safe ventilation.
 
Edit3 20th may: in the mighty glory of naivety and ignorance, i didn’t expect the necessity to go through countless guides and how to’s in order to find the exact functions i want - and at the same time sort out the dated guides, commands etc. As a friend of mine who’s ‘low current engineer’ (directly translated) said when i told him about the project: at least you won’t be bored.
Seems like he’s right…

Not moOde related but while clearing some brain cache for further reading, I’ll mention some other audio projects on my list. They are currently on stand by tho, as i have a working turntable that suit my needs.
- Lenco L75 modifications & upgrades.
- building a turntable from scratch. So far I’m only in the phase of reflections on different designs, drives and pros/cons.

Edit4 22nd May: ooooooh… a home build turntable with moOde streamer…!

[Dorffen]

Woot da f@q… landed one day earlier than expected, that’s unusual!

Cheers

   

Edit1 22nd May: Even if I want the feature, maybe XLR out is a bad idea if some unaware cunt, quite probably me, plug in a cable with 48v phantom power enabled… yes, will go the route of dual 6.3mm TS Jack L/R out, to prevent this.

Edit2 22nd May: Robert made my brain rotate in the right direction and how to power the Rpi through the enclosure is figured.

Edit3 22nd May: Tim made my project and maiden voyage easier by explaining to me, that a ‘Read only system’ more or less just makes it all more complicated with practically no gains.

[Dorffen]

Update!

After a lot of trial and error i’ve finaly managed to figure out something useful, for me, settings in pydPiper page file.
Converted several fonts files to use in pydPiper, some better suited than others.

What i’ve learned so far:
1) sudo nano….
2) ctrl x, y, enter.
3) sudo reboot.

The display atm - it’s more readable IRL.
   
   

Kind regards
Rock

[Tim Curtis]

Update!

After a lot of trial and error i’ve finaly managed to figure out something useful, for me, settings in pydPiper page file.
Converted several fonts files to use in pydPiper, some better suited than others.

What i’ve learned so far:
1) sudo nano….
2) ctrl x, y, enter.
3) sudo reboot.

The display atm - it’s more readable IRL.



Kind regards
Rock

You are no longer a Linux noob ;-)

[Dorffen]

Update!

Managed to find, and setup, useful and simple apps on iPad to edit metadata and transfer files wireless to/from the raspberry pi USB thumb storage.
Changed from Android phone to iPad as it is already a part of my music gear. Bonus is larger display and the option to e.g. quickly make a drumtrack in rehearsal and practise situations to try new ideas etc.

Found a nice and suitable alu enclosure with enough room for expansions too e.g. more connections etc.

I’m already thinking about the design of the enclosure and in that context, the name is shortened to ‘Watching your back’ and i would like to ask you @Tim Curtis for permission to include ‘Powered by moOde’.

Kind regards
Rock

[Tim Curtis]

Sure no prob.

[Dorffen]

Sure no prob.

Thanks

[TheOldPresbyope]

@Dorffen 

I attended a concert at the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, MD, last night. When Chris Botti implored the audience to light up the suddenly darkened hall with their cell phones, roughly 1500 lights appeared in the dark.

What does this have to do with your project? It reminded me that your player's WiFi and Bluetooth subsystems will likely live in a very active RF environment, even if you will be playing to a much smaller audience. If you depend on either or both during performances, you'll need to think about the possible consequences. 

Regards,
Kent

[Dorffen]

@Dorffen 

I attended a concert at the Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda, MD, last night. When Chris Botti implored the audience to light up the suddenly darkened hall with their cell phones, roughly 1500 lights appeared in the dark.

What does this have to do with your project? It reminded me that your player's WiFi and Bluetooth subsystems will likely live in a very active RF environment, even if you will be playing to a much smaller audience. If you depend on either or both during performances, you'll need to think about the possible consequences. 

Regards,
Kent

Yes, you are most certanly right and thank you for pointing this out, Kent.

In performance situations all but my bass will be wired (i do always bring a ‘panic-cable’ tho, in case of interference). I only use wireless on my bass because i always gets tangled up when i use a cable…. For whatever reason…

I might be a little oldschool or conservative, but i would never rely on a pure wireless setup e.g. the same reason as you mention. Not that i really like cables, but in the end of the day, they’re very easy and quick to test and replace. Actually, i even have a cable tester on my pedal board - plug both ends and it’ll return a ‘good’ or ‘bad’.


For my intended use, when the player is ready, the wireless subsystem on the Rpi will only be used for (Updates ofc and probably double as streamer when at home) transfering audio files, which will either be at home or in our rehearsal room.
Everything e.g. playlist etc. would be set up beforehand but with the option to alter xxxxx on spot.
The default playlist will be the drums backing tracks, which should make it unnecessary to access the player with anything other than the foot switches in performance situations (in theory).

I hope the alu enclosure can contribute to minimizing interference and ‘trespassers’, as security is a viable concern too, but i guess passwords other than ‘1234’ and the like, should handle this well enough.

Thanks.

Kind regards
Rock

[Dorffen]

Update!

Some of you Linux pros will probably laugh, facepalm or tilt your head in pity if you’re reading this.

After reading through a lot of pydPiper files, i finally managed to make the fonts and setup the display functions EXACTLY as desired.

The ‘welcome screen’ :
   

After the welcome screen, the display changes to ‘ready song title’ which scrolling left after 3sec if the title is longer than the display.

For my intended use, the player is set to ‘single/oneshot’ and when current song is finished, the next ‘ready song’ is displayed.
So far so good.


Then came the next headache aka the desired mpd/mpc functions which will be controlled by momentary switches.

As i started this project without any knowledge of Linux, i’ve been through (too) much reading to find the information i needed. Yup, maybe i should’ve started with simple button-diode circuits etc (haha, hell no).

Well… i need only 3 buttons which handles play/stop, next and prev, so pretty simple, right? -apparantly not, at least not with my limited knowledge of Linux.
The good thing about this step though, is that testing commands and statuses doesn’t need reboot (fantastic compared to testing display setups in pydPiper and sudo reboot etc etc… YAWNS).

Button1) start/stop: simple and easy ‘mpc toggle’ and this perfectly fits my level and lack of patience! x-D

Button2&3) next & prev: simple and…. No… not at all… ‘next’ is not just the mpc standard ‘play next’ for my intended use, where next means ‘stable and consistant > go to next song without playing it, no matter whether the current status is stopped, playing or paused’. - add to this, that the new song MUST be displayed on the oled when pressing next/prev.
I use ‘wait’ between other commands due to i experienced some inconsistency in executing all the commands, but it can maybe be replaced with ‘—‘ ? Haven’t tested this yet and my english isn’t good enough to fully understand this (either x-D).

Stubbornness and hyper focus helped me through it, and to shorten this up a little: today i made my first (and 2nd) executable script (yay) and now the moOde GPIO buttons works as intended.
*success! - beer on me.

Will do more tests regarding consistency tho, but it sure seems like the software part is ready now.

Kind regards
Rock

Edit1 4. Jun: on the hardware side, a UPS add-on and a ‘shut down button’ are being considered.

Edit2 4. Jun: i feel like i’m almost ready for the ‘novice’ promotion :-D