development – Zynthian Blog

Zynthian Kit V5 is here!

We are proud of announcing the arrival of the long-awaited Zynthian Kit V5, the latest creation from ZynthianLabs.

It’s been a long journey and certainly i could tell a good story about the development of V5, its roots, epiphanies, setbacks and sorrows, but i better leave this for a next entry and put the focus in the device itself, the V5.

We could say that the V5 is more of the same thing, but it doesn’t sound very appetizing, right? Although it’s not false at all: more design, more display, more buttons, more connectivity, more power, more usability, more quality, more integration. More can be really much more.

An amazing travel thru the Zynthian V5 internals

ZynADAC v1.0: an Open Hardware soundcard for Zynthian

We are proud of present to all of you the new Zynthian’s official soundcard, the ZynADAC v1.0, an open hardware soundcard for an open hardware project.

The new ZynADAC has the same features you are used to because it uses the same DAC/ADC Burr Brown chips, powered by 3 ultra low-noise voltage regulators (LDOs) and synced by 2 high-stability oscillators, which guarantees the lowest noise & jitter. Also, it’s fully compliant with the RBPi HAT specification.

New Zynthian Kit V2+: Audio Input is here!

WARNING: HifiBerry as recently changed the specification for the DAC+ADC. It seems that the balanced input is not working as expected and it’s been removed from the specs. The new HifiBerry DAC+ADC PRO includes a true balanced input among many other improvements.

We are very proud to present the Zynthian Kit V2+, the new official flagship, featuring the amazing Hifiberry DAC+ADC as soundcard.

As you may note, the “ADC” (Analog/Digital Converter) in the soundcard’s name announces the difference: the new official kit now has audio input and yes, this makes a big difference!

Zynthian + Pianoteq: A dream come true

A few months ago, we started the integration of a new engine in zynthian. This time it was something special as it was the first zynthian engine integrated by somebody else (Mr. Holger Wirtz, aka @C0d3man) and it wasn’t a free software engine, but a commercial product, with a privative license. Somebody could think that this is not well aligned with the spirit of zynthian project, so … why to do it?

Continue reading Zynthian + Pianoteq: A dream come true

New Engine “Jalv”: LV2 plugins as standalone layers

Great news, @zynthianers!

I’ve been working in a new engine that allows to launch LV2-plugins as standalone layers. For doing that, i’ve used (and extended!) Jalv, from David Robillard, one of the creators of LV2 plugin specification. In his words:

“Jalv is a simple but fully featured LV2 host for Jack. It runs LV2 plugins and exposes their ports as Jack ports, essentially making any LV2 plugin function as a Jack application.”

Continue reading New Engine “Jalv”: LV2 plugins as standalone layers

New Engine: Aeolus, a Pipe Organ Emulator

Summer is a relaxed period and i love to dedicate some time to mind-expanding tasks. Integrating Aeolus, a “pipe organ emulator that should be good enough to make an organist enjoy playing it”, has been a very pleasant task and have given to me the oportunity of learning a little bit about these amazing machines that Pipe Organs are and its history. And of course, it’s a very good add for Zynthian 😉

Continue reading New Engine: Aeolus, a Pipe Organ Emulator

New SD image: Gorgona Omega

The new SD image Gorgona Omega is ready to download. It’s available in 2 “colors”, pre-configured for the latest official kit v2 and also for the former kit v1:

Download Gorgona Omega for Kit v2:
SHA1: 601ab5e58d3f08b7cda6f5821d396f6622e93106
Download Gorgona Omega for Kit v1:
SHA1: 53ce2ba3c055698d27108750c2b80313f904c921

Continue reading New SD image: Gorgona Omega

Merry Zynthians and Happy New Image – Newsletter #2, December 2016

Greetings from the sunny BCN, where today the rain fall over and tomorrow the air will smell clean and healthy 🙂

It’s been a hard month preparing the new SD image, but finally it’s here. Its name is Gorgona!

If you already have a Zynthian Box, i’m pretty sure you would like to try Gorgona right now. You can choose between two different versions, compiled for RBPi3 and RBPi2:

Continue reading Merry Zynthians and Happy New Image – Newsletter #2, December 2016

Summer Synths & Swimming Sounds – Newsletter #1, August 2016

Greetings from MasFort, in Reus, where time passes slowly and tomatoes grow fast! 😉 I hope you are enjoying the summer and recharging your batteries for the coming season.

A little over a year ago I mounted the first Zynthian prototype and since then many things have happened. The software and hardware have evolved a lot and people around the world are building Zynthian Boxes. The project has grown and a small community of users and supporters is borning. It is time to meditate a little bit and consider new goals.

Among these goals is sending a newsletter, more or less regularly, to keep you informed of progress and news about the project. Let’s go there!

Continue reading Summer Synths & Swimming Sounds – Newsletter #1, August 2016

The Zynthian Emulator

IMPORTANT: Comments are closed in this post, please, use the forum.

Developing software for Zynthian is slighty more complex than developing software for a desktop platform. You need a Zynthian Box (ZBox) over your desk running all the time and connected to the network. You must login by ssh everytime you reboot the ZBox. Every time you want to test your changes, you have to copy the modified files into the ZBox, compile if needed, and run the program from the shell.

This cycle makes development slower than normal, and although you use scripts and tools to agilize the process, finally you realize that there is a better way 😉

Continue reading The Zynthian Emulator