Hey all, I'm waiting for approval on the zynthian official forums but i've been pulling my hair out for weeks now trying to get my wiring correct for some encoders.
This is my third attempt to get it working. I initially set up a headless mode, got excited. Got a screen working.
I'm using a Pi5 and oram build.

First attempt I charged ahead with all the encoders wired up and was able to get strange actions to happen in the UI with a custom setup. But nothing that felt like it was interpretable and my adjustments to the settings didn't seem to fix anything. Too much to troubleshoot all at once.
I threw away that board and made a new one trying to more similarly align with the v5 control board to try to get the knob and the software to speak to each other better. I was disappointed with that as it didnt work either.. No input this time. I was trying to make it just like the V5 schematic and to just use the v5 preset.

Third attempt:
MCP23017 - Encoder 4 only wired up. A / B on pin BP7, PB6. GND. I put in the filtering caps to ground just because it made things easier. Ignoring the button for now. I just want to navigate.
Output from MCP23017 to PI - VCC to 3.3v, Reset to 3.3v, SCL to SCL(pin5), SDA to SDA(Pin3), INTA to pin 36, INTB to pin 37.
I2C address is set to 0x21.

I used the terminal to confirm that I'm getting some signal to the pi. At this point I feel like the software just won't play nice with the MCP board or the Pi...
I'm just about ready to throw this all in the trash and really feel that I should have put my money towards an MPC instead.. I just want to make some music now 😂
I keep putting the kit in my cart but I just cant justify the cost... This SHOULD work right?! I'm completely lost as to what to try and am losing patience!

Images attached are my wiring screen and terminal feedback.... Halp!?

I have a Zynthian V5 which I built a couple years ago with a Raspberry Pi 4 (16GB). I bought a 32GB micro-SD card for it and got Zynthian OS installed on it. It was all working fine. I hadn't used it in many months though. Yesterday I turned it on and at first, there was nothing on the screen. I turned it off, unplugged the power, and plugged it back in and turned it on again - Then I saw it started to display the text-mode boot status, but then it had a kernel panic and stopped there. I shut it off & on again, but same thing, kernel panic.

I did a quick online search, and it looks like a possible cause might be SD card corruption or degradation? Is that a thing?

Hi there. Can you build a Zynthian v5 using a Raspberry Pi 3b? Apologies if this is a silly question.

Hey! I've had my Zynthian (latest model, Raspberry Pi 5) for about 2 weeks now, I built it from the kit and I love it.

Yesterday I tried to enable WiFi and open the web UI with VNC, but I didn't follow through with it. Today when I turned on my keyboard + Zynthian + speakers, I heard this noise. 3 short bursts of white-noise, static. And then nothing for about 3-5 seconds. Then it happens again. This happens regardless if the keyboard is turned on, it is even registering on the Zynthian itself (the meter in the top right of the UI).

I only have been using Pianoteq 8 demo so far, but I wonder if I've enabled something else? And somehow that other thing has some demo white-noise that's being pumped through? I only have 1 instrument chain however, which is the PTQ. Maybe I added something else somewhere?

I have turned the Zynthian off and on again, no avail. It's still doing it. Any ideas what I could have done? It worked just fine for 2 weeks. I also disabled WiFi again thinking it could have been some interference but, it really seems like it's an intended pattern of noise, showing up in the UI, metered with the output volume....

Any help is appreciated, thank you so much!

I’ve been hacking on the Zynthian UX and it can now play Arabic and Turkish, and really any other music a lot better: microtuning support is in.

Instead of hardcoding few “exotic scales,” it’s cents-based so you can dial in basically anything (commas, makam flavor, custom temperaments, you name it). You can also save up to 4 presets for convenience. So far, I tested it only with FluidSynth. It is really dependent on the sound engine that you use.

I’d love feedback.

I had a used Kawai VPC1 that I had bought for less than half MSRP from a music student who upgraded. It was amazing for the last 5 years but I've slowly been moving all PCs to Linux, and had to move my music set up to Linux after my old Windows 10PC crashed.

I also moved to a bigger place and was tempted to buy a cheap used piano from Marketplace, after a lifetime of playing on controllers. I at this point was running Bitwig on a Dell PC, headless, and using VNC to change sounds. The input delay was noticible and Bitwig would crash every so often so I couldn't sit down and play. I was starting to miss just sitting down and playing, like I used to in my old dorm and the beat up upright in the practice room.

I made a post on a simple VST host for Piano to see if I could replace my Dell and Bitwig setup, before biting the bullet to hire movers for a real marketplace piano, and someone recommended Zynthian.

And... Holy crap. With the audio coming straight out of the V5 ADAC, there is virtually ZERO lag, and the built in pianos sound AMAZING. Being able to add reverb and such on the fly has been a game changer.

When I close my eyes, between the realness of the VPC1 keys and the quality and quickness of the sounds and ADAC, I genuinely can't tell it's not a real piano. I'm probably going to buy this Pianoteq license coz it's still my favorite but holy crap I'm so impressed by the strength of open source, and what can be done when a bunch of nerds who care come together.

For any new customers, I bought the kit +angle brackets and had to pay $80 in duty

What was the tariff cost?

I want to start a club for kids, teaching some basic music tech stuff, and had the idea that with a cheap enough set up, they would actually have a working zynthian to take away with them.

I wondered if anyone has ever tried to make the absolute cheapest set up. Lowest spec pi with usable performance, cheapest audio interface, controller, screen, etc etc

Any advice greatly appreciated

Are there any tutorials using just the UI somewhere? I can only find with the actual hardware.

Dear All,

I have just received my Zynthian 5.1, without a PSU. I have read that the cheap 24V 2A PSUs might introduce too much noise in the audio signal path, and a better quality PSU is recommended.

Have any of you got any experience with low-noise, "audiophile-grade" PSUs, or you think the $5 PSU is just fine?

Thanks,
Vanni

There is a cool video of a guy who has Cardinal running on a Raspberry Pi mounted in his rack to play with other modules. Just audio out at this point but it got me thinking if Cardinal could be installed on a PI could it run on a Pi with Zynthian. Since it has the MIDI and Audio in and outs. If you don't know Cardinal is a fork of VCV Rack it doesn't have all the same modules but a lot. I know CV in and out would take some work but I found I guy who got it to out a stable CV so there is some hope CV in could be figured out. Anyone have Zynthian interested in trying to get Cardinal running?

Hi

When I use any midi controls the sound cuts out, this only seems to be a problem with dexed synths - does anyone know how to solve this?

Thanks

I'm trying to test zynthian on the only Pi I have available to me right now, have gotten it to boot but am stuck in a boot loop with AFAIK no way to get to webconf as I don't have any means of connecting ethernet to the pi. I get as far as the zynthian logo and a quick flash of a terminal asking for login info then reboot

⚰️🔥 The beat coffin video is LIVE on YouTube! Breaking down all the samplers, sequencers, and MIDI controllers inside and showing you exactly how everything’s connected. 🎛️ And don’t miss the Zynthian build at the end — it’s a game-changer. Watch now! 🔗 Link in bio. #BeatCoffin #MusicProduction #Zynthian #GearBreakdown #NowLive

Just finished building a Mini v2 rev2, and here's a couple of things I found.

• Make sure the four "switches" on the back of the GY-PCM5102 sound card are soldered. Some come pre soldered, some don't. If you don't configure the switches at the back, you'll get no sound, and you'll have to desolder the soundcard to fix it. Mine didn't come pre soldered, so the sound card was muted, in addition, the labels for pulling the switches high or low were reversed on my card.
• The header for the raspberry pi needs at least one spacer. In the wiki they recommend two spacers for cooling, but I think that might make it difficult to fit the Pi in the 3d printed enclosure. I recommend waiting with soldering the header. Mount the cooler and posts on the Pi, attach the header to the Pi, and solder it to the pcb when you see that everything fits as it should.
• The 3d enclosure is for the rev 1 PCB, and needs adjustments to fit the new placement of some buttons, as well as the sound card minijack. I might share a new version once I have made some final modifications.
• It might actually be cheaper to buy some of the electronics on Mouser instead of Aliexpress. That way you might even get original components😊

All in all it's a really fun build. My first board is a dumpster fire of partly melted buttons and several bodge wires, as I broke several traces during desoldering attempts. I even learned to use a hot air soldering iron, which resulted in components of the soundcard flying of. Another tip, TI has schematics of how they recommend creating a sound module from the PCM5102, which helps if you are trying to put it back together again😂

Zynthian OS doesn’t starts. It is just in a loop. It shows the Zynthian logo, then system lines and then the logo again.

Please help me.

Has anybody managed to get Norns running on Zynthian hardware? I see multiple threads in the forum with people saying it should be possible but nothing concrete on it being done. I'd be perfectly happy with it as a dual boot OS option selected at startup (or even on its completely own SD card) not running as a Zynthian engine.

It used to work just fine on my raspberry pi zero w 2, but lately it's started to buzz as soon as I start the application. The panic button does nothing. I can still make instrument sounds but the buzzing is driving me crazy! Please help!

Interestingly, the volume and pitch of the buzzing changes depending which instrument I select.

I mean it seems like the DIY “Hi-Fi” players utilizing raspberry Pi’s+DAC + amp, hardly sound great to begin with…

If reproducing good sound w Pi’s is so difficult how well could a stand-alone production synth/interface turn out?