Howdy guys - noob questions about gaming/apps/audio-editing


jonezy1984

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Feb 2, 2011
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Howdy guys,

i've been a long time enthousiast of handheld retro gaming & supporter of Dragonboxshop & openhandhelds.org.

I used to own a Gp2x Wiz & a GPH Caanoo. Sadly almost three years ago my apartment got  burglarised & they stole these marvelous machines amongst other things. At that time i didn't have any money to invest in a Pandora (although i wanted too). Eventually i got my nephew's spare PSP so at least i could play some retro games.

I've been following the development of the Pyra and man... i can't wait to get one!  :lol:

A few questions remain though, because i've never owned a Pandora or had much experience with a Debian Linux environment.

1) Retro PC-games of the 90's

The Gp2x Wiz, GPH Caanoo, Sony PSP & even the Nintendo DS are all great devices in their own, but one thing that was seriously lacking was a powerful enough version of Dosbox or even a Windows 95/XP emulator to play PC-games of the 90's.

I really missed playing Fallout 1 & 2, Jagged Alliance 1 & 2.

Now i'm guessing this wasn't an issue for the Pandora and these games would run smoothly on the Pyra for sure  ^_^

2) "Skype" or video conference call

Being able to do some basic text editing & checking e-mails is great. For a pocket device on the go , it would be really convienent to be able to make a video conference call. The first thing that springs to mind is "Skype" and i've read in the forum that it might work using "Exagear".

Is there any other video conference call software that might work better on Pyra? how about using an external webcam, does additional firmware need to be installed?

3) Audio editing on the go

Considering the hardware & size of the Pyra it has some real potential in becoming a portable audio tool for producers (even dj's). A version of "Audicity" is available in the Pandora-repository, chiptune sequencers could be run through emulation (Nanoloop, LSDJ, etc.) and even more is possible.

Many producers carry around a laptop from gig to gig which is often bulky, The Pyra would be the perfect size! & with it's superb audio quality, a welcome addition to any audio-setup.

My question is: has any pandora - owner (and audio enthousiast) ever tried syncing the Pandora through a USB - to - MIDI cable to an external synth?

Usually when using a laptop, additional firmware needs to be installed to allow the proper transfer of MIDI- data, and i have no idea if it's even possible with the Pyra.

That being said, if it's possible to run audio software on the Pyra and being able to MIDI-sync it with an external device, it would be ideal for any live setup and attract a lot of potential customers to invest in the project :)

Anyway, can't wait to actually own one :D

And sorry for the "noob" questions

Cheers 
 
1°) already works on pandora, so no issue for the pyra

2°) FB Messenger video call and video hangout work in chrome for linux. If we had a good chrome port, it would work on pandora (albeit probably slow and skippy). A good chrome port is a given for pyra, so :) the real issue will be the drivers for your cam

3°) we have severals audiophiles in this community, some of them are also porters (canseo come to my mind), pandora have a huge collections of audio editing tools. you'll find what you want here
 
1) What sebt3 said

2) As long as a browser like Firefox or Chrome works with WebRTC we could use https://meet.jit.si/

3) Audacity or mhWaveEdit for editing, Ardour or Qtractor as DAWs, Mixxx or Luppp for live, NSM for session management, amsynth or ZynAddSubFX as synths. This are a few examples of  what you can do on the GNU/Linux world. As for  MIDI via USB, as long as the device complies with MIDI standard (most do) there should be no problem.

Checkout this site for more info:

http://libremusicproduction.com/tools
 
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Does the XMPP plugin for pidgin support video chat?

edit: by which I mean I think the XMPP plugin for pidgin supports video chat, so you'd be able to communicate with anyone else that way (ie, google talk, jabber I think, etc...)

There are options, but the reason most people want skype is because that's where all their friends are and they shouldn't expect them to get a different account just to chat.
 
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Does the XMPP plugin for pidgin support video chat?

edit: by which I mean I think the XMPP plugin for pidgin supports video chat, so you'd be able to communicate with anyone else that way (ie, google talk, jabber I think, etc...)

There are options, but the reason most people want skype is because that's where all their friends are and they shouldn't expect them to get a different account just to chat.

You just need to convince your friends on using the alternative, saying a big lie like, everyone uses it, or hurry up or you would lose your favorite nick, etc, ;)

It worked for IRC, Messenger and WhatsApp, i don't see why it could not happen again.
 
WizardStan: Yes, is it well supported, no. You can get it to work, and then its quite pleasant, even video works.

Skype is the worst option there is.  Try SIP, Mumble or tox
 
I don't think you will be able to get the full recent versions of Nanoloop running, so you won't be able to save  using demo versions unless you use a save state in the emulator you use (not sure if Oliver made them limited in other ways).  I don't know what the point of doing that would be since the point of Nanoloop is to make music using the hardware of Game Boys, and unlike LSDJ, you won't be able to transfer your work back to the cart.  I haven't tried copying it from the cart, but since it won't work with common flash carts (and I can't even get it to run whatever old version I currently have on the cart on my unmodded Super Game Boy) I have major doubts it will work on an emu. I am pretty sure that is intentional.

 There are other things for other consoles and such that should work, but I only use them on real hardware, so I don't know if the emus we have on the Pandora have issues, or if there will be any on the Pyra that do. I wanted to see if Piggy works on the Pandora but never did anything to try to find out.  No clue if it will work on Pyra either.
 
Thanx for the response guys :)  

About using the Pyra for audio purposes, i just wonder if it could be used to run a DAW or softsynth & then MIDI-chain it with other devices.

Already imagining using the Pyra in a setup with an octatrack :D
 
I might want to try out Hello Firefox some day.

Might be a good alternative to Skype.
 
I'm not a music guy so I'm not entirely certain what all the words you just said mean, but I do remember someone else saying they had a USB midi device and were using the Pandora to play music or something.  The current repo has a lot of things in it listed as "midi", you may want to have a look there.  Basically, if the Pandora can do it then odds are extremely good, like 99.9%, that the Pyra will be able to as well.
 
Thanx for the response guys :)  

About using the Pyra for audio purposes, i just wonder if it could be used to run a DAW or softsynth & then MIDI-chain it with other devices.

Already imagining using the Pyra in a setup with an octatrack :D

The Pandora can already do all that, the midi patchbay in QJackCtl is pure genius.

It enables me to link any hardware midi in/out to any software midi in/out, be it soft synths, midi sequencer tools like arp or step sequencers or a big more demanding sequencer daw software package like Qtrackor.

I have it running 2 midi interfaces providing me with 3 physical in- and 3 out going to my synths, my c64  B) and drum computer directly powered from the Pandora USB port. I have no power supply in my hub.

My Pandora is the master of it all providing all the midi routing and midi clock timing for my hardware aswell as running the soft synths, sequencers etc. It works real easy, If I want the arp generator to make an arp for my c64 I just drag a line from the output of the arp generator to the hardware input of my c64.  And that works the other way around too. I can easily drag the output of my keyboard to an input of a soft synth. Latency is very low in my case, I have not experienced any sync problems except that one time when I wanted to know how far I could push my Pandora.

The Pyra can only perform better. And(!) the Pyra screen resolution will be awesome compared to the Pandora which often falls a bit short which results in having to drag windows around to be able to click a button.

Anyway, I think QJackCtl is available in the debian repo so I guess it's available from the get-go. I can hardly wait to see the prototype. It can't go fast enough for me ;)
 
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