Reaper on Pinebook Pro

[Twix166]

As promised to @Jeremiah Cornelius in the Initial Impressions thread, I am posting some of my initial findings with Reaper on the PBP. My setup is as follows:

OS: Debian/MATE default image (Kernel 4.4.207 - Latest MrFixit updates)
Reaper: v6.02 (armv71)
Audio Interface: Behringer U-Phoria UMC202HD
Microphone:  RØDE NT1-A

Installing and running Reaper was fairly straightforward. Just follow the instructions on the Reaper website.
After starting up Reaper I was only getting input from the built in Microphone. I had to switch PulseAudio to use the Behringer interface.
Once that was resolved. Everything recorded correctly.

I did notice that on the right side USB port everything worked fine. The left side USB port introduced lots of latency and was unusable. I have not tested my USB-C hub because I do not want to introduce more latency. Although this might be an interesting testing at a later stage.

I won't subject you to my test recording. It was done in my echo-y office and my voice is not exactly great.  
But, I have included a screenshot of the setup.


  ReaperDAW.png (Size: 287.12 KB / Downloads: 519)

I will also try to grab some CPU performance screenshots but I have not got around to doing that yet.

I should also mention that the use case I have (or rather my wife) is that of Audiobook narration. So it is a single mono track recording with very few filter and effects to reduce some room noise. It is not the most taxing workload but it is good to see that the PBP can cope quite nicely. Doing multiple tracks with lots of effects may not work quite so well.

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

As promised to @Jeremiah Cornelius in the Initial Impressions thread, I am posting some of my initial findings with Reaper on the PBP. My setup is as follows:

< SNIP >

I should also mention that the use case I have (or rather my wife) is that of Audiobook narration. So it is a single mono track recording with very few filter and effects to reduce some room noise. It is not the most taxing workload but it is good to see that the PBP can cope quite nicely. Doing multiple tracks with lots of effects may not work quite so well.

Thanks very much for this helpful response! The PulseAudio and USB pointers are really helpful. I will be doing multitracking, with lots of general MIDI and effects. There are good reports of Traction Waveform 10 on RPi 3+/4, so I'm in a hopeful mode.

Does anyone know if unmodified RPi binaries for Raspbian will run on PBP?

[Twix166]

So, these are some (very unscientific) screenshots of CPU usage during system idle, Reaper Playback and Reaper recording. During reaper recording the CPU never went above 1.51GHz. So there is still a bit of headroom. Most of the time the CPU was hovering around the 1.20GHz. I was recording on one track with one microphone.

Idle

  System - Idle CPU usage.png (Size: 91.06 KB / Downloads: 470)

Playback

  Reaper - Playback CPU usage.png (Size: 103.34 KB / Downloads: 442)

Recording

  Reaper - Recording CPU usage.png (Size: 96.66 KB / Downloads: 455)

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

So, these are some (very unscientific) screenshots of CPU usage during system idle, Reaper Playback and Reaper recording. During reaper recording the CPU never went above 1.51GHz. So there is still a bit of headroom. Most of the time the CPU was hovering around the 1.20GHz. I was recording on one track with one microphone.

Idle


Playback


Recording

Looks very good. Aside from the fact that I use the same GTK+ theme on my own Gnome setups. :-)

[mamboman777]

Is the low latency kernel compatible or even advantageous with the PBP?

[zaius]

I did notice that on the right side USB port everything worked fine. The left side USB port introduced lots of latency and was unusable.

The one on the right side is USB 3.0, on the left is USB 2.0

[Luke]

Thank you for sharing, great post.

[Arwen]

I did notice that on the right side USB port everything worked fine. The left side USB port introduced lots of latency and was unusable.

The one on the right side is USB 3.0, on the left is USB 2.0

I think that's the other way around;

Left side - USB C/3.0 & USB A/3.0
Right side - USB A/2.0

If looking at the Pinebook Pro open bottom picture, it's flipped left / right.

I do wonder why @Twix166 would have problem with a USB 3.0 port. My only thought is that USB power save could be kicking in. I have the same issue on my newish miniature desktop. Have not solved it completely, yet.

[zaius]

I think that's the other way around;

Left side - USB C/3.0 & USB A/3.0
Right side - USB A/2.0

It is  

I had it closed and facing the other way.

I was also thinking the latency was because 2.0 wasn't fast enough.

[mamboman777]

I use Focusrite gear and their website explains that they are still using USB 2.0 because it's fast enough and USB 3 for audio doesn't have much, if any, advantages.