Home Theater Forum and Systems banner

"Headless" REW on Raspberry Pi (REW with Webinterface)

8K views 21 replies 5 participants last post by  bonzcruzez 
#1 ·
Hello there.

I'm planning to use a Raspberry Pi (preferably a Raspberry Pi Zero) together with a Behringer UCA 202 to get an ultra portable REW Tool.

The Raspberry should be running Raspbian (or better Raspbian light) and provide a "headless" way to use REW.
Audio Signals should be sent/received via the USB Behringer Interface. The Raspberry Pi is connected to LAN/WLAN as needed.

My question is: Is there any way I can get REW to work/be controlled via a web interface (like routers or NAS are using)?

My fallback option would be to use remote desktop to get to the X-Session that is running REW. But I'm having concerns it could cause too much load on the system to use REW effectively.

Has anyone tried out what I'm planning and is willing to share some input?

Thanks a lot for your support!
 
#2 ·
I have a raspberry pi 3B up and running headless with Kodi, and hope to get the Linux version of REW working on it, but have not ventured into that part of the project yet.

I was thinking I would be really happy to get REW working with monitor and kb/mouse. I cannot imagine runnning it headless.Someone would have to write a remote control app for it, and that is probably not even on John's priority list.
 
#6 ·
put simply....

x11vnc is a way of displaying an existing desktop session on your client computer
rdesktop is a way of creating a new desktop session to serve your client computer
x forwarding is a way of starting a gui app that runs on the rpi but whose UI is rendered by the X server running on your client computer

the first 2 require an X server on the rpi, the last one doesn't (but requires an X server on your client so you need to know a bit more about what you're doing & it can be quite slow)

x11vnc is probably the easiest one to go with (lots of links on google about it, e.g. http://www.linuxcircle.com/2015/05/...esktop-remotely-in-headless-mode-with-x11vnc/)
 
#13 ·
why would you want to be able to operate this via the internet? seems a bit of an odd requirement.

there are HATs with audio IO, for example http://www.audioinjector.net/#!/rpi-hat (NB: they even have a 6in, 8out model coming soon - http://www.audioinjector.net/#!/rpi-octo-hat), which would make for a more compact solution. Mic calibration would be an issue of course but you could always use a proper mic with separate phantom power.
 
#14 ·
why would you want to be able to operate this via the internet? seems a bit of an odd requirement...
Not if you plan to hand the device to your friend, have him set it up for your and you just simply take the measurements from your office or home whenever your friend has set it up.

The internet connectivity more or less comes with the ability to get a remote desktop on the device and it's not a top requirement as you might have noticed I put it into brackets and added "if necessary". So one _could_ forward the VNC/RDP/SSH/etc. session directly through a router - if needed - with no additional hardware required.

My primary plan for operating the device via internet, though, was to use a notebook/tablet/smartphone/etc. that uses tools like TeamViewer, etc. and to connect to the VNC/RDP/etc. session running on the RPi from there.

To make it short: If remote sessions on the RPi work, the hardware can be operated through the internet - if needed.

...there are HATs with audio IO, for example http://www.audioinjector.net/#!/rpi-hat (NB: they even have a 6in, 8out model coming soon - http://www.audioinjector.net/#!/rpi-octo-hat), which would make for a more compact solution. Mic calibration would be an issue of course but you could always use a proper mic with separate phantom power.
Looks nice! Especially because the impact of heavy CPU load would not lead to stuttery signals when using GPIOs for the job.

Sadly, as far as I've seen, the PCB is designed to fit on a "normal" sized RPi, though. So it would mean, I have to build an extra case around my RPi Zero (which is significantly smaller than a normal RPi) to protect the PCB components from being touched.

Using just a simple RPi Zero Pi-Bow case and attaching an USB audio card would mean no extra case and no touchable electronic devices.
 
#15 ·
Short Update:
- Raspbian with Pixel is running on my RPi Zero
- VNC is running nice (no need to ever attach a keyboard/display up to now)
- REW installation script has finished smoothly
- REW is up and running

Now I need to wait for the USB Soundcard to arrive.
In the meanwhile I'm using the Pi as a pi-hole device for ad-blocking :)
 
#19 ·
You might need the horsepower :)

Another update:
- Installing the Sound Blaster X-Fi 5.1 USB Soundcard (SB1090), wich I got from a friend of mine, was a bit tricky (using pulseaudio) but I finally got it working to use stereo at last.
- Sadly REW tells me that the device (in combination with pulseaudio) seems not to handle the correct data format
- Strangely I once was able to do a calibration/test and produce some test signals through REWs "Generator" section
- The generated sound was very stuttering, though. CPU usage was at 100% all the time when generating sound

I will investigate into the driver/pulseaudio thing a bit more when I have the time to do so.
I'm still waiting for my cheap USB Soundcard to arrive - hopefully it will be a bit easier to get things running with this device.
The pulseaudio server does not autostart at the moment (not a thing related to REW, though). Maybe I try using a .destop file to autostart it next time.
I thing I have a unused RPi 3B lying around somwhere - If there's enough time, I'll try setting things up on this device and see, if it handles things a bit better due to its better CPU.

Let's see what's next :)
 
#20 ·
What I have done with my R Pi 3b:
  • installed raspbian
  • installed Kodi server
  • added Tidal2 plugin to Kodi
My original project, still under way, is preparing the image to run my R Pi as a media server with a 128 GB USB flash ROM for media - no fans, no moving parts!

Tested: stereo flac files, 16-44, 24-44, 24-48, 24-96, 24-192

Tested: 5.1 flac files, 24-48, 24-96

Tested: mp4 movie with 5.1 surround audio

all work smoothly with very small CPU usage

edit: the 3B might have a lot more horsepower than it really needs, but at only $35, that is CHEAP horsepower - always a YES!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top