supercolliderStandaloneBBBheadless

Standalone for BeagleBone Black with Debian.

This is the audio synthesis program SuperCollider version 3.13.0 (branch main, commit 3188503, 20feb2023) + sc3-plugins (branch main, commit ab7f94e, 24feb2023) compiled for BeagleBone Black.

The standalone was built using this guide and tested to run under AM3358 Debian 10.3 2020-04-06 4GB SD IoT, bone-debian-10.3-console-armhf-2020-04-06-1gb and bone-debian-10.13-console-armhf-2023-02-05-1gb. It also works on the PocketBeagle and likely the other beagleboard models.

This standalone is self-contained and all files are in one directory.

installation

(this assumes you have done all the usual initialisation… burned the disk image, booted, logged in via ssh or monitor, changed password, expanded the filesystem (sudo /opt/scripts/tools/grow_partition.sh))

In a BBB terminal window type…

• sudo apt-get update
• sudo apt-get install git libfftw3-bin libavahi-client3
• git clone https://github.com/redFrik/supercolliderStandaloneBBBheadless --depth 1

and then build and install jack2…

• sudo apt-get install build-essential libasound2-dev libsamplerate0-dev libsndfile1-dev
• git clone --branch master --single-branch https://github.com/jackaudio/jack2.git
• cd jack2
• ./waf configure --alsa
• ./waf build
• sudo ./waf install
• sudo ldconfig
• cd ..
• rm -rf jack2
• sudo sh -c "echo @audio - memlock 256000 >> /etc/security/limits.conf"
• sudo sh -c "echo @audio - rtprio 75 >> /etc/security/limits.conf"
• echo /usr/local/bin/jackd -P75 -p16 -dalsa -dhw:1 -r44100 -p1024 -n3 > ~/.jackdrc #-dhw:1 is for USB soundcard
• sudo reboot

startup

Start by opening a terminal window (or log in via SSH) and type…

• cd supercolliderStandaloneBBBheadless
• ./sclang -a -l ~/supercolliderStandaloneBBBheadless/sclang.yaml

NOTE: one can also specify a .scd file to load when starting sclang like this: ./sclang -a -l ~/supercolliderStandaloneBBBheadless/sclang.yaml mycode.scd

autostart

• crontab -e #and add the following line to the end
  • @reboot cd /home/debian/supercolliderStandaloneBBBheadless && ./autostart.sh
• sudo reboot #and supercollider should automatically start after a while and play some beating sine tones.

Then edit the autostart script to load whichever file. By default it will load mycode.scd.

CPU speed

To avoid audio dropouts on the BBB make sure you are running at 1GHz. The following command will change the governor from ondemand to performance.

• sudo apt-get install cpufrequtils
• sudo cpufreq-set -g performance

also power the BBB from the DC barrel jack or GPIO pins - the mini USB port will cap the CPU at 300MHz.