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Raspberry Pi Zero 2W

We are always trying to do big projects with small things here in the Media Maker's Lab! The Raspberry Pi Zero 2W is an amazing system-on-a-chip that retails for about $15. You can ssh into it from another computer, so it doesn't need its own keyboard, mouse or screen. What's more, it runs Pd (Pure Data) and can execute patches remotely.

Right now I'm sending audio out to a very inexpensive Behringer audio interface, but in the near future I'm planning on hacking the GPIO pins so that audio can go out the remapped "headphone jack". For now though, it works!



The little Raspberry Pi Zero 2W is in a 3D printed case. It has only power coming in, and USB going out to an audio interface. I am hoping to remap the output pins so that it is possible to get audio out without an external interface.


The key here is to explicitly turn on DSP when the patch starts.


Although you might think that this is broken from all the console messages, this is what it looks like when you play the siren Pd patch on the Raspberry Pi Zero from the command line, with no gui. The patch is running and sound is going out through the audio interface. Audio quality is excellent, no artifacts of glitches in processing!


Here's another Pd patch that receives OSC data from my phone. You can control the patch wirelessly from the phone this way. All this current patch does is change the frequency and ampitude of a single oscillator, but much more is possible, of course!


Last updated on 14 May 2025.
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