In my home recording studio, my main audio interface runs as Master Clock at either 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz, depending on the type of project I am working on (music or broadcast) and the software in use.
Is there a way to have my Raspberry Pi 4 with RoPieee always slave to my main interface sampling rate?
I am aware it would need a HAT with digital output and input. But my questions are:
is it possible anyway?
what HAT would provide this functionality?
Current HAT is HifiBerry DIGI+ Pro HW1.2, so that brand would be preferred to fit the same aluminum housing.
I don’t have an answer to your question, but I had the same problem.
I generally run the studio at 96kHz or 48kHz, and my main monitors take a digital input - so I prefer to keep everything digital if I can.
My old solution was to use an analogue HAT and feed the output into a spare input on my main RME interface, it worked although the additional DAC/ADC felt bad (although it sounded fine).
My current solution is to use an RME ADI2 pro. I have this set up to drive my best headphones, so it is sync’d to the studio clock.
However it also has a build in sample rate converter, so it can take an SPDIF output from a digital source/HAT, and convert it to the studio sample rate, and then output it to one of the digital outputs.
Obviously an expensive solution if you don’t already have the ADI!
Thanks for your reply, happy to see I’m not the only one struggling with RoPiee in a professional environment. I may consider adding a USB DAC to my studio Pi instead of a HAT. Or just skip the Pi and playback through the Roon App for Mac OS.
I’m also looking into finding a driver/patcher like Loopback for Mac that has SR conversion built in. But no luck yet.
It’s not just Ropieee, more that Roon doesn’t have an ability to set target sample rate from an external source.
I did consider playing via the Mac app - which can be set to non-exclusive and so not adjust the sample rate, but I don’t think it was easy to choose the playback channels on a pro-interface - and I also prefer to keep the studio mac audio as vanilla as possible. Don’t want anything to mess up the Protools recording chain!
I’m sure things like loopback could help - but again I didn’t want them running on the studio mac.
Let me know what you settle on.
BTW if you do decide to buy a USB DAC the RME ADI2 pro is expensive - but very good - with a lot of flexibility. Over the years I’ve used it in all kinds of different ways!
I decided to not invest for now, but create Muse presets with forced SR conversion within the Roon ecosystem. One for every Master SR I use in my DAWs. Does the trick nicely so far.
