Setting up the Raspberry Pi

Before you start

What you need

• A Raspberry Pi — a Zero 2 W, 3A+ or 4.
• An SD card, 8 GB or bigger.
• A SCSI cable that fits your sampler, and a terminator.
• Drum Chopper installed and activated on your Mac.

Step 1

Write the SD card

1. Plug the SD card into your Mac. Use the slot on the Mac, or a card reader — not a hub.
2. In Drum Chopper, open the Raspberry Pi setup screen.
3. Pick your SD card from the list, then start.
4. Wait. It downloads, writes, then checks its work. Leave the card alone until it says it is done.

The card is wiped. Everything on it is erased, so use a spare one.

If your card is not in the list, it is probably in a reader the Mac cannot identify. Try a different reader.

Step 2

Start the Pi

1. Put the card in the Pi.
2. Connect the Pi to your sampler with the SCSI cable, with everything switched off.
3. Power up the Pi and wait a minute or two. The first start is slow. Later ones are quick.
4. Now switch the sampler on.

Step 3

Connect the Mac to the Pi

In Drum Chopper, press Cmd+B to open Pi Connections, and add a new setup.

1. Give it a name. Anything you like — “Studio Pi” is fine.
2. Choose how it connects: the USB-C cable, or your network.
3. On a network, type in the Pi's address. If you do not know it, press Scan and the app will look for it.
4. Enter the username and password for the Pi.
5. Press Connect.

Your password is kept safely on your Mac, not in a file. If you already use SSH keys, there is a button to generate one instead — but you do not need to know what that means.

Step 4

Make a disk for the sampler

Open the Disk Manager, or press B for the Pi Browser. Then create a disk.

• Akai — start with 60 MB. That is one full Akai volume. Bigger sizes just let you add more volumes later.
• Ensoniq — anything from a floppy up to 2 GB.
• Give it an ID number. Any number your sampler is not already using. If you are not sure, try 2, then 3, then 4.

Then tell the sampler to look at its SCSI drives again. Your new disk should appear.

Step 5

Switching off

Use Shutdown Pi in the app. Do not just pull the plug — the sampler may be reading from the Pi, and cutting the power in the middle can damage the disk.

If it does not work

Things to try, in order

1. Check the ID. Two things on the same ID number is the most common problem. Change the disk to a different number.
2. Check the terminator. The last device on the cable needs one. Without it, nothing works properly and the faults look random.
3. Press Repair SCSI in the app. It reconnects everything and puts the Pi back into disk mode.
4. Run the diagnostic. It tests each part in turn and stops at the one that failed, which tells you where to look.

On an ASR-10, the sampler will not show up when you scan the bus. That is normal and not a fault.

Still stuck? Email us and say which Mac, which Pi, which sampler, and what the screen said.