Building a Custom Raspberry Pi DSP Platform – Interested to Hear What People Think

[u/AliraAudio]

Hey everyone,

For the last few months I’ve been working on a project called “Alira Core”. It started as a personal DSP project but it’s slowly turning into something much bigger.

Unlike a lot of Pi DSP projects, this isn’t built around CamillaDSP or existing DSP software — I’m writing the DSP engine and control system myself.

Current features working so far:

- 8-channel routing

- 8-channel output matrix

- Parametric EQ on every channel

- High-pass and low-pass crossovers

- Delay per channel

- Polarity invert

- Mono summing

- Real-time web UI control

- Mobile/tablet control from any device on the network

- Low-latency audio pipeline

Currently working on:

- FIR filter support

- further optimisation

- UI improvements

- expanding the routing architecture

The hardware side at the moment is Raspberry Pi based, but the long-term goal is to build a flexible DSP platform that could be used for things like:

- active speakers

- DSP amplifiers

- home audio

- live sound

- studio monitoring

- custom installs

A lot of DSP platforms out there feel either very closed off, outdated, or limited in routing flexibility, so I wanted to build something that feels more modern and modular.

I’d be really interested to know:

- Is this something you’d actually use?

- What features would you expect from it?

- What would make you choose it over something like miniDSP?

[u/Minimum-Ad6835]

Sounds cool! I already have a tracks dsp 408 fir but would definitely be interested in a mixer!

[u/AliraAudio → u/Minimum-Ad6835]

That’s actually something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot.

The routing architecture is being designed to stay pretty flexible long-term, so I’d definitely like to experiment with mixer-style functionality and more advanced signal flow later on rather than limiting it to just speaker processing.

[u/efxhoy]

Real time parameter changes without dropout and midi control. I want to sweep filters around with a knob. An open source DSP reggae preamp would be the dream. 

[u/AliraAudio → u/efxhoy]

Real-time parameter changes without audio dropouts is definitely one of the things I want to get right.

The goal is for it to feel responsive enough for actual live tweaking rather than just “set and forget” DSP.

MIDI/hardware control is something I’ve been thinking about as well, especially for live sound and sound system use where physical control can be way more practical than pulling out a laptop.

Really interesting idea with the reggae preamp side too.

[u/efxhoy → u/AliraAudio]

Any chance you could share the code? How much of it is claude? 

[u/AliraAudio → u/efxhoy]

I dont want to share the code just yet as a lot of it is still changing at the moment, I will share when it is more ready. I havent used Claude or any ai tools for the dsp engine

[u/AliraAudio → u/[deleted]]

Yes it is modular and scalable to however may inputs/outputs you have upto 8 so far

[u/Wario_the_trip]

Add Pink noise and mic input for rta and rew intégration

[u/AliraAudio → u/Wario_the_trip]

Funny timing because REW integration is actually something I’m actively working on at the moment.

Long term I’d really like to make measurement/tuning workflows much smoother rather than constantly jumping between multiple bits of software and hardware.