Hi,
I plan to supporting a Sonic Pi project in my daughters school in this year (once there will be time and energy to think of something different than Corona).
They do have a few Apples there (not sure but I think iMacs) but I’d rather fund a few Raspberries for various reasons.
I wonder whether the Raspi 4 with 2 GB RAM will be sufficient for that (as RAM is one of the main price factors). Or does Sonic Pi need 4 GB RAM to run conveniantly?
Can anyone enlighten me?
I use 3 B + ( 1 G ram ) with no problems .
Possible caveats …
I use little effects …
5 or 6 instruments max at 1 time …
It is only my opinion …
But
I think a 3 B + with Stretch and the
attendent SPi version is a much more
elegant setup than using the latest of everything .
Everything works as it should ( and one
would expect ) without having to fiddle - fart .
I bought a RPi 4 with 4GB RAM just in case, but from what I can see I think 2GB would have been fine - just for running SPi that is. I bet that for desktop use (browser, office stuff etc.) I’d need 4GB.
My experience suggests CPU and core temperature are the limiting factors, along with use of some FX. It was quite easy to overload the RPi with casual use of some FX, whereas multiple voices and samples are no problem.
Following up soxsa I think that SP alone is probably fine on 2Gb, but for effective school use, where presumably other software would be used as well I would advise 4Gb. This would allow several apps to run at once, eg Chromium browser plus Libre. I haven’t tried a 2Gb Pi4, but have 4 and 8Gb versions. I think tje 8Gb is perhaps extravagant, and it is interesting to see that new Pi400 utilises 4Gb. This is targeted as a desktop machine, and so perhaps indicates the Foundation consider this the appropriate amount of Ram. IF you are only using SP (and perhaps a virtual synth like Qsynth) then 2Gb may be OK, but I think in a schoolsituation the last thing you want is frustration because of lack of reasonable performance. This could lead to lack of use.
For the record, Sonic Pi has a pretty low memory footprint and very low requirements. The only thing that really requires significant memory is loading samples. Every time you trigger a new sample, it has to be loaded into memory first and the more samples you work with the more memory you need.
Of course, the OS will need memory as will any other program you happen to be running at the same time.
Sonic Pi ran just fine on the original Pi and the only real issue there was CPU load 
Ok. Thanks a lot for this input! Very helpful.
Accutally the children will receive brand new iPads within the next weeks. So the Pis will only be needed to run Sonic Pi (and as Robin suggests, possibly fluid- resp. qsynth).
I just think a Raspberry Pi can give you the feeling that computer technology is something you can touch and mess around with. Totally different compared to shiny and closed Apple stuff (as I said, they also have a few iMacs or iBooks where SP potentially could run). I think it is paramount that we not only raise new clients for big companies but rather show that technology can be molded and creatively appropriated.