rpi-vk-driver VS mt32-pi

I was trying to install Vulkan on my Pi3B+ following this link

Even RPi Zero has (unofficial) Vulkan subset https://github.com/Yours3lf/rpi-vk-driver but unfortunately it lacks compute at all (and SPIR-V, GPU semaphore, 32bit indices for fixed graphics pipeline, ...)

"Not being into spec" isn't a problem actually

I have just seen https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi but it doesn't seem as easy to play with and well-documented as the other software I've used.

Cool system. I'd see if you can get a hold of a Roland MT-32 type synth. If your sound card has a daughterboard connector (it does, top right corner) you can get a Serdaco Wavetable board which would let you have generalMIDI output. An external MT-32 or a mt32-pi will also greatly improve your music output.

Regardless the best option is a MT32-pi solution. https://github.com/dwhinham/mt32-pi/wiki/Custom-hardware

I think MT-32 and SC-55, at least, are wildly overpriced for what they are from a music perspective, thanks to the retro gaming bubble. If you want to mess around with one, I would recommend checking out mt32-pi. In addition to the extremely limited MT-32 sound palette, it can also load soundfonts, which really opens things up a lot.

Check out Mini-Dexed and MT32-Pi. I use both and they're great. They are built on the bare-metal "circle" platform, so they don't run on top of linux (so no faffing about with JACK routing, etc.).

its a CJMCU 5102 DAC Board, which is one of the supported soundcards. You can use the internal headphone jack of the Pi as well, however it only supports 12bit PWM audio there, which is usable but has a lot of artifacts and I would not recommend therefore

You can turn a Raspberry Pi into a Yamaha DX7 using MiniDexed or a Roland MT-32 using mt32-pi (which also loads soundfonts via FluidSynth). I use both of these regularly. They're great. Both work with USB MIDI controllers with no additional hardware required and boot headlessly in a few seconds to work like a true instrument.