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1. 

   metaphysician
   Member

   I for one would be extremely interested in a higher power version of something like the MICrODEC. as the hardware gets reduced in size i become more and more interested in seeing if one could model my MaxMSP patch DSP functionality (which is basically a modular 5 voice sampler with a total of 75 stereo seconds of sampling or live processing split between 5 sample slots with resampling, LP filter, ringmod, delay and reverb) in a portable DSP device of some kind. i find myself casting looks at something like the Raspberry Pi which apparently is supposed to have an I2S port on its GPIO pins. would that give you the muscle and/or memory you'd need for the job, or am i not seeing limitations that a dual core ARM4 would be better at solving? possible interesting side projects to stir the pot - one high power one low:

   High power - BeepCat from Chris Randall of Audio Damage - makers of plugins. Check his proposal out. It's definitely on the higher end price-wise and based around a Beagle Board which i believe isn't included in the price. He mentions the Meeblip as an inspiration (another low power monophonic Atmel based DIY offering in the Mutable Instruments-Shruthi mode).

   http://www.analogindustries.com/blog/entry.php?blogid=1316213971302

   Low Power - WTPA 8 bit sampler version 2.0

   http://www.narrat1ve.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=222&page=wtpa2-teaser

   there's a lot of posts on this and the firmware is still in flux so it hasn't been released, but hopefully gives you a taste.

   whatever else happens i'd be very interested in what either of you two has in mind for an audio processing board. are there separate links or information for either of your ideas in this regard?

   best to all,

   scott

   Posted 4 years ago #
2. 

   gbulmer
   Moderator

   scott - thank you very much for the links and ideas. That is very helpful to me.

   I am impressed by the RaspberryPi (I actually touched one at the weekend :-)
   I think it is a very exciting piece of technology, but I am told there are concerns about how open it actually will be. I really don't know enough of the detail, so I apologise to all involved if I am mistaken.

   My focus is a platform to learn about programming, and some science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), along the way.
   I run workshops for school children and adults to learn to program using microcontrollers.
   I believe that stripping the platform down to barest essentials helps people understand what is actually happening. So having an operating system around can obscure the visceral experience.

   Audio is interesting because humans have pretty good sensors, and processing of real-time 'events'. We also like music :-)

   So my goal is to help people understand programming through audio experiments (and a bunch of other experiments).

   Edit+Edit:
   Christian - Maybe we should rename this thread to something like "Interesting Cortex-M4 chips, especially for audio"?

   Posted 4 years ago #
3. 

   metaphysician
   Member

   You're the moderator - so i'd guess unless i start a new topic out i probably can't rename Christian's topic...

   anyway, more to the point - whatever card or device that could be built along these lines i would like it to have MIDI/OSC capability to control most parameters as well as to have physical knobs or sliders. my MaxMSP setup comes with four fairly complex LFOs that can modify almost any parameter and i really like using it especially to get discontinuous fast changes in parameters. at that point the trick is modelling the control apparatus on a portable device like a tablet, while letting the card do the heavier lifting DSP-wise.

   at any rate your learning platform is interesting, as i am also a relative newbie, though i suspect i'm leaning more in Christian's direction audio quality-wise.

   as for the Raspberry Pi, i strongly believe their heart is in the right place, as they are a non-profit. they are really motivated to bring programming and electronics skills back to schools. in general, they've been pretty responsive to user inquiries, and i believe their answer on open sourcing was a wait and see thing. their concern was hobbyist builders not being able to order certain chips in small enough quantity to build the boards. Eben Upton one of the main guys has said in the past he'd love to have the Chinese copy his design and flood the market with clones. it sounds to me that you should perhaps inquire on their website, as it seems to me that you have similar aims, goal wise.

   i did buy an R4 Maple but it was borrowed by a friend who eventually bought an R5 for me to replace it and then borrowed that again, so i'm thinking for payback i might want to wait for a RaspberryPi instead. 700MHz is a pretty hefty bunch of cycles for DSP...

   scott

   Posted 4 years ago #
4. 

   gbulmer
   Moderator

   .. i would like it to have MIDI/OSC capability ..

   Do you mean you want USB and/or Ethernet?
   Or are you only describing some of the software you would like?

   ... i suspect i'm leaning more in Christian's direction audio quality-wise.

   I think that I am aiming for something at least as good as the MICrODEC and likely better.
   Minimum spec is CD quality, i.e. 44.1Ksps at 16bit, 48Ksps at 24bit, and more likely 96Ksps at 24bit.

   as for the Raspberry Pi, i strongly believe their heart is in the right place ...

   Yes, they seem to have a great attitude and are making progress at a terrific rate.
   I haven't been able to find the hardware specs. for GPIO, I2S, SPI and I2C yet, though.

   Some of the subsystem specs will never be available because the subsystems embody commercial secrets. Shame, I'd like to experiment with some of that hardware :-)

   Posted 4 years ago #

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