DAC resolution

[Curtin, Steven D (Steven)]

One advantage of homebrew synths is that we can have any scale we like.
With an analog synth it's easy to have N tones per octave, just change the
input CV scaling.  31 tones per octave, for instance, has many step sizes
that are closer approximations to Just Intonation intervals than the regular
12 tones.  When I used an 8 bit DAC to control an analog synth once I made
the scale an arbitrary 16 tones per octave- it sounded neat and made it
easier to know which octave you were in given the hexadecimal data.  For
people who want to know more about tuning, there's some links on the web
site below.

Steve C

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Steven Curtin  
Lucent Technologies Microelectronics
ph: (732)957-2996   fax: (732)957-6878
http://www.emf.org/subscribers/curtin/
sdcurtin at lucent.com
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> ----------
> From: 	jorgen.bergfors at idg.se[SMTP:jorgen.bergfors at idg.se]
> Sent: 	Tuesday, March 09, 1999 8:56 AM
> To: 	Colin.Fraser at scottishpower.plc.uk; synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl
> Subject: 	RE: DAC resolution
> 
> >Have you tried this in practice or are you just reading the data sheets ?
> 
> Yes, this is important. How much out of tune sound out of tune? How much
> tuning error do the individual notes of a typical piano, saxophone or
> guitar have? Also remember that the tempered scale is inherently out of
> tune with respect to the overtone series. So certain intervals will sound
> sligthly out of tune even if you use the best 24 bit DAC on earth.
> 
> /Jorgen
> 
>