[sdiy] Beginners project questions

[Magnus Danielson]

From: "Paul Maddox" <P.Maddox at signal.qinetiq.com>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Beginners project questions
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 09:14:26 +0100
Message-ID: <013101c4290a$fe77c390$18a8a8c0 at dtg.qinetiq.com>

> hi,

Hi Paulie boy!

> > > I have lots of computer experince, including programming.
> >
> > Take advantage of that experience. Do you know much about
> > digital signal processing?
> 
> well said!
> I'm a huge fan of analogue too, but what you can do with DSPs is scary!

It is truely scary, but the things you can do well is quite different to what
we might be used to from the analogue world. Some stuff is that used to be hard
has become dead easy to do very well where as the other way around is also
true. Some stuff takes some very good knowledge to do well, which actually is
true for both worlds, but in the analogue world there is much more material
just lying around on the web and in books.

> I'm a big fan of the Chameleon (www.SoundArt-hot.com), ask anyone on here
> how much I rabbit on about it.
> I've written a fairly good sounding monosynth for it, based on my first
> hardware synth, MonowaveII ;- Www.Modulus.Synth.net/mw2/
> 
> Also consider things like FPGAs (that will make Magnus smile, he's an FPGA
> nut).

Yeap! I did smile, and I am a FPGA nut! ;O)

There are so many stupid problems you can solve in FPGAs if you just spend some
time figuring. It's like DSPs but it feel more robust and your measures of
resources is quite different.

> Again, digital hardware that needs some programming skills, and very very
> powerfull..
> 
> the hard thing these days, is to decide WHAT you want to do, and then HOW to
> do it :-)

Right. I think it is easy to try to do too much at the same time, be generic
in order to be able to make it possible to use it in all possible ways. But
hey, these are "soft" devices, you can reprogram them anytime you want!
No, start with a compact design, expand it as needed. Better make small pieces
that can be patched together (hard or soft).

Cheers,
Magnus