[sdiy] digital synth design.

[Alwyn Lloyd]

Hi list.

i have been recently looking for something like a alesis nanopiano to get
some "piano" sounds.  I then began thinking (which was a bit silly) and
was pondering the feasability of making something like a rompler.

Obviously there are a few challenges in the project, software being the
biggest, then something like making decent patches etc. then designing the
hardware etc.  Something else would be "how do you store the samples" etc.
Most cheap micro's don't really have an external memory interface, just a
few I/O pins, so you start getting limited in the memory size.  However,
most of the more advanced micro's have USB interfaces, like that recent
Ateml one that was mentioned a few weeks ago.

What would be cool as a device would be something that you can plug in a
standard format USB stick with patch definition tables or similar and raw
waveforms on it and then be able to play it out.  Unfotunatly usb(1.1)
isn't well known for its huge bandwidth but some rough calculations i did
would let you get about 8 streams of 16bit 48Khz audio out...  not quite
enough for proper piano simulation, but it would be cool for pads etc..

Do people things its do-able? and worth persuing as an idea?


Cheers,
Alwyn