[sdiy] DSP kits (was: Re: has anyone ever made their own Nord Modular?)

[Johannes Öberg]

Replying to multiple posts:

>>Midi sample dumps are not an option
>I'm curious, why not?

I'm not into samplers where you load a semi-static sample set and then play
that. I grew up with trackers and want to tweak the sounds. SDS is way too
slow; I'd be better off using my EPS16+.

Oh, 4kB is enough for quite some stuff. Of course not the Bösendorfer or
> anything "real acoustic", but as a starting wave for *synthesis* it's
> enough. With a total of let's say 128kB of memory you have a nice basic
> set of
> waveforms and it'll still take you just 48 seconds to transmit that lot
> over MIDI.


While I certainly agree that you don't need 4 GB RAM for useful sampling,
I'm somewhat younger than Rainer and am aiming more at 16 bits 4 MB than 8
bits 4 kB, me spoiled brat! :-)

What I want to do is to put a simple sampler + effects box in my
sequencer/control station, built around a 486 card. Currently I'm working
with an AWE32, but it is very limitated, and doesn't sound too good (not
without some effort anyway). I've considered a GUS, but it totally lacks
features. Therefore 4 kB for synth-style sampling isn't what I'm after - for
that I have the ESQ-1.

While 128 kB and an Chameleon would be good for playing back samples, my
idea is to integrate a sample-editor and offline processor into the sampler,
and then 1 min response time won't cut it.

In a way, getting a Pentium card and going the software route might still be
the best way, but it's so cumbersome... Then again, I guess external DSP is
even worse.

However those Pentium industrial PC type cards are rare and expensive, too.
Anyway, I always thought it was much easier to have 2 separate systems
running autonomously (one sequencer + one sampleplayer) than trying to
figure out some clever way of making the timing work, and then there's DMA
buffer latencies and whatnot.

I'll be sure to check out the Sigma and Blackfin! MIDI wouldn't be needed,
as all that stuff would be done on the 486. In fact, that's one of the
reasons I want an ISA board, to eliminate MIDI latency.
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