[sdiy] PolyDaWG/6 Code and Sound Sample Posted

[Scott Gravenhorst]

"Tim Parkhurst" <tim.parkhurst at gmail.com> wrote:
>On 8/25/07, Scott Gravenhorst <music.maker at gte.net> wrote:
>> http://www.fpga.synth.net/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=FPGASynth.DigitalWaveguide
>>
>> Go to the end of the article for some text and the files.  The sound file
>> is just a short sample using two of these polysynths set to the same MIDI
>> channel, but with different filter settings.  I used two because it just
>> sounds so nice.  When I get creative and come up with something better,
>> I'll post it, but for now the existing MP3 serves as an example of the
>> string sounds (which I think are more interesting to listen to solo than
>> the drum sounds, but I'll put some drums up later, perhaps as percussion
>> for a "song").
>>
>> -- ScottG
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>
>Nice work, Scott!
>
>I'm looking forward to seeing where this project goes. Perhaps I just
>haven't looked deep enough, but is there a schematic (or is the
>hardware all in the development system)?

Thanks Tim,

Yes, the hardware is part of the development board.  It was suggested to me by our own
Jim Patchell, it's called the Xilinx Spartan-3E Starter Kit, and still sells for $149.00
(US).  It has a 12 bit DAC (SPI) and ADC on board as well as numerous other goodies
including a 512Mbit DDR SDRAM which is the next thing on my list to conquer.  Ethernet,
2 serial ports, VGA port, keyboard or mouse port, buttons, slide switches, LEDs, rotary
encoder and a 2 lines x 16 character LCD display.  Also some unassigned user pins to
connect outboard signals to the FPGA.  The actual design of the synthesizer is written
in an HDL (hardware definition language) called Verilog.  You can build digital systems
including DSP of high complexity.  It's like logic-Lego.  My interface to the board is a
resistor and capacitor for the DAC output and I have the output of a 6N138 connected to
an FPGA pin for MIDI input.


-- ScottG

-------------------------------------------------------------

-- Scott Gravenhorst
-- GateMan I - Xilinx Spartan-3E Based MIDI Synthesizer
-- PolyDaWG/6 - FPGA 6 voice polysynth
-- FatMan: home1.gte.net/res0658s/fatman/
-- NonFatMan: home1.gte.net/res0658s/electronics/
-- When the going gets tough, the tough use the command line.