[sdiy] dsPIC

[Eric Brombaugh]

karl dalen wrote:
> Since dsPIC so cheap and quite powerfull why do anything in analog?
> One could do a complete 3 osc synth in a euro module with one of these!
> Take 10 and get polyphony! Take 100 and then die of boredom! :)
> 
> Im a bit pussled, they are indeed powerful now since
> the got both codec interface and 16bit converters on chip!

Main reason is that it's really _hard_ to get some kinds of 'analogy' 
behavior out of a DSP. You certainly can do several oscillators in an 
inexpensive dsPIC, but as Antti has pointed out elsewhere, the 
anti-aliasing functions you need to approximate the sound of a good 
analog VCO gets pretty complex.

Bottom line: If you need the sound of an analog VCO (or filter, etc), 
we're not yet quite to the point where you can discard the actual analog 
circuits and replace them with a $3 DSP. Even when we do get silicon 
that cheap, knowing enough signal processing to take advantage of it may 
remain a barrier until the code is freely available and anyone can put 
an analog modeling synth together out of code from teh intarwebs.

Until then, dsPICs are great for folks who want to try things you 
_can't_ do more easily in analog.

Eric