[sdiy] New dsPIC chips with on-chip audio DACs

[Scott Gravenhorst]

jbv <jbv.silences at club-internet.fr> wrote:
>
>Tom,
>
>I hope it is clear that I didn't mean any personal attack nor criticism
>in my previous post... it's just that I've always felt that there might be
>
>other possibilities beyond a regular synth voice...
>I agree that the old vco-vcf-vca paradigm is rather powerful &
>attractive, but after all it's only 1 possible  synthesis technique
>(substractive synthesis)... probably the most  widespread because it
>was the easier & cheaper to implement 30/40 years ago.
>But as new DSPs & uCs become cheaper & more powerful everyday,
>that "should" pave the way for new musical / technical undertakings...
>For instance I wish I had time to take a closer look (and of course
>play with) the Propeller by Parallas...
>Of course high end math skills might help a lot when it comes to
>DSPs and other similar beasts, but I'm also convinced that a bit of
>imagination can also help, as long as one can write code...

No question IMO, my own experience has been that one can cut ones teeth with
VCO-VCF-VCA in DSP.  That is exactly what the GateMan versions are all about.  I needed
something that I understood very well as a starter project.  During the development of
the GateMan I learned many things - some of those were how NOT to do things.  And at
the same time, the success of the project verified that I do, in fact, understand the
hardware (FPGA in my case, but DSP is DSP) and the process of putting bits like VCO and
VCF and VCA together in a useful way.  Then I tried something more challenging -
PolyDaWG/8 is a polyphonic physical model of 8 struck strings.  Again, many things were
learned, among them - yet again, how NOT to do things (c;  Then I did a 32 NCO sine
based additive synth...

I am not a guru at this stuff, but I can get things done and working.  I know some
math, Algebra for sure and a big piece of trig.  I understand the way to think for
Calculus, but while I got an A in college, I can no longer "read" it fluently.  So a
masters degree in math is not necessary, but in depth understanding of Algrebra is. 
Willingness to spend a lot of time reading is also a requirement.  And none of this has
to cost a dime.  I learned aboout digital filters, Verilog, and physical models by
reading free information I found on the web.

For me, I have been able to bang out things in DSP that would be both cost and time
prohibitive in analog hardware - especially when you consider that the same piece of
hardware can be a GateMan, a PolyDaWG, a SinSyn or a phLUTe just by shooting it a new
bit file.  With DSP, I can try out new complex ideas far faster than I could ever do
with analog hardware.

So I believe that DSP provides exactly this opportunity, to make something very new and
"crazy".


>>
>> If someone would like to try, I'm sure you could write a 6 or 8
>> operator FM synth voice with one too.
>
>yep, that crossed my mind too... I must confess I haven't got the time
>to follow the present thread closely, nor to browse any data sheet for
>those dsPIC chips, but I was wondering : once a 6 or 8 parameters FM voice
>
>is impleted, is there enough horse power left for a few others, and (if
>yes)
>some granular control via MIDI ?
>I know that's a rough description, but you get the idea...
> Another question : is there a way to chain those dsPICs so that they
>might
>interact somehow, and can they share external resources (RAM etc) ?
>
>Best,
>JB
>
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>

-- ScottG

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

-- Scott Gravenhorst
-- GateMan-III - FPGA Based Monophonic MIDI Synthesizer with SVF
-- PolyDaWG/8 - FPGA Based 8 Voice Polyphonic MIDI Synthesizer
-- phLUTe - FPGA Based Monophonic Physical Model MIDI Synthesizer
-- FatMan: home1.gte.net/res0658s/fatman/
-- NonFatMan: home1.gte.net/res0658s/electronics/
-- When the going gets tough, the tough use the command line.