[sdiy] WHICH PIC/UCONTROLLER should I buy today

[dan snazelle]

OK so using PWM is going to be OUT then if I want anything that is HIGH quality audio (which I DO)

basically, I am in search of a chip (or a few) that could make high quality MOD sources OR high quality SINE, TRI, and other waves. (grainy is only fine if you want it to be grainy)

So what about the small 16bit Up's?


The SPIN fv-1 can make very high quality SINGLE waveforms but at around $15-17 bucks a piece plus the cost of an eprom (which you need just to run your own program) and all the support circuitry, having 4, 5, 6, and above 
sound sources could get very, very expensive.

So I figured DSP chips were NOT the way to go for producing basic waveforms, etc.

I have bumped into a few SDIY uP pages but none of them go very far into the platform itself (as they are selling the chips)

CAN anyone recommend some sites in this topic that do a bit of explaining or showing example code,etc?

All of this is highly appreciated.

(by the way, didnt someone on here make a multiple operator synth this year using DSpics? or an ARM?)

thanks

On Aug 9, 2010, at 9:39 AM, Tom Wiltshire wrote:

> 
> On 9 Aug 2010, at 13:37, dan snazelle wrote:
> 
>> 
>> "Regarding the generation of analog signals, you have plenty of options:
>> - PWM on a digital pin (no external component needed except maybe a RC filter)"
>> 
>> am i mistaken in thinking that you cant use the PWM outputs for final audio signals (sine waves, white noise,etc)?or is there a simple way to convert this signal (isnt pwm a square wave output with changing duty cycle?)
> 
> Other people have dealt with exactly how this works. I'd just like to add that with a small 8-bit uP, you're unlikely to get a PWM frequency that can produce high audio frequencies at more than about 8-bit, tops.
> You need a minimum 50KHz PWM frequency for full-range audio, and that implies a counter frequency of 12.8MHz at 8-bits resolution. Perhaps an AVR can do this, but the PICs use a counter rate that is a quarter of the master clock, and that implies a 5MHz maximum. Even if the AVR can do it, it's still only 8-bit audio - so think early 80s video games, not CD quality.
> 
>> ALSO...beyond the classic hal chamberlin book, are there any really good books on using AVR's or PICS for music/audio applications? OR just good books on modern AVR's or PICS?
> 
> If there are, I haven't found them. In fact, most of the PIC books I've seen are dreadful and have hideous examples of what I'd regard as extremely poor programming practice.
> 
> T.
> 
>