[sdiy] Audio Weaver for ST Discovery boards -Free!

[Richie Burnett]

The inclusion of built-in CODECs on dev boards is a bit of a mixed bag. 
It's useful for getting things up and running quickly if there is some type 
of CODEC built in.  However, many of the DSP boards I've used either have 
crappy low-resolution CODECs and/or pay little attention to proper 
analogue/digital segregation and ground-plane practices, so you get 
relatively poor audio quality and quite a lot of digital noise present at 
the analogue outputs.  At least if you have to make your own CODEC "shield" 
you can make sure that you choose a decent CODEC and lay out the board 
properly to realise its potential performance.

-Richie,


-----Original Message----- 
From: Scott Gravenhorst
Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2017 2:46 PM
To: synth-diy at synth-diy.org
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Audio Weaver for ST Discovery boards -Free!


Ah, thanks for that.  One thing that pisses me off a bit is that it's still 
too uncommon for dev
boards (like this one) to have an on board audio codec.  Thankfully, the 
Discovery board does.  I
would think in these days where every product out there has a screen and 
sound that it would be
imperative to put at least an audio codec on the board.  The advantage for 
me is that when
developing driver code for a codec, it's comforting to know that the codec 
being placed there by
the mfr would seem to indicate that it _should_ work and that if there's a 
problem - it's your code.

I may purchase the SAM E70 board after looking at the datasheet, but I can 
see I'll have to
jerry-rig a codec to some pins on the board - which will be SMD and having 
myopia plus presbyopia,
that's a problem.  Perhaps there's a plug in board... (not with my luck) 
I've not yet had luck
coding I2S, but I can sharpen my chops on the Discovery board.  At least the 
E70 board isn't
expensive at about $30usa.  I'll need to determine what the difference is 
between S70 and E70.  The
S70 chip is the one used for the Tsunami Super WAV Trigger board.

paula at synth.net wrote:
>Scott,
>
>  You should take a look at this eval board for the SAM E70 -
>
>https://www.digikey.co.uk/product-detail/en/microchip-technology/ATSAME70-XPLD/ATSAME70-XPLD-ND/5725743

>
>  has a nice fast M7 CPU and a big chunk of RAM too ;)
>
>Paula
>
>On 2017-05-11 12:30, Scott Gravenhorst wrote:
>> Well, to be honest, I started looking at Microchip's (Atmel)
>> ATSAMS70N20 which includes
>> almost identical internal features.  It has a bit more internal RAM,
>> but the datasheet
>> says it runs up to 300 MHz.  The ARM on the 32F746GDISCOVERY board
>> runs up to 216 MHz.
>> However, I've not been able to find a dev board for the ATSAMS70N20.
>>
>> So I have to say that this Discovery board is my second choice and
>> will be a super-major
>> step up from a dsPIC.  As for performance, I'll just have to see how
>> much synth I can
>> cram into it.  One interesting thing about both of the ARM ICs is that
>> they have a 2
>> channel 12 bit DAC that runs up to 1 MHz sample rate which might be
>> fun with naive
>> waveforms since the Nyquist limit is 500 kHz.  I've worked with a 12
>> bit DAC at that
>> sample rate using an FPGA and I noticed no alias problems with naive
>> waveforms.
>> However, such a high sample rate will limit voice and feature count.
>>
>> Anyway, I'll post about it once I've got a good feel for what it can
>> do.  All I have
>> right now is a bunch of PDF files.
>>
>> Michael Zacherl <sdiy-mz01 at blauwurf.info> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 11.May 2017, at 3:44 , Scott Gravenhorst <music.maker at gte.net>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I got some birthday money and bought this: 32F746GDISCOVERY
>>>> =
>>>
>>>> It looks pretty nice.  I will try Audio Weaver when the board comes
>>>> here.
>>>
>>> at this price ($49 really?) it looks like a steal!
>>> How you=92d rank the cpu performance-wise?
>>> Additional I/O via SPI? (still thinking dc-coupled audio rate A/D D/A)
>>>
>>> --
>>> http://mz.klingt.org
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Synth-diy mailing list
>>> Synth-diy at synth-diy.org
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>>>
>>
>> -- ScottG
>> ________________________________________________________________________
>> -- Scott Gravenhorst
>> -- http://scott.joviansynth.com/
>> -- When the going gets tough, the tough use the command line.
>> -- Matt 21:22
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Synth-diy mailing list
>> Synth-diy at synth-diy.org
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>

-- ScottG
________________________________________________________________________
-- Scott Gravenhorst
-- http://scott.joviansynth.com/
-- When the going gets tough, the tough use the command line.
-- Matt 21:22

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