Open source DSP hardware

[locoder]

Hi all I recently purchased the soundbite development board from freescale semiconductor.
I also purchased the tasking C compiler, that is expensive however there are free assembly language compilers and C compilers for this lovely breed of DSP

http://www.futureelectronics.com/en/technologies/development-tools/development-tool-hardware/Pages/4381851-SOUNDBITE.aspx

http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=SYMP_SOUNDBITE

For those of you who are not familiar with the freescale 563xxx series of DSP's they are the same DSP's found inside the access virus!
The symphony series DSP's are 24bit DSP (to support 24bit 96KHz audio)

I am not going to go into too much technical detail if you want to know more read the links I have posted.
My reasons for putting this up is I am interested to see if there is interest in an open source piece of hardware using the symphony series DSP's where a community can write there own code to run on the board.
you could download a compressor, or a delay and you have instant effects box.
If it looks like there is a considerable amount of people genuinely interested I will design two different hardware modules, the first being for effects only as the single core DSP are not really powerful enough for audio synthesis, and I will design a board for the dual core version so users can design DSP synthesizers.
I would also design a operating system to take care of all the low level stuff to make it easier for the user to build there own application?
Also you would not have to code to benefit if your a beginner you could buy the hardware and download an application depending on your needs?

Any thoughts?
Loco

[BobTheDog]

Sounds like a good idea to me.

I have a couple of these boards, they are great value for money really.

[mhelin]

I've got one such kit as well, haven't done much with it. First versions of this kit had faulty circuit around oscillator (fixed it myself)., mentioned here:
https://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=SYMP_SOUNDBITE

See also this one:
http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/utils/SingleFaq.jsp?FAQ-28010.xml
and this dicussion:
http://freescale.lithium.com/t5/Other-Microcontrollers/How-to-use-Symphony-Studio/td-p/62869

Doesn't look promising, however the board is fine for a beginner. I'm propably just setting it to work as active crossover for the speakers I'm building.

Paul Maddox (UK) set up a forum for Soundbite some time ago but guess it's dead now, can't even find it with google.

I don't know what kind of open source hardware would be best. At least it should have supported open source tools. It doesn't have to be a real DSP - ARM based boards like Beagleboard are very capable (using it's I2S interface for DAC's doesn't look easy though). On the other hand the Beagleboard also has a real DSP onboard (C64x+ fixed point with 32*32 multiplier, I think). TI makes very inexpensive DSP kits as well, this C5515 USB stick kit is both cheap ($79) and very capable:

http://focus.ti.com/docs/toolsw/folders/print/tmdx5515ezdsp.html
http://www.spectrumdigital.com/product_info.php?cPath=31&products_id=238

That's the same DSP (almost, C55xx anyway) Korg has been using for Radias and MMT (guess on MicroKorg XL as well, see http://mobiledevdesign.com/hardware_design/ti_tms320vc5502_dsp/ ). MicroKorg, the earlier version, used Freescale like on Soundbite, whereas Alesis (ION, Micron, Miniak) uses single Motorola MCU for control plus 8 x Alesis AL3101 DSP's as voice generators (signals at voice DSP's I2S inputs are mixed with voice DSP output and sent to next voice DSP in chain) and Altera FPGA for keyboard scanning. Guess we could use dsPICs for voice generation (daisy chained for more processing power), and an ARM or even AVR (Arduino) MCU for control (if we designed and built everything from the beginning, or use available kits).

However, I'm very interested in seeing an open source fixed point synth library. Musicdsp.org has almost everything in floating point. I'd start with a fixed point version of BLIT or minBLEPS. SVF is quite easy I guess. Would like to test the algorithms first using python (or java), and then port the algorithm to whatever language (ASM, C) and platform.

[mhelin]

Found the missing link to Soundbite related forum (seems quiet):

http://qix.synth.net/

Guess the project is not dead yet:
http://electro-music.com/forum/topic-27369.html

[modlfo]

I just bought the Soundbite board and I will start to make a basic synthesizer.

If you decide to create this project, I would be glad to help you.