DIY DSP, anybody?

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Is anybody here tinkering with DSP? I guess some introductory comments are in order. I would like to tackle an audio DSP project, mainly because I like to "learn by doing," and an audio project would motivate me to learn a new technology while having some fun. I am already at the expert level in both electronics and microcontrollers, so DSP should not be insurmountable.

What I am thinking of is to build a sort of "universal audio circuit" with ADC, processor, and DAC, and then play with writing code.

Anybody who is doing this, care to suggest a chip platform? One in a hand-solderable package (no BGA's) with free or cheap development tools would seem ideal.

Many thanks,

fdeck
 
I used some audio related DSP setups at school and loved doing it. We used a development kit though based around a TMS320C54x and I believe a cypress ADC DAC, etc. . .

I've looked into this before but got scare away by the costs involved because DIY DSP doesn't seem to go together. Recently I have been leaning towards working with a FPGA as a DSP instead of a dedicated DSP (there are even cores you can put into the FPGA for a "pre-made" DSP). Xilinx has a Spartan 3e starter kit for $150 and it has a LOT of goodies on it to begin with. True you may have more than you want on the board, building from the ground up could shrink the board etc. . . but I think its well worth it for someone else to fab a pcb instead of an individual.



Keep me posted! I'll be sure to check this thread often.
 
fdeck said:
Is anybody here tinkering with DSP? I guess some introductory comments are in order. I would like to tackle an audio DSP project, mainly because I like to "learn by doing," and an audio project would motivate me to learn a new technology while having some fun. I am already at the expert level in both electronics and microcontrollers, so DSP should not be insurmountable.

What I am thinking of is to build a sort of "universal audio circuit" with ADC, processor, and DAC, and then play with writing code.

Anybody who is doing this, care to suggest a chip platform? One in a hand-solderable package (no BGA's) with free or cheap development tools would seem ideal.

Tinkering? Well, that seems to be what I'm doing with this damn bug I have to fix by Saturday so my Corporate Masters can get product out the door.

Anyway, you can find evaluation kits from the Big 3 DSP manufacturers (Freescale [formerly Motorola], TI, and Analog Devices), which have ADCs, DACs, and DSPs on the same board and including simple Windows-based development tools. That should get you started. You might want to try a floating point chip so you don't get involved with pain-in-the-*** scaling issues. The eval kits range between $150 and $300 for quite competent setups, which is quite reasonable for what you get.


Cheers,
Francois.
 
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