jsmyth@nc.rr.com wrote:
I want to start a little home audio project. I effectively want to
reproduce (simulate?) some guitar effects boxes I use. I'm not really
interested in any open-source filter/effects software, because one
main goal is to design and code that stuff myself (my graduate work
was in digital signal processing). My biggest issue is figuring out
the hardware to support the basic goal: An open source RTOS
controlling platform and farming the actual processing to some kind of
DSP-ish hardware. In researching this, I ended up at BeagleBoard.The first thing I want is some kind of open source OS that supports
the primary controlling system. I want to develop, test and have some
you can use Linux on the Beaglebone
The second thing I would like to do is push the effects processing to
some kind of DSP hardware. I can imagine some scenarios, but this is
where I am really out of my depth. I have some superficial
experience with DSP interaction, but the low-level details where
hidden behind various APIs. So, I'm really hunting in the dark here
because this seems like the really hard thing to do from scratch. How
do I go about figuring out whether I can even put together the
hardware so that I /could/ communicate with say a Motorola or Texas
Instruments DSP from the RTOS? I'd love to find a setup where I
could (or had to) write my own device drivers, but honestly I don't
know if my understanding of Linux device drivers even translates to
the DSP world. Do you flash code to the DSP? Would I have to write
it in assembly? Assuming I can get the hardware cheaply, am I even
going to be able to find open source environments to support
communicating with it?
No need to flash anything, there are DSP frameworks that allow you to load your code into the DSP at runtime.
There is no need to write any drivers, you can use the existing frameworks to write code for the DSP. you can start in C and move over to assembly if needed.
Take note that the ARM side of the Beaglebone is already quite powerful for audio processing.