richhop

So I've just got back from a three day Open Source Hardware festival and feeling inspired beyond belief and think I have some cool ideas, a means to get there, but it the open source fashion I need to rally the troops!

To make an open source hardware synth, in the most hackable, expandable, easy way possible. With Max as a starting ground.

This is how I propose it is materialised:

XMOS starter kit (£10) and audio i/o slice (£25), with this alone I think we can build a synthesiser, for freaking £30 from pre built proto boards, so means, if they're making them at £2 and £5 respectively, if we can do it right we can have a synth better than the virus for £7. Challenge that!! How crazy would that be!

So I think we can really spice things up by using gen~ and max to prototype, export code and hack it into the IDE for Xmos, of which I just spent a whole day learn how to program concurrently using this XMOS chip that has the lowest latency about (the NI traktor DJ controller and focusrite sound cards are both using these super inexpensive amazing chips.)

Guys this is it, to make your msp code truly portable. XMOS and concurrency. YAY DSP on chip! I was thinking about taking a degree, but I don't wanna wait around for three years until I actually learn something interesting! I should just jump into what really makes me tick! And I think this is it!!

So if anyone else thinks this could be a potentially decent avenue to go down, then please make your thoughts heard!!

I await this hopefully fruitful discussion.

So I think we can really spice things up by using gen~ and max to prototype, export code and hack it into the IDE for Xmos, of which I just spent a whole day learn how to program concurrently using this XMOS chip that has the lowest latency about (the NI traktor DJ controller and focusrite sound cards are both using these super inexpensive amazing chips.) 

I await this hopefully fruitful discussion.


open-source-dsp-based-synth

Wow that would be really cool Always dreamed of such a thing! I can do something with synth diy in an analog fashion but I know really next to nothing about DSPs. I'd like to help but it's far beyond my skills

Wow that would be really cool Always dreamed of such a thing! I can do something with synth diy in an analog fashion but I know really next to nothing about DSPs. I’d like to help but it’s far beyond my skills

Yeah seems feasible to make a Virus TI for under £50 to me, it would be awesome. I've got a great book called the "Scientists and Engineeers Guide to DSP"

Looking into whether it's possible to piggy back off openframeworks and not have to really do anything too hardcore actually! Look into openframeforks, it's C++ but it's for the cross over between artists and hackers, you've got these awesome things called add-ons like Maximilian: 

 the one for quality audio experimentation, that's more intuitive than writing pure DSP yourself.

That could probably already be portablised! But I think it could be cool getting gen~ into the mix and writing stuff like upsampled oscillators, and buttery filters. You can do all the grain and sampling stuff and make an Octatrack, this is it guys materialising your DSP in portable hardware. I thought it could even tickle the guys at @CYCLING74 :P

 Wow that would be really cool Always dreamed of such a thing! I can do something with synth diy in an analog fashion but I know really next to nothing about DSPs. I’d like to help but it’s far beyond my skills

Yeah seems feasible to make a Virus TI for under £50 to me, it would be awesome. I've got a great book called the "Scientists and Engineeers Guide to DSP" 

Looking into whether it's possible to piggy back off openframeworks and not have to really do anything too hardcore actually! Look into openframeforks, it's C++ but it's for the cross over between artists and hackers, you've got these awesome things called add-ons like Maximilian: http://maximilian.strangeloop.co.uk, the one for quality audio experimentation, that's more intuitive than writing pure DSP yourself.

That could probably already be portablised! But I think it could be cool getting gen~ into the mix and writing stuff like upsampled oscillators, and buttery filters. You can do all the grain and sampling stuff and make an Octatrack, this is it guys materialising your DSP in portable hardware. I thought it could even tickle the guys at @CYCLING74 :P


This is great example of openframworks making synth building easy: 

He's used a micro usb midi device to control a computer playing back an easy to use C++ framework, that's as easy as processing.

Imagine paying for the same price as you buy that midi *piece of crap* interface getting a whole DSP synth in one, that you could reprogram to do what ever you want! I swear there's even a shitty piece of hardware that lets you do this for a grand, same price as all these other over priced pieces of crap.

You can run C++ and C code on it, i'm really trying to get KRV people excited too! But I know all the *seemingly* hardware synth makers like Virus and Nord are gonna be pissed off at me!

Don't make your synths so expensive for what they are then!!

This is great example of openframworks making synth building easy: http://vimeo.com/32626897

He's used a micro usb midi device to control a computer playing back an easy to use C++ framework, that's as easy as processing. 

Imagine paying for the same price as you buy that midi *piece of crap* interface getting a whole DSP synth in one, that you could reprogram to do what ever you want! I swear there's even a shitty piece of hardware that lets you do this for a grand, same price as all these other over priced pieces of crap. 

You can run C++ and C code on it, i'm really trying to get KRV people excited too! But I know all the *seemingly* hardware synth makers like Virus and Nord are gonna be pissed off at me! 

Don't make your synths so expensive for what they are then!!


as long as it does not allow me to compile pluggo plug-ins for the powercore or TDM platform, i am not interested.

as long as it does not allow me to compile pluggo plug-ins for the powercore or TDM platform, i am not interested.
:)


Can't understand what you are saying because the double negatives hurt my head.

Sarcasm doesn't come across well in the internet remember, but I'm guessing that's the case?

Sadly max isn't on lINUX, so I hope to piggyback off openframeworks, use csound or exploring code export in gen~ could be a decent avenue to go down to halve the time of writing pure DSP code in C from scratch.

The idea is raspberry pie is crap at doing audio on board, the best way I've become aware of doing it is with a Co-processor getting given the hardcore DSP stuff, written in a concurrent language to be optimised for the multicore and multithread ability of processors nowadays.

Last night I may have changed direction researching properly and now probably gonna just build a server that runs on 5v that can outperform a machine running on 400w. HA! Seriously hackers festivals are the best! But i'll still research the synth thing and post my findings, but seems everyone could be in disbelief mode, which is disappointingly narrow minded. - Here's the latest research in bleeding edge tech that might be relevant to some of you guys ... "maa pluggo, generibullshtroll" - Thanks.

Can't understand what you are saying because the double negatives hurt my head. 

Sadly max isn't on lINUX, so I hope to piggyback off openframeworks, use csound or exploring code export in gen~ could be a decent avenue to go down to halve the time of writing pure DSP code in C from scratch. 

The idea is raspberry pie is crap at doing audio on board, the best way I've become aware of doing it is with a Co-processor getting given the hardcore DSP stuff, written in a concurrent language to be optimised for the multicore and multithread ability of processors nowadays.  

Last night I may have changed direction researching properly and now probably gonna just build a server that runs on 5v that can outperform a machine running on 400w. HA! Seriously hackers festivals are the best! But i'll still research the synth thing and post my findings, but seems everyone could be in disbelief mode, which is disappointingly narrow minded. - Here's the latest research in bleeding edge tech that might be relevant to some of you guys ... "maa pluggo, generibullshtroll" - Thanks.


Open Source DSP based synth