Best DSP development board?

[T-Man]

I want to get into DSP effects.  I have lots of theorectical knowledge and some programming experience with DSPs , but I don't know all the models products etc... I had a look but its really overwhelming.  I don't need anything to fancy... i just want something to play with that can do delay, chorus, ring mod, etc etc...

Thanks
T-Man

[Cybercow]

"Best" is subject. There are three that I know of and have development testbed boards for. The FV-1, the Daisy Seed, and the FXCore. Each has their means of developing patches/algorithms for voicing. So, some fore-knowledge of programming is required. The platforms mentioned are easily found with quick Google searches.

[bean]

If you are already familiar with programming languages it probably doesn't get much easier than starting with the FV-1. Working out a good "guitar pedal" development circuit is really straight-forward. No need to buy a development board since it's not really designed with guitar in mind anyway. You can do a lot of FV-1 development with SpinCAD. But, the real power is is in coding the patches directly.

http://www.spinsemi.com/

[Digital Larry]

You can do a lot of FV-1 development with SpinCAD. But, the real power is is in coding the patches directly.

My opinion only, but the REAL power would be to develop your own blocks for SpinCAD Designer using the SpinCAD Builder language.  Then you could drop them in with just a click of the mouse rather than having to write them each time.  DSP code is not exactly like poetry.

Or extend the Java code to include a code optimizer so that the generated code would be as efficient as anything you could write by hand.  Yeah, sure, there might always be something you couldn't do this way, but SpinCAD was made to be extended.  I just don't know how many people have done so.

DL

[potul]

Thanks
T-Man

Wow, finally T-Man got his answer 17 year later. I wonder if he is still around.

On the other side, from my personal experience, FV1 is a great platform to start with. SpinCAD is an excellent starting point and I have also built some custom blocks myself, but now that I (usually) understand what happends under the hood, it's easier for me to just write the code directly.

Some things I use frequently can be tricky in spincad (like pot skipping), and are simpler to do in ASM. And.... when you start getting creative you frequently end up hitting the maximum instruction limit, so manual optimization is needed. My perfect tandem is SPINCAD for basic stuff and draft something, and then I finish it modifying the code manually.

[bean]

You can do a lot of FV-1 development with SpinCAD. But, the real power is is in coding the patches directly.

My opinion only, but the REAL power would be to develop your own blocks for SpinCAD Designer using the SpinCAD Builder language.  Then you could drop them in with just a click of the mouse rather than having to write them each time.  DSP code is not exactly like poetry.

Oh, well yeah that makes a lot of sense. Funny I actually really thought about designing custom blocks in SpinCAD. I think I better put that on the to-do list at some point. 

Count me as another person who didn't notice the OG post was from 2005!

[Digital Larry]

Some things I use frequently can be tricky in spincad (like pot skipping), and are simpler to do in ASM. And.... when you start getting creative you frequently end up hitting the maximum instruction limit, so manual optimization is needed. My perfect tandem is SPINCAD for basic stuff and draft something, and then I finish it modifying the code manually.

Fair enough - with pot skipping it's hard to predict what it is you have in mind - so I never even bothered.   

Unlike riding a bicycle, writing FV-1 code IS something you can forget how to do. 

I think your approach makes perfect sense.

DL

[mark2]

I love using SpinCAD to block everything out, then go back and edit the ASM by hand to optimize and add things I wasn't able to in SpinCAD.
If you asked me to code a SVF from scratch I'd stare at you blankly for a long while before sighing and going to do some googling.

i.e. I understand coding, effects in general, but have no deep knowledge of the math behind DSP. For this the spincad blocks are a lifesaver.