Hologram Microcosm... any ideas on what makes it tick?

[any]

Came across this recently, and really intrigued about what makes this tick?
Obviously digital/DSP but any guesses as to what this is built on? FV-1?

https://www.hologramelectronics.com/microcosm

[garcho]

Not an FV-1

Why intrigued about this one in particular?

[any]

Not an FV-1

Why intrigued about this one in particular?

Heh, because it sounds great? 

Just dipping my toes into digital a bit and trying to figure out if the kind of stuff I'd like.
Sounds like well above my pay grade, but wondering if similar effects are achievable in the realm of DIY.

Cheers

[Jarno]

Probably quite a chunky DSP with a bunch of memory.
FV-1 is quite paltry by comparison, you could look into the Axoloti board, that has a powerful DSP and a bunch of memory, but sadly, it seems to be a little bit abandoned.
Not sure how the Electrosmith Daisy compares.

[Digital Larry]

Looks pretty elaborate.  I'll trot out one of my philosophies about DSP (which excludes the FV-1 as it is in a class unto itself).

Pick a development strategy that is portable (or relatively so) such as C++ or Faust.

Get started by learning how to write plugins and see if you can implement the functionality you are after as a plugin for your PC or Mac.  Once you've convinced yourself that you're up to it, if you need it to be more portable/self contained than a PC or Macbook, then go about finding a platform that can handle both the CPU cycles and the I/O requirements of what you're doing.  If you need it to be mass producible in such a way that you can make a profit, I am the wrong person to ask!

There is a special subcategory which are devices that offer a GUI for developing algorithms without writing (much?) code.
FV-1 (SpinCAD)
Teensy
Axoloti
https://w.dspconcepts.com/audio-weaver

Some resources you might find helpful:
https://www.willpirkle.com/
https://elk.audio/audio-os/
https://www.kadenze.com/courses/intro-to-audio-plugin-development/sessions/introduction-to-audio-plugins-juce
https://www.kadenze.com/courses/intro-to-audio-plugin-development/info
https://www.kadenze.com/courses/real-time-audio-signal-processing-in-faust/info
https://www.kadenze.com/courses/real-time-audio-signal-processing-in-faust/sessions/sound-synthesis-and-processing-i-oscillators-am-fm-and-subtractive-synthesis
https://www.kadenze.com/courses/real-time-audio-signal-processing-in-faust/sessions/sound-synthesis-and-processing-ii-filters-echo-basic-physical-modeling-sampling-and-granular-synthesis
https://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/stk/

DL

[Jarno]

And Electrosmith Daisy, as I mentioned:

https://www.electro-smith.com/daisy/daisy

Also available as a pedal:
https://www.electro-smith.com/daisy/petal

The latter a bit pricey IMHO, but 28usd for a breadboard compatible unit, wit mcu and memory is not bad.

[micromegas]

I imagine it uses something like a SHARC DSP (which is what Strymons are based on, for example).

I was quite surprised recently when I opened my Meris Enzo (which I always thought was using one of those DSPs) and found out that it runs on an ARM M4

Regarding learning DSP, I am going to go with a shameless plug and suggest the Bela Real-Time Audio Programming course, this is more or less what we teach to our Master students.

You'll need a Bela (shameless plug #2) if you want to run the examples, but most of it can be applied to other platforms, you would just have to figure out how to set up your audio callback, hardware, etc

The Daisy might seem expensive, but if you compare them with a Teensy 4.1 and take into account the AKM codecs and SDRAM it doesn't seem too bad. I have one somewhere around my desk, but haven't gotten around building anything with it yet.

I can tell you one thing: manufacturing hardware at small scale is expensive

[micromegas]

on the granular synthesis topic, this is a great book: https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/microsound

also, Mutable Instruments code for the Clouds module can be quite inspiring: https://github.com/pichenettes/eurorack and same for Tom Erbe's source code for his Soundhack Plugins (https://www.soundhack.com/freeware/)

[Jarno]

Ah yes, Mutable Instruments, a number of those are already ported to Axoloti, might be interesting (although one cannot seem to buy Axoloti core boards easily, apparently there is a new version in the works, but it has been in the works for a few years already, still you might want to try and find one used, they are cheap enough 60 euros or so, I believe)

[any]

Phew, sooo much to take in... hahaha! thanks for all the comments so far :-)

Daisy and Axoloti sound a bit more approachable for me although Bela also looks very cool and as I understand it great for 'freeform' installation/art based audio processing.

I think I'll need to unpack and study this some more..

Cheers,

[garcho]

There's also the Blackaddr Teensy guitar pedal development board. I've brought that up a bunch lately, so I just want to say out loud that I have no connection to the company and I don't personally know the fellow forumite who designed it, I just think it's a really cool device (devices, the brain is a Teensy, ARM cortex M7 600Hz, also very cool, also unaffiliated).

[Strategy]

Some products out there are using Raspberry Pi as a backend. I built a DIY Monome NORNS and it uses this tech. (very fun device.) The Qu-Bit Electronix Nebulae uses this as well and I believe others too. I would not be surprised if there are pedals out there with a R-pi under the hood?
Strategy

[PRR]

...SHARC DSP......my Meris Enzo (which I always thought was using one of those DSPs) and found out that it runs on an ARM M4

"ARM Cortex-M .........have been embedded in tens of billions of consumer devices."

Billions with a B!!! They can't cost much.

Mouser is showing prices for STM32 F4 Cortex™-M4 in thousands as low as $2.40/each. SHARCs are $20. Once again the general-purpose tool steals the lunch from the specialist (see Intel 4004).

[Turfen]

Looks like an ADSP-BF707 in the Microcosm

[Blackaddr]

Looks like an ADSP-BF707 in the Microcosm

Wow, seems like overkill. Wouldn't a cortex-M7 have handled what that pedal does?

[phasetrans]

Looks like an ADSP-BF707 in the Microcosm

Wow, seems like overkill. Wouldn't a cortex-M7 have handled what that pedal does?

Lots of people have picked the AD platform for the dev tools, more than the hardware. It could be the designers are already well familiar in the AD ecosystem.

Source: Looking at M7 vs AD for an audio-related day job project.