Lost in the jungle of DSP - help

[Digital Larry]

quiet convincing
is the spincad completely working/finished ?

SpinCAD allows you to chain together different functional blocks.
These blocks need to be developed conceptually and then they need to be coded in Java.
I have implemented a certain number of functional blocks, and yes they do work. 
There are some bugs.  There is a lot of room for improvement.
Is it at the level you would expect from a commercial product?  Probably not.

[Digital Larry]

i see there is a dev board, but is there a way to interface a standalone dsp chip with usb for programming, in case i make my own board?

Yes, if you make a board with an EEPROM storing the programs then you can connect something like a PICKit programmer to those signals to write programs to it.

[Digital Larry]

For the OP, would a Raspberry Pi processor work better than an Arduino?  It may not be DSP but it should be a bit more capabel than an Arduino.

Check out AmpBrownie - http://ampbrownie.com/

Also... 
http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/guitarix/index.php?title=Guitarix_Embedded_/_ARM_SoC