Recommend a Chip

[varialbender]

I'm looking to get a chip for experimenting. I was thinking of getting a PIC chip, hopefully with analog to digital conversion included, something I can reprogram since I'm not stellar with programing yet and need room for error. Can anyone recommend a good standard use PIC chip or any other types? SHARC? Any help would be great.

What else would I need?

Thanks

[cd]

Avoid stackable Lay's or Pringles... they're just potato flour pressed into shape, they're not real chips.  Go for Miss Vickie's or some other kettle cooked chip.



Anyway, what do you want to accomplish with this "chip"?  Build a switching system?  A delay?  Random arpeggiator?  Reverb?  All of the above?  FYI a lot of it is in the archives (search for DSP), but you'll get a lot more useful responses if you narrow your quest a bit, especially if you're a beginner.

[varialbender]

I'm hoping to have something pretty versatile, delay would be nice, maybe bit decimation, random filtering (at least random voltages to output to a filter), AtoD conversion, enough memory for a good amount of delay time, reprogramable memory for the programing, hopefully RISC, since I'm more familiar with it than CISC.

I'll check the archives out as well

Thanks

[niftydog]

I'm hoping to have something pretty versatile, delay would be nice, maybe bit decimation, random filtering (at least random voltages to output to a filter), AtoD conversion, enough memory for a good amount of delay time

Standard PICs definitely won't do, dsPICs might come close but I doubt it. You really need some DSP!

PICs are RISC, but familiarity almost counts for nothing because you still have to learn the intricacies of the operands. Flash memory, so that's fine. But delay? Maybe as a controller, but certainly not without external RAM. PICs do a pseudo random thing, given the right code which can be found at places like piclist.com. A/D, yeah they do it, but not fast enough to deal with audio (except maybe the dsPICs, don't know enough to be sure about that.)

Search the forums for "DIY DSP", Peter is the resident expert around here. Manufacturers I could recommend; Analog Devices and Alesis.

[varialbender]

Alright, I did that search, found some pretty good information. Did anything come of the wavefront discussion? Any PMs sent out as were requested? Looks like those chips are worth experimenting with. I might screw around with the pt3299 in the rebote delay as well.
Anyone other opinions appreciated, thanks.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I'm hoping to have something pretty versatile, delay would be nice, maybe bit decimation, random filtering (at least random voltages to output to a filter), AtoD conversion, enough memory for a good amount of delay time, reprogramable memory for the programing, hopefully RISC, since I'm more familiar with it than CISC.

I think the memory is going to have to be off-board.
And while you can do 12 bit A to D with cheap PICs, the D to A is going to want a serial D to A converter (plenty of those in the first generation CD-ROM players).