line 6 tonecore dsp developer kit

[deadbeatriot]

http://line6.com/tcddk/

anybody familiar with this? i think someone made a bitcrusher module a while back (red panda or something?)

for someone with practically zero coding experience (aside from a super easy high school course 5 years ago) how difficult would it be to get really creative with something like this?

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

only 1 way to find out

[Nychthemeron]

Eti made a really cool bitcrusher module called the Red Panda with it, right?

[eti]

Curt did the dsp stuff. I'll try to direct him here later.

[kosta]

No Mac support for this stuff?

[curt]

Yeah, I have had one for about 9 months and did a few projects, including the bitcrusher. With one high school programming course, I'm guessing it will be pretty frustrating trying to get something useful out of it right away. But if you're ready for some frustration and a lot of learning, it's a nice platform. The DSP assembly language is easy to learn (as far as those things go). The hardest thing is probably wrapping your head around fixed point arithmetic. And there is no sine or logarithm functions or even division - you either use lookup tables or write your own approximations. But it's great downloading your latest code straight to a gig-ready stompbox. The DSP has enough power for pretty complex effects, so you can definitely get some creative stuff out of it.

Another alternative is the Spin FV-1 (http://spinsemi.com), which is a great DIY DSP. Spin Semiconductor is Keith Barr's (MXR, Alesis) company. The FV-1 is designed specifically for audio, there is a fairly active development community, and lots of sample code that you can use as a starting point. Keith has great explanations of common audio effects on the web site. The downside is that it's just a chip, not a pedal. OCT distribution sells a reverb module based on the FV-1 that you can build a pedal around (you could hack the FV-1 development board to reprogram the module if you wanted to simplify the board design).

If you use a DAW, yet another alternative is to download Visual Studio Express or XCode and try writing some VSTs or AudioUnits to see if you enjoy the programming. It's totally free, and then you are dealing with normal math and not DSP assembly.

kosta, I run the ToneCore DDK software in Parallels Desktop on my MacBook Pro.

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

could something similar to like a TSP teaspoon be programmed on one of these guys?

[curt]

could something similar to like a TSP teaspoon be programmed on one of these guys?

Yes - it has about 4.5 seconds of delay memory. I'm pretty sure you could do things like granular synthesis too

[Dr. Sherman Sticks M.D.]

could something similar to like a TSP teaspoon be programmed on one of these guys?

Yes - it has about 4.5 seconds of delay memory. I'm pretty sure you could do things like granular synthesis too

damn that would be sweet....granular

[kosta]

The Teaspoon CAS is so bonkers. Unreal how much stuff he crams in that tiny box.... The window sampling is just the beginning on that one....

[curt]

The Teaspoon CAS is so bonkers. Unreal how much stuff he crams in that tiny box.... The window sampling is just the beginning on that one....

Yeah, that thing looks sweet. I just meant that the ToneCore has plenty of DSP power and sample memory. It would also be far less tweakable, of course.

[kosta]

Cool to get a little on-the-ground intel on the Tonecore, and great to know that it has some horsepower. Thanks for chiming in man.

[deadbeatriot]

Cool to get a little on-the-ground intel on the Tonecore, and great to know that it has some horsepower. Thanks for chiming in man.

yes indeed! i think i might even take the plunge if my b/s/t thread goes well...


also, i think i read in the faqs that the ddk module is as powerful as a pod 2.0 O_O

[curt]

Go for it! Worst case, you end up with a stereo ToneCore dock that you can put a Echo Park or Verbzilla module in

The DSP stuff isn't any harder than analog circuit design - just more abstract. Make small changes, test often, and save your code so you back up when you hit a dead end (spending a few hours learning how to install and use Subversion will save you many hours later). There is some code on http://www.tcddk.com that you can hack on to start with, and helpful people on the Line 6 forum if you get stuck.

We made a polyphonic modular software synth called ObjektSynth on a computer that was about twice as fast (in MIPS) as the DSP in the ToneCore dock (dual 66 Mhz BeBox vs 100 Mhz DSP56364), and that was running the GUI and everything else. Having that much DSP power in a stompbox is pretty cool.

[deadbeatriot]

curt + eti - i fuckin love that logo. you fellas make shirts?