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WTPA Version 2 Design: First Prototype Hardware Design Done!

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      CommentAuthorToddBailey
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2010
     
    All right, ladies.
    As promised, I finished the first WTPA2 hardware design by the end of June. This does not mean it is in my hand, but it does mean the gerbers are done!
    Check it out:



    Through-hole SRAM, 8 Buttons, extra MCU IOs, Flash Memory Expansion Port, Rotary Encoder, New VCO Based Clock, Updated Ground Plane and Signal Routing, Updated Analog Section.
    And the return of the prototyping area! Make yr own damn analog filter :-)

    New dimensions are 7.75" x 5.00".
    It's passed ERC and DRCs on my machine and it just got the clean bill of health from Advanced Circuits DFM! I'm going to sleep on it and order it tomorrow after another look with fresh eyes to make sure I didn't do something totally stupid.

    After that I'll make the BOM, order parts for the proto, and update the firmware to handle all the new goodies.

    I should have a new sampler by the end of next week!
    Xo and Onward,
    TB
    •  
      CommentAuthorLuap
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2010
     
    True to your word ;)

    I better stoke up my old faithful soldering iron huh..
    • CommentAuthorghd
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2010
     
    Droolicious!
    •  
      CommentAuthorglitched
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2010
     
    Excited about WTPA2...but even more excited now that I've really incorporated WTPA1 into my workflow.
    It's such a creative device for how simple it is.
    I start all my tracks by putting sounds through it, then mangling it, etc.

    Theme music to this post: "I Can't Wait", by Nu Shooz.
    •  
      CommentAuthorblue_lu
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2010
     
    yeessssss!!! wooohooo!!!
    •  
      CommentAuthorRodrigo
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2010
     
    Friggin awesome!
    • CommentAuthorsealion
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2010
     
    Muwahhaha! Let chaos rule! Nighty night Todd
    • CommentAuthortommi
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2010
     
    ...and i'll be there! Great news Todd!
    •  
      CommentAuthorrosch
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2010
     
    yay!
    •  
      CommentAuthorToddBailey
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2010
     
    ...And here's the daughterboard proto. 64mBit Flash memory, a 3.3v regulator, and a fancy level translator. Associated bypass caps.



    That order goes out today also.
    xo
    TB
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      CommentAuthorblue_lu
    • CommentTimeJul 2nd 2010
     
    this kicks all kinds of ass :)
    •  
      CommentAuthordnigrin
    • CommentTimeJul 4th 2010
     
    Lookin forward to it all!
    •  
      CommentAuthorAltitude
    • CommentTimeJul 5th 2010
     
    mmm, storage.

    So are we talking patches here or what?
    •  
      CommentAuthorToddBailey
    • CommentTimeJul 5th 2010
     
    Nope, sample storage. No reason you couldn't store patches, I guess.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAltitude
    • CommentTimeJul 5th 2010
     
    So sample storage with edit points? Something like that would be real useful..
    •  
      CommentAuthorToddBailey
    • CommentTimeJul 6th 2010
     
    Meaning, you can store the entire sample, and also the sample start, end and window data as you'd entered it?
    Such that when you loaded the sample, it would play in the edited configuration?
    TB
    •  
      CommentAuthorAltitude
    • CommentTimeJul 6th 2010 edited
     
    @ todd, yes exactly. I dont think the functionality of the flash has been discussed but I just assumed it was a place to store a sample(s?). Having several slots to permanently store samples with the start/stop edited points already saved would be really nice.

    *edit

    I guess that would also entail a sample "format" which may be opening up a can of worms that u dont want to open..
    •  
      CommentAuthorToddBailey
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2010
     
    @altitude -- Exactly. I'm thinking another way to get what you want would be to allow you to "permanently trim" samples to their window. Then you can save the trimmed one in one slot and the un-trimmed one to another and load whichever one you want as audio data.

    Would that work for you?
    •  
      CommentAuthorglitched
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2010
     
    ^^ Me likey. That's how we used to do it, back in the day.
    •  
      CommentAuthorAltitude
    • CommentTimeJul 7th 2010 edited
     
    @ todd: I dont even see a point to saving the untrimmed sample if you can actually edit the file. A simple button combo with a confirmation step would be fine (i.e. hit combo once to save the edit, some flash pattern comes up indicating it is armed to write, then hit again to confirm). What are the plans for the FLASH? Does it only hold 2 samples for the two banks or will it hold more?
    •  
      CommentAuthorToddBailey
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2010
     
    Dope. Sounds good. That's how it'll be.
    If you want the original file you can save it to flash. Then, while it's still in RAM, you can edit it and save it to another spot in flash. Or you can just record it, edit it and save it.
    That's what I was thinking, anyway.

    So here's how I was thinking about FLASH:

    *The flash is 8MB. That's 16x the memory space as the SRAM. I am not keen about fucking with defragmentation or a memory map on this, so that means you can store 16 "things". Or maybe better to say there are 16 "slots".

    *A slot can either store a sample from BANK A, a sample from bank B, or both samples. If there is one sample in a slot already, WTPA will look to see if there is room for the sample you are trying to save, and if there is, it will save that sample. Otherwise it won't let you unless you overwrite the other sample.

    *WTPA will remember what's in a given slot. If it's a sample, when you load it, you can pick the bank. If it is two samples, you load them into bank A and B respectively.

    *There are a couple things about this worth considering. Although with this scheme the max number of samples you can store is 32, you can only guarantee 16 in flash, since each sample CAN be the entire SRAM.

    *The other thing to consider is how to display this in a way that doesn't suck on the LEDs. I'm thinking 4 LEDs will tell you sample slot, and the other four will tell you what's stored there: nothing, the first sample, the second sample, or both samples. That's two LEDs for that. The leftover ones will handle telling you when there isn't room or asking you whether you really want to overwrite, etc.

    This is a little goofy but does make sense, and guarantees that there is maximal storage with minimal memory management.
    A simpler way would just let you save 16 individual samples, and that's it. That's theoretically half the samples of the other method, but thinking about it is easier.

    What do you think?
    Best,
    TB
    •  
      CommentAuthorToddBailey
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2010
     
    You guys ARE watching this come together, right?

    http://blog.narrat1ve.com/2010/07/08/wtpa2-asssembled/
    •  
      CommentAuthorRodrigo
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2010
     
    That's fucking awesome.

    I always forget to check the blog, I just jump straight to here. I'm more forumer than blog reader...
    •  
      CommentAuthorAltitude
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2010 edited
     
    @todd.

    Dope, everything I had hoped for. Going back to my original question/suggestion: being able to load said slot via midi program change (simple bank msg cc0)

    *edit

    who does your protos?
    •  
      CommentAuthorglitched
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2010 edited
     
    Hype.

    Edit: Profound sadness...

    • CommentAuthorsealion
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2010
     
    LED 4 + 4 comment, whirds!? sparkfun lcd? :- )
    • CommentAuthorsealion
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2010
     
    And shouldn't show sample geeks toys they can't buy instantly, v cruel Todd. sniffle whine, when when! oh and, yahoo too.
  28.  
    @sealion: Strong objection to the sparkfun serial LCD. In retrospect, this is the biggest mistake I did on the Shruti-1. There's definitely something wrong with the firmware of this thing - settings occasionally reset themselves to strange values, which causes at best gibberish on screen, at worst a "bricked" display requiring a set of specific commands to be sent to it to revert it back to its factory settings. The worst part is that some settings can only be accessed by "toggle" commands, so if you don't know in which state the display is in, you don't know which command to send - so it's not even possible to reset the thing to a predefined state at startup. Even if I bought 50+ of those for my kits, Sparkfun hasn't provided me with any support ("fix the firmware yourself, we provide (outdated) code"), and, worst of all, this part is only available from one supplier at an unreasonable price, with no decent discount for bulk orders. In batches of 100, a LCD module is in the $3 - $5 range.

    I'm not sure Todd wants a LCD on the WTPA2 (I think this has been discussed elsewhere...), but if he does, using the same shared 8-bit bus with an extra parallel latch + a standard HD44780-compatible thing would be a cheaper, less troublesome way to go.
    •  
      CommentAuthorblue_lu
    • CommentTimeJul 9th 2010
     
    Nicenicenice.

    Regarding the display. IF there is ever anything like that I would go retro all the way:
    •  
      CommentAuthorrosch
    • CommentTimeJul 9th 2010
     
    cool!
    •  
      CommentAuthorToddBailey
    • CommentTimeJul 9th 2010 edited
     
    @Altitude--
    Yep, all flash commands will be doable by MIDI.

    @Everybody--
    Olivier is right on all counts with the LCDs. Sparkfun stuff is weird; I've used their LCDs which are no exception.
    And ain't no LCD happening, so stop yer whining.

    The board above looks cool. What's it for?

    EDIT:
    @Altitude--
    I get protos from Advanced Circuits, usually. For production (usually) I use PCBCart.

    @Glitched--
    Bricked is a state of mind. Well, it's actually a state of fuse bits or latch lines. But it's reversible. But not today.
    I'm running away to the woods with a bunch of people and my longbow and getting all extra analog this weekend.
    • CommentAuthorsealion
    • CommentTimeJul 10th 2010
     
    Olivier: True, my shruti has for raesons unknown, gone back to a sparkfun boot screen before it goes to Shruti-1. Mostly its not so much about whose screen its just so fast to get to parameters and tweak. I'd be happier with a midi learn for assigning externals into the wtpa but that's too much I know. I'd just like to stay as free as possible of computer tethers for setting up cc's.
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      CommentAuthoroootini
    • CommentTimeJul 11th 2010
     
    i get a slightly different boot screen on the shruti everytime it starts. very weird. it's also very slow to refresh sometimes.
    • CommentAuthorsealion
    • CommentTimeJul 25th 2010
     
    re shruti boot. I accidentally went into the prepare to receive new OS button presses to 1 Load and powered down. The boot screen went back to the right one and remians correct ever since. Showed it around and gave Todd v.2's news yesterday at John Marshall's retirement at the PAcNorthwst synth meet. heavy stuff shown, prototypes, buchla 200e, wall of MOTM, guitar controlled Mattison,pressure controllers, ondolines. Those meets will continue, maybe for halloween.
  35.  
    Analogue Heaven. Wick----(ed)!
    Sucks I couldn't make it Sigh.

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