Best platform for Guitar Effects devices - Questions relating to ADAU1446?

Jon,

Take a look at the ADAU1466 instead, The ADAU1466 is a good platform for stomp boxes. Lots of people use it for that, though it has some limitations. First, your questions:

1. That is correct. There is no compiler available. That said, there are quite a few primitives, and it is capable of a lot of functions.

2. Given your experience level, SigmaDSP sounds ideal. Delays, LFO's, LFO amplitude & pitch effects like a tremelo, vibrato,=, and chorus are pretty straightforward. There are primitive blocks for reverb and pitch shift, but they are pretty basic. It would be very difficult (if possible) to code your own implementation of these. 

The eval board should cost more like $200 than $1000. I see it in stock at Digi-Key for $206. For the same price, I recommend the EVAL-ADAU1467Z if it is in stock, though the EVAL-ADAU1466Z will do, The former is fully code compatible with the latter, but it's much better for breadboarding to experiment with other boards.

Stephan Moller has some excellent videos on YouTube that show how he does tube distortion effects on these DSPs.

Ken

Jon,

Take a look at the ADAU1466 instead, The ADAU1466 is a good platform for stomp boxes. Lots of people use it for that, though it has some limitations. First, your questions:

1. That is correct. There is no compiler available. That said, there are quite a few primitives, and it is capable of a lot of functions.

2. Given your experience level, SigmaDSP sounds ideal. Delays, LFO's, LFO amplitude & pitch effects like a tremelo, vibrato,=, and chorus are pretty straightforward. There are primitive blocks for reverb and pitch shift, but they are pretty basic. It would be very difficult (if possible) to code your own implementation of these. 

The eval board should cost more like $200 than $1000. I see it in stock at Digi-Key for $206. For the same price, I recommend the EVAL-ADAU1467Z if it is in stock, though the EVAL-ADAU1466Z will do, The former is fully code compatible with the latter, but it's much better for breadboarding to experiment with other boards.

Stephan Moller has some excellent videos on YouTube that show how he does tube distortion effects on these DSPs.

Ken

Thanks Ken, much appreciated.

I can see Mouser UK has the EVAL-ADAU1467Z so I will probably get one ordered today.

With the 1446 is that closed to the Sigma Studio interface too, or is there a compiler?

I have a Source Audio True Spring which uses the 1446, and it has great spring reverb, but I suspect that they didn't use Sigma Studio, somehow.

If the Reverb blocks are primitive, what's the ideal solution if I was aiming for a quality and variation of reverb effects to rival the best out there?

I maybe shooting for the moon here! :-) 

Thanks for your help

Jon 

Yes. None of the SigmaDSP parts have compilers. Source Audio was started, in part, by ADI engineers with internal knowledge of the DSP so they have a bit of an unfair advantage. The rest came from other companies with many years of audio DSP experience with reverb as a specialty. Even with a compiler, it would be very difficult to match the performance of their reverbs. Rivaling the best is not a realistic goal for a beginner in DSP. Convolution reverbs sound very good, but that's not practical at this price point.

Ken

interesting, I'm not necessarily looking to code myself if I can avoid it (just depends upon how hard it is, he says naively!), after 25 years of industry experience I have a good network of engineers, some with DSP for broadcast video products experience. What I'm trying to establish is the right platform to create products equivalent to Sound Audio or Styrmon's products, so the stomp box format, not necessarily the studio quality type reverb devices....

It does seem like quite a closed world and hard to break into, I had noticed that many of the brands, had spawned from AD, not just Source Audio, but a few others too.