The Digital Synthesizer Module Number One
DSM1

First Posted July 16, 2005
Updated February 7, 2009

    I am not sure exactly what form this project is going to take yet.  My original concept was to make an addon board for the Xilinx Spartan 3 Starter Kit.  The Starter Kit board has an XC3S200 part on it.  It appears that maybe this board is just a little bit too small.  The 200K gate part is just not going to be able to do all I want it to do.  It would seem that I will need to use at the very least the XC3S400 part.  But I am not giving up yet.

You may ask why I am using Xilinx.  Well, the biggest reason is that Xilinx seems to be just a little less expensive to play with.  I have nothing against the Altera parts.  And you can probably apply what I hope will soon be posted here to those parts.  As soon as I can locate a Cyclone II eval board that I like, I will probably dive into that part as well.

You may also ask why an FPGA?  Why don't you use a DSP like Clavia does for the Nord Modular?  The answer to that is I think the FPGA will be more fun.  Also, the FPGA has a lot of raw horse power that is going to be difficult to achive even with the fastest DSPs.

What are my goals?

    Right now it is to create a set of hardware that I can easily experiment with producing digitaly created sounds.  Some of the basic functions that will need to be created will be Oscilator banks, Filter banks and envelope generator banks.  These are probably the most difficult functions to do.  One thing I don't know how to do at the moment is to create a way that modules can easily be interconnected.  However, creating large quantities of the above elements is going to be relatively easy.  Creating 512 32bit oscillators should be a piece of cake.  Doing on the order of 128 filters should also be fairly easy.

June 22, 2008



Here is what I have in mind for the moment.  This, I propose, to implement in a Xilinx XC3S1000 fpga.  I am going to use a Diglent Spartan 3 Starter board with that part mounted on it.  This should be able to cover all that is proposed.  I will be controlling it with an Atmel ATmeaga2561 microcontroller.

I should be able to run this at 96KHz sample rate, my goal is, however, to run at 192KHz sample rate.  The tough one is going to be the filter.  I am currently writing the code of the low pass filter.  I know that 512 of anything seems like a lot, but, that is just sort of how things break down in the Spartan 3.  If it works...I don't think I will need to worry about running out of oscilators.  I still need to figure out some way to get modulation into the picture, but, that I am sure will come later.  I want to get the basic system down first.  It would be kind of keen to be able to do FM modulation from channel to channel...

September 18, 2008

    Well, I am making progress...although, you would hardly know it.  I ordered some delta sigma converters yesterday.  These are very small and simple converters, but they should get the job done quickly.  I also ordered some SOIC-8 breakout boards from Spark Fun to mount them on.  Spark Fun is a really great place.  Where do I stand?  Well, as of right now, I have got nearly all of the windows program done that I am going to use to test the hardware.  The firmware also is nearly complete for testing the hardware.  So far on the hardware, I have got the oscilator section done, and am now starting on the ADSR generators.  I also have a very simple logic analyzer function running that is going to aid in debugging the various pieces of hardware.  Once I get the Envelope generators running, the job is about 1/2 done.  I have high hopes for this project...I am sure there are going to be a few disapointments...but I am optimistic.

October 2, 2008

    Still making progress.  Today, I got the envelope generators working.  So, in the above block diagram, I have two of the five blocks working.

    Here is a phote of the set up I am using to develope the code on:



What you see is an Atmel STK500/501, an Atmel JTAGICE MkII,  a custom interface board, a Xilinx JTAG probe, and a Spartan3 Starter kit with an XC3S1000 on it.

I have also been writing a windows program for debugging the hardware....here are a few screen shots...



This is the main dialog.





There have all been a great aid in getting the verilog code debugged.

Again...as soon as I get it more or less done...all of the source code for this projects will be posted.

October 8, 2008



The above is the latest screen shot off of the logic analyzer dialog box in my synthesizer consol program...and what is significant.  The wave form you see is exactly what I expected to see.  I finally got the mixer working properly...or at least, more properly.   I just have a few more tweeks to do, and then I start on the final leg of trying to get the I2S interface to work so I can actually hear what I have created.  I still have not verified that all 512 channels work, but it sure looks like they do.

October 18, 2008

The first phase of my digital synthesizer is DONE!  Now, while the source code for all of this is pretty much in a shambles...because speed of writing the code was more important than making it look good, you will have to fogive the fact that in some places comments are lacking.

In the archive you will find the following folders:

100-1056.....Cad files (Orcad Schematic and Protel PCB) for the interface board I made to go between the Spartan 3 Starter Board and the STK500/501

vga.....This is the Xilinx ISE 9.1 project for the FPGA portion of the project.  You will notice that there are a lot of extraineous source files in this folder because I did go down some blind alleys.  When I clean things up, I will get rid of the extraneous files.  Also, the reason this is called vga is because of the fact that I did a VGA display for the spartan 3 Starter Board, and I use this to debug code.  And I never bothered to rename it...so don't let the name fool you.  Included in here you will find the logic analyzer I made to debug the hardware, the single stepping hardware, also for debugging, Uarts, Timers, Static ram interface.  Everything interfaces to the external memory bus on an ATmega2561.

AvrFpgaSynth....This is the source code for the application portion of the AVR code.  I use an RTOS that I wrote myself.  Besides the midi interface, I also have an RS232 interface that I use to debug software and hardware.

AvrLib....this is my AVR library...Some of the code I wrote myself....other parts were gleaned for other sources and modified.  My RTOS is included in the library.

SynthConsol....this is a program written using Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0.  This program was used to debug the hardware.  It is not exactly done, but it got the work done.  In it you will find interfaces to the Logic Analyzer and the Single Stepper.

Initial Release of Source code for FPGA synthesizer

Have fun...and don't turn this in as a homework assignment.

February 7, 2009

I haven't been able to work on this much lately.  The current status is I have written the verilog code for the four pole low pass filter.  I just need to work it into the signal chain which means making sure all the pipeline delays line up.  I have tested the module with the simulator, and it seems to be doing what it is supposed to be doing.  I am really hoping I can spend a little time on this soon.

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