WavePro Shield - Beta Testers wanted

[samirtf]

Hi! I am a student of Computer Science at Federal University of Campina Grande. I am interested in testing the prototype WavePro for Digital Signal Processing. Do you still have one available?

[majenko]

I am not looking for any more beta testers for this product at this time.

I'm just awaiting delivery of version 2 boards at the moment.  These, when populated (and confirmed they are working), will go out to my existing beta testers.  Once they are happy with them I will be almost ready to enter full production.

Just a few issues with the firmware to sort out before I am happy to sell them (I am looking at incorporating a bootloader to make reprogramming easier).

=M=

[mxmx]

are you willing to leak some information as to what's going into the firmware, ie functionality-wise? will it be more about play / stop / seek type of things? or will it be possible to do a few more basic things without actually getting into PIC programming? (i guess what i'm asking is will (basic) usage of the thing be pretty much comparable to using, say, the waveHC library? or more like a/the audio codec shield? or both?)

thanks!

[majenko]

are you willing to leak some information as to what's going into the firmware, ie functionality-wise? will it be more about play / stop / seek type of things? or will it be possible to do a few more basic things without actually getting into PIC programming? (i guess what i'm asking is will (basic) usage of the thing be pretty much comparable to using, say, the waveHC library? or more like a/the audio codec shield? or both?)

thanks!

At the moment there are functions for:
* Play
* Stop
* Pause
* Seek fwd
* Seek backwards
* Record
* Directory listing
* Retrieve UTF-16 filename
* Set volume / boost
* Set LED mode

I have plans to add:
* File open / close / create
* Read data
* Write data
* Seek within file
* Erase file

I might also add:
* Play raw data (send data over SPI and it makes noise)
* Record raw data (record through ADC and return raw data over SPI)

First things first though I want all the core audio functions working flawlessly, then I will add on the raw file access functions.

I am currently looking at ways of providing a bootloader system to make re-programming of the chip simpler, especially for people who don't have access to a PIC programmer.  Ideally I'd like to be able to re-flash the firmware from a file on the SD card, but I'm not sure if that's going to be really possible.

[mxmx]

thanks for the prompt reply ...  so play raw data would load the dac? (if i may voice a wish, dedicated functions for setting samplerate and bit-depth would be a neat feature, too.) anyway, will be looking forward to when this is out!

[majenko]

thanks for the prompt reply ...  so play raw data would load the dac? (if i may voice a wish, dedicated functions for setting samplerate and bit-depth would be a neat feature, too.) anyway, will be looking forward to when this is out!

Oh yes, those would go without saying.  Setting up the DAC to your requirements would be essential.

[g_u_e_s_t]

this is really cool.  the dsPIC can do a lot more than playback wav files.  will there be the ability to bootload from the arduino perhaps?  it would be awesome for effects pedals and synths if you could have the horsepower of the dsPIC, but the ease of programming of the arduino.

[majenko]

That is one of the options I have looked at.  At one stage I was looking to use a serial bootloader and use SoftwareSerial to pass through the serial data from a separate programming program, but it didn't work - mainly I think the bootloader itself was at fault.  I do want to try and make it as easy to program as I can, but that in itself won't be "easy"...

[g_u_e_s_t]

bootloaders are a pain, and you will be faced with the added layer that your target is not an arduino, so the code will have to written in some other interface anyways. honestly, once youve put the dsPIC on there, its unclear what the arduino is needed for.

out of curiosity, what was your decision making process for choosing between the dsPIC and a micro + codec?  the micro + codec option would be cheaper and allow for better sound quality, and 16b ADC.  but, it is not as flexible, and cant do a lot of audio processing.

[majenko]

The main driving force behind my designs is the hackability.  The first thing I ask myself is "what could someone else do to this?", and if the answer is "not alot", then I am not happy

The decision to use the dsPIC as opposed to a codec was primarily that of hackability.  I make the device and get it doing what I want, then throw it out there and let others run with it.  So, it has to be something that others can reprogram, and what better than a dsPIC for that?

The other option of a codec + MCU would be kind of as hackable, but the MCU I would want to use then would bring the cost in above the dsPIC.

And you are quite right, you don't "need" the Arduino in there.  The dsPIC is quite capable of running the audio and doing other things at the same time.  In fact, the very first writing of the firmware didn't have the Arduino in place at all - it was just reading the SD card files in sequence and playing them.

There are a few IO ports available on the board (mainly linked to LEDs for a VU / Spectrograph), which I break out to a header as well, plus you could re-appropriate the analogue input and the Arduino interface pins to do whatever you wanted.  The reason for the Arduino though is for people to be able to use the WavePro without having to know how to program a dsPIC.  It functions as a good audio playback card (with record feature that is "usable" ) out of the box.

[Shivasongster]

Looking forward to this shield. Any updates on production availability? Also, will it definitely do WAV 44.1 Khz, 16-bit or higher?

Please avoid the problems of the Seeed audio shield!

http://www.shivasongster.com/2013/02/arduino-seeed-studio-music-shield-v1-0/

Also interested to know if anyone has played with the Artemis shields that came out recently.

[majenko]

Yep, definitely 44.1KHz, 16 bit stereo.  The DAC has a 20KHz (I think) low-pass filter built in, so there is no added low-pass filtering, so you get the entire 20KHz range.

I don't know if you have seen this from one of my beta testers yet: https://soundcloud.com/moshang/waveshield-ras-wavepro

That seeed one sounds like a bit of a disaster.  I have tried to keep my libraries as clean and simple as possible.  I also always try for cross-platform (Arduino and ChipKIT) compatibility.  As 99% of the work is done by the dsPIC, and the library just sends simple SPI commands, there isn't much for the library to do.

I also have a few demos - some just a single WavePro playing random samples seamlessly, and some that are 3 WavePros stacked and synchronised.  https://soundcloud.com/majenko/

[diaz]

Hi,

Just stumbled upon this project, and I have to say not before time !! I have seen several audio player shields but none of them allow the Arduino access to the SD card. Seems perfectly logical to me but yet I have failed to find any (other than this one). The Rugged device was the closest I found but it has no direct SD card access yet (It is planned as I talked to them yesterday, but no planned date). I have a talking logging project in mind that could use a device like this.

So a couple of questions if I may:

1) How is the SD card access part of the project coming ?

2) Any idea on cost ?

3) I am happy to build from PCB if you have one lying about, I understand if not.

4) What software did you use to design the PCB ? EDIT: worked it out, it's gEDA

Cheers. Cam.

[majenko]

Hi,

Just stumbled upon this project, and I have to say not before time !! I have seen several audio player shields but none of them allow the Arduino access to the SD card. Seems perfectly logical to me but yet I have failed to find any (other than this one). The Rugged device was the closest I found but it has no direct SD card access yet (It is planned as I talked to them yesterday, but no planned date). I have a talking logging project in mind that could use a device like this.

So a couple of questions if I may:

1) How is the SD card access part of the project coming ?

I haven't had a chance to work on this yet - the project has taken a back seat while I work on some higher priority (i.e., paying) projects

2) Any idea on cost ?

I was aiming for £25, but with feature creep it may be a little more.  I'm not sure yet which features I'm going to include on the mainboard and what I'm going to have as daughter boards as yet.  So many options...

3) I am happy to build from PCB if you have one lying about, I understand if not.

I have PCBs, but they aren't right.  I'm still undergoing designs and re-designs.  The last batch I had included a track that was nice and neatly cut by the fab house.  They didn't bother telling me about it of course...

4) What software did you use to design the PCB ? EDIT: worked it out, it's gEDA

Yep, that's right.  I'm a Linux user, so gEDA is the dog's

[diaz]

It's a bugger when paying the mortgage etc. gets in the way of something more enjoyable. Fully understand though.

Price sounds fair to me.

For what it's worth, now that wave playing is working the SD card features would rank above all else for me, no one else seems to have bothered with this aspect, and it would also give you that "unique selling point". Just my 2p worth.

I'll be keeping an eager eye out !

Cam.