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Monthly Archives: February 2009
Press The Button Podcast for February 25, 2009
No real concept/theme – just a lot of density. I guess it kind of worked – got at least one positive response.
more gear to build…
A few posts back, I mumbled something about starting to build things more along the lines of Hi-Fi gear (but don’t worry, there’s plenty more synth gear to build- I just need to be able to listen to it and record it better…). My original plan was to build something like a gainclone/chipamp amplifier (yes, sneer at me tube fans!). That may still happen, but my first piece of audio gear is going to be an implementation of this USB ADC/DAC.
For a while now, I’ve been desiring an external audio interface for my computer(s). Unfortunately, price on the high end, and other reasons I don’t want to get into on the low end have been preventing this. After enough frustration with this and some helpful Google searches, I’ve decided to go ahead and build my own. Mine will be a little different from the one at that link – it will have Neutrik XLR-1/4″ combo inputs and 1/4″ outputs, as well as S/PDIF input and output. It won’t have built-in preamps, but that’s OK, because they’re coming later, via an INA217-based design on that’s still forming in my head.
Will it be the best USB audio interface ever? Probably not, but it’s the best reasonably simple DIY one I’ve found thus far, and it will be the best one I’ve ever built 
Now I need to go practice surface-mount soldering, since the PCM2902 is SSOP-only. Good thing I’ve accidentally ordered SOIC ICs several times, and got some little adapters, so I can get my skills honed now.
More hack potential than previously thought…
A couple of weeks ago, I picked up one of these on a whim – it’s got an LCD display, a little keyboard, a card reader, and other crazy things – why not? I wasn’t terribly interested in having to deal with 8051/8031 series programming, however.
A couple of Google searches later, I’m happy to discover that none other than the Atmel ATMega32 (as well as a bunch of other Atmel microcontrollers) is more-or-less pin-compatible with the 8051.
And hey, various and sundry Atmel microcontrollers like the ATMega32 have some compatibility with the Arduino environment I’m familiar with.
Now, obviously, this is all still a bit of a thought experiment at this point – I would need to get an ATMega32 (I’ve had AVRSyn on my to-do list for a while now, so I was going to get one eventually) and some sort of programmer to go further, but it seems like this crazy plan will work with some hacking involved (i.e. the clock crystal would likely have to be replaced too – I’ll have to look at the schematics).
Press The Button Podcast for February 11, 2009
This show was mostly attempts at “live editing” a couple of prospective songs for the RPM challenge.