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- For those of you who are into
- sampled sound synthesis or just
- hardware freaks, I've just built
- an 8 bit sampler that can
- accurately sample at a maximum
- rate of 324545Hz or about 3uS per
- sample.
- I've used an ADC020 that uses
- 32 comparators to do 2 four bit
- flash conversions then derives an
- 8 bit result. The actual conversion
- takes about 800ns (due mostly to
- the settling time of its analog
- switches). 3uS is as fast as the
- 68000 in Amy can transfer the data
- in ML with all interrupts disabled
- (nonDMA).
- Instead of connecting it to the
- printer port as is usually done,
- I've cut the chip selects going to
- the CIAs and decoded address bits
- 12,13 and 14 with a 74F138 and use
- the decoded outputs along with the
- old BFxxxxH select to enable the
- CIAs at their usual address
- (BFDxx0H and BFExx1H). This freed
- up the rest of the address space
- from BF0000H to BFF001H.
- Then I added a 6821 PIA
- chip on the lower order data lines
- at address BFC001H to BFC301H and
- the ADC020 is connected to port A.
- Altho the ADC020 would interface
- directly to the 68000 bus I wanted
- more control over the timing and
- a level of protection in case
- something should go wrong with the
- ADC. I used a LH0033 buffer amp on
- the A/D input because it has a
- 1500V/uS slew rate and 100MHz band-
- width (mostly because I already had
- them on hand) but any op-amp with a
- reasonable SR (not 714) would do.
- Since the reference ,Vref(+)-
- Vref(-), need not be ground
- referenced I set Vref(-) to 1.4V
- with 2 1N914 diodes and used a 2.5V.
- Zener from there to Vref(+) because
- the output of the LH0033 and most
- op-amps can't go all the way to
- ground (the LM324 does but its a
- dog). This results in a 0 reading
- from the A/D with an input of about
- 0.5V and full scale (255) at
- about 3.12V. I also added a 1N4732
- zener to the input of the LH0033 to
- protect it from going higher than
- +4.7V or lower than about -0.7V
- below ground. All of this fit
- nicely on top of the mother board
- and under the RF shield inside my
- A1000 with the nesessary leads run
- through the holes that the bottom
- case posts fit through and soldered
- to the bottom side. Finaly, the
- dreaded trace cuts were made near
- pin 23 of the CIAs on the solder
- side.
- It all works great and after
- using it for a month now with a
- variety of software I've had no
- problems.
- To make it work with
- Perfect Sound and AudioMaster all
- I had to do was write a small
- program to set up the PIA in my
- startup-sequence and I changed
- the reference to BFE101H in each
- program to BFC001H. Unfortunatly,
- AudioMaster seems to have a
- maximum sample rate of 24000Hz and
- Perfect sound has a maximum of
- about 28000. I have written some
- stand-alone programs that do
- sample at a full 324KHz and save
- to disk or ram.
- I'm sure your now saying:
- "That's all well and good but the
- amiga won't play a sample at more
- than 28000Hz". The advantage of
- the higher speed comes in doing
- DSP (Digital Signal Processing).
- For example you could run the
- sample through a digital low pass
- filter then upsample, reducing
- the size of the sample and
- increasing the pitch (rate) so
- it could be played at 28000Hz.
- This would result in a much
- cleaner sample and reduce any
- noise. The higher sample rate is
- also very important doing waveform
- analisys (using an FFT program
- I've writen).
- I'm also planning to write
- a program that would allow me to
- use it as an oscliscope.
- If you have any comments or
- suggestions please leave a message
- or write to:
-
- Michael R. Walters
- 129 Columbo
- Tustin, CA 92680
-
-