This week, I worked on trying to get all the necessary components ready for the demo on Monday. This meant writing a lot of software before we wrote any hardware, since we plan for the demo to be completely based in our software co-simulation environment. The encoders, I can say proudly, are finally done–after talking about the parameters that they hold and control with Joe, I have finally settled on a system that will allow us to have the correct…
This week, we have all been working towards making working prototypes for the upcoming demos. Manav has been working on being able to show we can decode simulated MIDI inputs. The MIDI keyboard came in this week, so he is able to sample real inputs for testing, though this might not be feasible before the demo. Eric has finished the encoders module and is working on demoing our display. He won’t be able to demo the real LCD screen yet,…
This week I mostly focused on finishing up developing the RTL for the MIDI decoder. This is part of the code that I plan to get finished for the demonstration this coming week. I have yet to get it 100% working at this moment, but my goal is to properly decode the bitstream that comes from the sample as an input to the MIDI decoder module. This week I finally got access to the MIDI keyboard that we ordered, so I…
This week, I implemented and verified the software distortion effect. It uses entirely modular fixed point data types and is true to the hardware. In the picture below, the orange triangle wave is the input sound wave, and the blue curve is the output after applying the distortion effect. Demos came up a bit fast on me, so I decided to start integration before implementing the low/high pass filters. I addressed all Git reviews from Eric and Manav for all…
Right now, Manav is in need of the MIDI keyboard to start accurately testing his module. We placed the order earlier this week, and hopefully it comes in soon. We’ve received the rest of our parts, so all other testing can start as soon as we’re ready. Aside from that, the only major roadblock right now is time. We all had a rough couple of weeks because of midterms, but the mid-semester set of tests are over, so hopefully we…
This week, I finished the applicator model and its testbench. I spent too long trying to fiddle with parameterization, both within the testbench and model, since there will be multiple applicators that are all slightly different. In the end, I decided the best use of my time was to make a general applicator to show proof of concept, and worry about verifying each individual one once I implement the hardware. I don’t anticipate them being too different, so this shouldn’t…
It’s a spooky day today! Anyway, I finally finished work on the encoders and began to do some stuff with the SPI interface to the display. I know I was told to include images–most of the stuff I’m doing is just source code, though, so I don’t know what exactly that entails? Regardless, I’m trying to design this interface in such a way that it can be reused for driving the DAC that we’re using, which should also use SPI….
This week I spent some more time developing the RTL for the MIDI decoder. The bulk of the code was completed in the past weeks, but I am still struggling to get it to process the simulated inputs that I have been providing it. I hope that once we receive the MIDI keyboard that we ordered, it will be easier to pass in messages since I think my simulated messages are just in the wrong format. Going forward if we…
This week, I didn’t get much done unfortunately. I started work on the applicator applicator software model, and the test bench is on its way but it’s a bit tricky to write because I need to emulate the functionality of all the modulation sources (envelopes, LFOs, wavetables) in SystemVerilog, which isn’t trivial. It might be better to just test this module alone, without the software model. Next week, I really need to figure out what I’m doing with the applicator…
With the Design Report behind us, it feels like we have a solid foundation to deal with a lot of the complexities of our module. Joe has been working hard on the APU, and for the first time, we have a defined goal for how our filters and distortion effects will work. We’re pretty confident that this new level of rigidity for our specification will allow us to build out the hardware without all of the delays over implementation details….