partially compiled from http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=27829
last modified 07.12.2012 greg surges surgesg@gmail.com What is the tabulaRasa? The tabulaRasa is a digital wavetable oscillator with voltage control of frequency, waveform selection, and the amount of interpolation between waveforms. The tabulaRasa consists of two components: a hardware synthesis module which can integrate into a modular synth system, and a software application which allows the user to create their own custom waveforms. These waveforms are then transferred from the computer to the tabulaRasa module through a standard SD card slot. As of 07.11.2012, the tabulaRasa is open source and hosted at http:// www.bitbucket.org/pucktronix/tabularasa/ Do I need an Arduino to use this? No, pre-programmed ATmega328 chips are generally available from Greg Surges. However, it is also possible to burn your own. How are waveforms stored? What about i/o resolution? All the waveforms are stored as byte arrays, for 8-bit resolution. Output is PWM. The cv inputs are 10-bit. I like tonal sounds, can it do 1V/octave? Yes, it can do 1V/octave. If it's not scaling the way you want, you can swap R10 with a 20k trimpot in series with a 10k resistor, then put a 20k trim between R19 and R20. Where are some examples? http://soundcloud.com/greg-surges/tabularasa-glitchy-modulation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CGQeakFUgo https://soundcloud.com/paperproducts/tabula-rasa-first-test https://soundcloud.com/greg-davis/tabularasa-test-040412 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=600VLAokojw&feature=player_embedded https://soundcloud.com/robinsomniac/tabularocka http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vUKErutlv0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toClSwwSqUg What are the PCB dimensions? The board is 3.85" x 3.15" How does the interpolation control work? The waveforms are stored in 64 paired 'slots'. The waveform select control selects the current slot, and the interpolation control does a crossfade between the two waveforms in that slot.
How are people mounting this?
Here are some user panel designs: http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/userpix/137_mod_tabula_1.jpg http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/download.php?id=6010 http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/userpix/2726_tabularasa1_1.jpg http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/userpix/2726_tabularasa2_1.jpg http://www.robinsomniac.com/images/panelDesigns/tabulaRasa/tabulaRasaEuroV3.jpg http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/userpix/1278_img_2152_2.jpg http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5277/5894772847_fb9266d1d1_n.jpg Is there a Bill of Materials? https://bitbucket.org/pucktronix/tabularasa/wiki/Parts%20List Where can I find *part*? SD Socket: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/136 http://littlebirdelectronics.com/products/sdmmc-socket-for-secure-digital-disk-or-multimedia-cards SPDT Pushbutton: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/97 Crystal: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/536 Here is a Mouser cart which contains everything except the Sparkfun components: https://www.mouser.com/ProjectManager/ProjectDetail.aspx?AccessID=acb7d295c3 Do I need 1% resistors or other precision components? No, 5% tolerance will work fine. You can also use a 3k9 resistor instead of 3k8 for R21. Just use a standard 3.9k instead-it's within the 5% tolerance range - the capacitor it forms a filter with is going to be 5% tolerance anyway, so no need to be too critical with the value. How should I format my SD card? FAT16, and you don't need a large size. A few MB will be plenty. Can it run on +/- 15V? Users have reported it running fine on +/-15V with no modifications.