• Audio

  • Bela as an OP1-like prototype

Hello,

I don't intend to copy the design of the OP1, but as a learning process - building something similar in functionality - would that be at all doable with the Bela? I am pretty new with the Bela, so that's why I'm asking. I see on the pinout that there doesn't appear to be alot of available pins. Alternatively I assume a pin expander (like the MCP... models) would work just fine. I'm mostly interested in the software part though. Would the bela be fast enough for handling 4 tracks, recording, playback and various FX ?

All the best
Søren

4 tracks, recording, playback is surely fine. Various FX is also most likely ok depending on what you are asking for. As in: each DSP algorithm implementation will have a very specific CPU cost and so here your mileage may vary depending on the algorithms you are trying to implement. I am fairly sure you will be ok.

As for inputs, you get as stock 8 analog inputs (for pots/sliders) and 16 digital I/O (for buttons/LEDs). If you need more, you can expand the number of analog inputs with the multiplexer capelet, which gives you up to 64 analog inputs.

    As giuliomoro mentioned, mileage may very depending what you do. Stuff like resampling, pitch shifting, encoding/decoding on the fly, advanced synthesis algorithms -- might be limited in what types of thing you can implement or how many things you can run simultaneously.

    I don't have an OP-1, but from reading the description I would guess you will be limited by your creativity before Bela hardware limitations stop you.

      Thank you for the optimistic replies! I will embark on the attempt, and I will definitely be coming back with some (hopefully not too) newbish questions regarding implementation :-)