Extending the Soundcard for Use with Generic DC Sensors Demonstrated by Revisiting a Vintage ISA Design

Smilen Dimitrov

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

The sound card anno 2010, is an ubiquitous part of almostany personal computing system; what was once considereda high-end, CD-quality audio fidelity, is today found in mostcommon sound cards. The increased presence of multichannel devices, along with the high sampling frequency, makesthe sound card desirable as a generic interface for acquisition of analog signals in prototyping of sensor-based musicinterfaces. However, due to the need for coupling capacitorsat a sound card's inputs and outputs, the use as a genericsignal interface of a sound card is limited to signals not carrying information in a constant DC component. Through arevisit of a card design for the (now defunct) ISA bus, thispaper proposes use of analog gates for bypassing the DCfiltering input sections, controllable from software --- therebyallowing for arbitrary choice by the user, if a soundcardinput channel is to be used as a generic analog-to-digitalsensor interface. Issues regarding use of obsolete technology and educational aspects are discussed as well.

Citation

Smilen Dimitrov. 2010. Extending the Soundcard for Use with Generic DC Sensors Demonstrated by Revisiting a Vintage ISA Design. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1177755

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{Dimitrov2010,
 abstract = {The sound card anno 2010, is an ubiquitous part of almostany personal computing system; what was once considereda high-end, CD-quality audio fidelity, is today found in mostcommon sound cards. The increased presence of multichannel devices, along with the high sampling frequency, makesthe sound card desirable as a generic interface for acquisition of analog signals in prototyping of sensor-based musicinterfaces. However, due to the need for coupling capacitorsat a sound card's inputs and outputs, the use as a genericsignal interface of a sound card is limited to signals not carrying information in a constant DC component. Through arevisit of a card design for the (now defunct) ISA bus, thispaper proposes use of analog gates for bypassing the DCfiltering input sections, controllable from software --- therebyallowing for arbitrary choice by the user, if a soundcardinput channel is to be used as a generic analog-to-digitalsensor interface. Issues regarding use of obsolete technology and educational aspects are discussed as well.},
 address = {Sydney, Australia},
 author = {Dimitrov, Smilen},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.1177755},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 keywords = {dc,isa,nime10,sensors,soundcard},
 pages = {303--308},
 title = {Extending the Soundcard for Use with Generic {DC} Sensors Demonstrated by Revisiting a Vintage ISA Design},
 url = {http://www.nime.org/proceedings/2010/nime2010_303.pdf},
 year = {2010}
}