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}
}