Lots of people think DSP is hard, mostly because they learned DSP in college from professors who only understand it from a mathematical perspective. It's really not that difficutlt. If you have used iPhoto to tweak the brightness or contrast of a photo, you've done DSP. It's just mathematical manipulation of digital signals, and a digital photo is a digital signal.

We normally use DSP to test analog devices. Signal to Noise measurements, stereo separation, DAC and ADC linearity, all kinds of stuff. The one device you don't use DSP to test? A DSP chip! These are usually pure digital, so you just run a lot of patterns to verify functionality.

I published a book on DSP and analog! Distortion, The Cause Of Harmonics And The Lie Of THD is available on Kindle and Print

I published a new book, Harmonics: How they are made. It's available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

And if Distortion or Harmonics are too tough for you to understand, I published another new book, More On Harmonics For Morons and other college graduates. It's available on Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

Topics on DSP

• Arbitrary Waveform Generators
• A Palette AWG (one of my inventions)
• Aliasing and Super-Nyquist Theorem
• Sampling Basics and Aliasing
• Video on Sampling, Aliasing and Nyquist
• Practical example
• Testing Audio devices
• Testing filters with periodic white noise
• Measuring High Frequencies with a cheap digital tester
• A YouTube video explaining the above technique.
• Seminar on Measuring High Frequencies with a cheap digital tester
• Testing HDTV Filters with Digital Pins
• Windowing Non-Coherent Signals
• The Bullard Laws of Harmonics
• Simulating a Sigma Delta ADC in "C"
• Reordering a captured wave to simulate a super high sampling rate
• Measuring Duty Cycle without a TMU
• My STS3000 DSP training course
• Time Multiplexed Multi-Tone waves, a new way to test filters
• Measuring Jitter of a Spread Spectrum Clock Generator
• Testing a MEMS Accelerometer's beam resonance
• A rant about things that many engineers believe that are WRONG.
• The Harmonics Hall of Fame.
• A really simple Excel file that lets you do experiments with a sine wave and do an FFT with color-coded spectrums to see the behavior of Odd and Even harmonics.
• A really simple Excel file that lets you generate waveforms using just the first eleven harmonics.
• A really simple Excel file that lets you do experiments with a QAM modulated wave to see how Quadrature Amplitude Modulation works.
• A really simple Excel file that lets you do experiments with waves then see the first 20 harmonics that make up the wave.
• An Excel file that lets you take a time domain wave and magnify any distortions in it.
• A really cool Perl program for converting a .csv file (from Excel, etc) to a .wav file so you can hear the results of your DSP experiments.
• An article proving that harmonics are produced in proportion to their area on LinkedIn.
• An article proving that the harmonics created by distortion mirror the sinusoid feature removed on LinkedIn.
• An article proving that even harmonics are not created by asymmetry on LinkedIn.
• An article chiding the loose language that permeates texts on harmonics on LinkedIn.
• An article explaining how to use my Excel sinewave experiment package on LinkedIn.
• An article explaining how I massaged the Frequency Domain data from Excel to finally figure out how harmonics are created.
• An article explaining how aliasing can be your friend.
• An article explaining that there are no limits to aliasing.
• An article explaining how we measure energy.
• An article explaining that M in the sampling formula need not be prime.
• An article explaining how I came to understand harmonic spectra.
• An article explaining the three errors I found in Bob Metzler's book, The Audio Measurement Handbook. Kind of a Distortion lite.
• An article warning against using "facts" you were told in college - Part 1
• An article warning against using "facts" you were told in college - Part 2
• An article showing how even harmonics cancel out in symmetrical distortion.
• Another article showing how even harmonics cancel out in symmetrical distortion.
• An article explaining how I came to deduce the Bullard Harmonic Solution.
• An article explaining how I used the VLOOKUP function in Excel to simulate an amplifier's transfer function.
• An article explaining how Slew Rate can impact signal quality.
• An article explaining that an FFT is not just "a button on a scope."
• An article proving Bullard Laws of Harmonics #1 and #2 with an inverse FFT.
• An article proving that area=harmonics with an inverse FFT, or use the local version.
• An article proving that area=harmonics with an inverse FFT, but this time with a symmetrical crossover distortion. This one proves 4 of the 5 laws of the Bullard Laws of Harmonics.
• An article that explains why harmonics almost always roll off from low frequencies to high frequencies, or use the local version.

End of articles that are contained in Harmonics.

---

• Can Excel simulations be trusted, or use the local version.
• The importance of proper modulation.
• Two angle Bullard Harmonic Solution calculations.
• The search for genius.
• The missing piece.
• Can it be true, that Even harmonics cancel out in symmetrical distortion?
• What do even harmonics do?
• The joys of discovery, or use the local version.
• Simple math, or use the local version.
• Denying science, or use the local version.
• How to create Bullard plots, or use the local version.
• What's with the humps, or use the local version.
• Why does the angle define the harmonics?
• It's not true, or use the local version.
• Which came first, or use the local version
• Morons everywhere morons, watch the video or use the local version.
• The ignorance of experts, or use the local version or watch the video .
• A new and unexpected law, or use the local version.
• Proof of Bullard Laws of Harmonics Law #5, or use the local version.
• Is Bullard Laws of Harmonics Law #5 for real, or use the local version.
• How does it know the angles, or use the local version.
• Half wave vs a full wave rectified sine wave, or use the local version.
• A better way to measure Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), or use the local version.
• Using phase to diffentiate noise from Distortion, or use the local version.
• Advantages of the adaptive THD test, or use the local version.
• It gets even better, or use the local version.
• When noise meets harmonics.
• Decades of ignorance - Instrument makers have done SNR and THD tests wrong for years, or use the local version
• The Bullard Method, or use the local version.
• Achieving perfection, or use the local version.
• Other advantages of the Bullard method, or use the local version.
• Proof of Bullard Laws of Harmonics Law #4, or use the local version.
• The Bullard Harmonic Solution, or use the local version.
• Measuring the right way, or use the local version.
• An article that explains how to use the Bunnemann estimation technique to get closer to being coherent, or use the local version.
• The validity of the Bullard Harmonic Solution, or use the local version.
• More fun with inverse FFTs, or use the local version.
• Three proofs of Law #2, or use the local version.
• An article that shows the hostility I encounter trying to further the study of harmonics, or use the local version.
• Why law #5 is so important, or use the local version.
• DAC MSB fail simulation, or use the local version.
• Bullard Laws of Harmonics #1, or use the local version.
• Harmonic currents, or use the local version.
• How does spectrum store time, or use the local version.
• Distortion microscope trick, or use the local version.
• How to think.
• How I arrived.
• QAM for dummies.
• My YouTube channel.

Back