Storage and User Interface for Digital Turntable
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Storage and User Interface For Digital Turntable Submitted for the degree of Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical) (Honours) By William Wong Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, The University of Queensland October 2003 © 2003 Thesis Report - Storage and User Interface for Digital Turntable 29 October 2003 Head of School Information Technology and Electrical Engineering The University of Queensland St Lucia, QLD 4072 Dear Professor Kaplan In accordance with the requirements of the degree of Bachelor of Engineering (Honours) in the division of Electrical Engineering, I present the following thesis entitled “Storage and User Interface for Digital Turntable”. This work was performed under the supervision of Dr Peter Sutton, and is related to another thesis project entitled “The Digital Turntable” by another student, Mr Garth Williams. I declare that the work submitted for this thesis is my own, except as acknowledged in the text and footnotes, and has not been previously submitted for a degree at the University of Queensland or any other institution. Yours sincerely William Wong William Wong ii 2003 Thesis Report - Storage and User Interface for Digital Turntable ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following people for their support and assistance throughout my thesis work this year. Dr Peter Sutton for his supervisory role, guidance and patience Garth Williams for his friendship and the opportunity of working on this fun project Keith Bell for his guidance and help on the PCB construction, while keeping the electronic workshop, a safe and friendly environment Michael Woo for helping me troubleshoot and debug the Atmel AVR when it stopped functioning. Fellow students at the thesis laboratory (Axon building room 401) for their companies, support and humour during my stay at the labs My family and God for guiding me through every step during the marathon course of my university study. William Wong iii 2003 Thesis Report - Storage and User Interface for Digital Turntable ABSTRACT Vinyl turntables are popular and essential equipment used by professional disc jockeys (DJs) due to their versatility in music playback. These turntables allow music to be played at variable speed, while its rotating platter provides the most intimate control in any part of the music. It is these two main functions that allow DJs to scratch and beat-mix different tracks together to create their own unique sound. However, the disadvantage of using such device is the fact that music must be recorded on vinyls. As our modern society emphasise on digital technologies, it is apparent that most music are produced and stored in digital form, namely in data file formats such as WAV, MP3 and WMA. Hence, the focus on future development of turntables is pointing towards this direction. What if a turntable system can be engineered to allow DJs the vinyl way of scratching digital audio files? This thesis in conjunction with another thesis entitled “The Digital Turntable” by another student, Mr Garth Williams are set out to investigate, design, and implement such a system. This grand project was divided into two separate theses with Mr Garth Williams handling the turntable and music playback department, while the author is in charge of the storage management of audio files and its user interface. For the turntable and signal processing part of the project, please refer to Mr Garth Williams’ thesis. The final product achieved the following: 1. Audio file extraction from HDD 2. Maintain user display of the file system on HDD 3. Provide file system navigation of the HDD It was unfortunate that the two theses defined above could not be integrated into one project. However, the final product can be further developed in the future to implement this. Other possible development includes the interface with other storage sources such as serial ATA devices, CD/CD-R/CD-RW discs, compact flash cards, and USB flash drives. William Wong iv 2003 Thesis Report - Storage and User Interface for Digital Turntable TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES ...............................................................................................................vii LIST OF TABLES................................................................................................................viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.................................................................................................ix DJ TERMINOLOGY................................................................................................................x 1.0 INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................................1 1.1 Turntablism .................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 The Problem................................................................................................................. 2 1.2.1 Storage Medium for Turntables ..................................................................................... 2 1.3 Solution........................................................................................................................ 3 1.3.1 Coverage ..................................................................................................................... 3 1.3.2 Goals........................................................................................................................... 4 1.4 Actual Solution ............................................................................................................. 4 1.5 Thesis Structure ........................................................................................................... 5 2.0 PREVIOUS WORK ..........................................................................................................7 2.1 Keeping a “vinyl feel” on Digital Turntables .................................................................... 7 2.2 Similar Products .......................................................................................................... 7 2.3 CD Turntables ............................................................................................................. 8 2.3.1 Pioneer CDJ Series ...................................................................................................... 8 2.4 Stanton Final Scratch................................................................................................... 8 2.5 Digital Turntables ......................................................................................................... 9 2.5.1 Denon SN-S5000 ......................................................................................................... 9 2.5.2 Pioneer DMP-555 ......................................................................................................... 9 2.5.3 Numark CDX ................................................................................................................ 9 2.5.4 Technics SL-DZ1200.................................................................................................. 10 2.6 Comparison............................................................................................................... 10 2.7 Summary .................................................................................................................. 11 3.0 PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS ................................................................................... 13 3.1 Subsystems ............................................................................................................... 13 3.2 Final Product .............................................................................................................. 13 3.3 Functional Definition ................................................................................................... 14 3.3 Storage...................................................................................................................... 14 3.3.1 Storage Medium ......................................................................................................... 14 3.3.2 File Formats............................................................................................................... 14 3.3.3 Data Transfer Rate..................................................................................................... 15 3.3.4 File System Management ........................................................................................... 15 3.4 User Interface............................................................................................................. 15 3.4.1 User Display .............................................................................................................. 15 3.4.2 User Control............................................................................................................... 15 3.5 Controller ................................................................................................................... 16 3.5.1 Memory ..................................................................................................................... 16 3.5.2 Speed........................................................................................................................ 16 3.5.3 I/O Ports .................................................................................................................... 17 3.6 Project Integration with Mr Garth Williams’