DigiTakt II teardown

Cuckoo is talking about what’s inside :

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Isn’t that Coldfire the same CPU present in DT1, DN, and ST?

Is there another CPU chip in there? Because if there’s nothing else, is there anything on the way of a 2.0 update that upgrades DN and ST to run on the new software platform?

EDIT: Additional SHARC CPU on the left side, that makes way more sense.

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Looks to be same model # yes

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The Coldfire CPU is 200MHz and probably just run the UI : Screen, buttons, encoders, LEDs. Would make sense that they reuse everything they have from the former model with just a few added buttons/LEDs. UI wise DT(II), DN and ST is a hardware platform with slight changes.

SHARC DSP is 800-1000MHz, and probably does all the heavy lifting concerning Audio DSP, interfacing the AD/DA converters, RAM.

I don’t see any mention of USB interface on the SHARC, so I expect the that’s handled by the Coldfire as well, and would expect MIDI to be handled similarly.

This would require a pretty solid bus for exchanging real-time audio data (18+ channels?) from DSP chip to UI chip (for Overbridge to work), unless the two chips can share access to the RAM chips…

This is all speculation of course

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Can anyone tell or know from the pics if the DT2 uses the same converters at the DT1?

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An interesting article from Strymon about their use of SHARC DSP :grin: (albeit an older version)

Strymon DSP decrypted

Edit: Soo there should be plenty of power for sound mangling updates in the future for DT2

Maybe another explanation for why they haven’t bothered to move off USB 2.0

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I “get” those mods, but the number of people who oughta perform them are much less than the people who attempt them :smiley:

Have anyone seen a tear down of AH+FX?

Some men just want to watch the world teardown :bat:

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I think there is two things to consider here regarding USB.

There is USB the Number, and USB the Letter.

USB-C is a physical format, with which you get the additional pins for Power Delivery (USB PD), on top of the convenience of plugging it right the first time.

USB 3.2 gives much higher speeds, but more importantly though, you often need much more modern and specialized microcontrollers to get USB 3.2 and above. The modern classic STM32H7 series microcontrollers from STMicroselectronics, that are used with Arduinos and Daisy seed for example, only provide USB 2.0.

The point is that it requires special hardware to get the full use of USB-C with 3.2 speeds - and power delivery (PD) - and that hardware may not be the best for running your UI or May not have enough Flash memory.

You can use a USB-C form factor physical connector with a USB 2.0 interface I believe, so you would get the benefit of that part of the equation. Lots of products does this, including the Roland SP-404mkII, I believe:


But for an existing formfactor of a product like the Digitakt, if you do not get better power or speeds with the chips you are using, then there is hardly any reason to change the physical enclosure to facilitate USB-C connector, especially when the existing USB-B has stood the test of time.

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Is that a mechanical Cenk?

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