Sound cards as Signal Generators

Posted by Matthew Sun, 15 Jan 2006 11:16:00 GMT

Function generators are a huge investment. Even the simplest ones start out at about $30-$40. The folks at E-DSP were short on loose change so they did a little research and programmed a simple sound card signal generator.

Signal/function generator software

Unfortunately, their software signal generator can only generate two functions, a sine wave or a square wave. Don’t forget your sound card is limited to 16 bits and 24khz. Therefore its reproduction of sine waves is not exactly perfect. Square waves should be reproduced near perfectly, though.

Also note that most PCI based sound cards have a limit of 2V, but you can always amplify this signal.

This has really sparked my interest so you can expect a Linux software signal generator later today!

Comments

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  1. Matthew said 2 days later:

    For the record, siggen is a signal generator for Linux. I still plan on creating a more detailed article in the future.

  2. John said 7 days later:

    Thx for the link! I tried it and it is a pretty neat and useful application :)

    btw. keep up the good work on the site

  3. Greg Lipscomb said 8 days later:

    Hey man, I like your site. This is a cool project

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