Faust (Functional Audio Stream) is a functional programming language for sound synthesis and audio processing with a strong focus on the design of synthesizers, musical instruments, audio effects, etc. It is used in the academia and, of course, by musicians.
Faust has also been implemented on low-cost uC platforms like ESP32 and Teensy.
It can be and is used as a base for hardware-oriented workshops:
- Embedded DSP With Faust Workshop, Making Low Latency Guitar Pedals and Synthesizer Modules (Teensy based), CCRMA, Stanford University, 2019.
- DSP on the ESP32 with Faust
- DSP on the Teensy with Faust
- A Faust Architecture for the ESP32 Microcontroller, 2020.
As a "Hello World" I tried to implement the Faust ESP32 example on https://faustdoc.grame.fr/tutorials/esp32/.
I used VSCode as a code editor with the Microsoft C/C++ extension (which also installs CMake Tools) and the Espressif IDF Extension.
In Visual Studio Code, selecting menu "View" and "Command Palette" and typing [ESP-IDF: Configure ESP-IDF extension] installs the ESP-IDF and various prerequisites like idf-git and a suitable python version (which takes some time). I selected ESP-IDF version 4.3.6 and the suggested directories for the ESP-IDF container C:\Users\Christian\esp\esp-idf and the ESP-IDF Tools (IDF_TOOLS_PATH) C:\Users\Christian\.espressif. I copied the esp\esp-idf\examples folder to my working directory. This is also described in https://www.heise.de/ratgeber/Visual-Studio-Code-Installation-und-Konfiguration-fuer-ESP-IDF-6656091.html
When installation is completed, there is a new toolbar at the bottom of the VSCode window.
As the Faust tutorial describes the older version of the board, some details need to be changed as described by pschatzmann and in ESP32 Audio Kit Grundlagen (German). The differences between the AC101 and the ES8388 version are described in more detail in https://www.docdroid.net/L6LX9SK/esp32-a1s-esv23zh-cnen-pdf and in marcel-licence/esp32_midi_sampler#50 .
Although not mentioned in the tutorial, the ES8388 Codec is supported by faust2esp32.
In the board manager, install esp32