How close is close enough when modeling analog ladder filters on a $1-class microcontroller?
Microcontrollers operate under strict computational constraints that fundamentally differ from desktop virtual analog environments. When implementing Moog-style ladder filters in such systems, defining and evaluating analog-likeness becomes a practical engineering challenge.
This work is motivated by the development of a virtual analog synthesizer running on an RP2350 microcontroller, designed to deliver a convincing analog feel. Practical evaluation metrics are consolidated, including resonance peak alignment, Q consistency, normalized harmonic spectra, level-dependent cutoff shift, and self-oscillation behavior. The talk also discusses how these metrics can be meaningfully and reproducibly measured.
Ladder filter implementations drawn from published algorithms, open-source audio libraries such as Teensy Audio Library, DaisySP, and JUCE, are ported to the RP2350 and evaluated against a SPICE circuit simulation serving as a reproducible analog reference. Measurement results are presented to examine how closely each implementation can approach analog behavior under strict hardware constraints.