GoKawiilThe USB interface already had a 500 MHz Cortex-M7 inside it. I replaced its firmware, fitted A2-Lite into 128 KiB of FlexRAM, and measured the physical device against upstream NAMCore at −115.6 dB.
I Put NAM A2-Lite Inside an iRig HD X
The iRig HD X on my desk used to send guitar audio to another computer for processing. It does the amp modelling itself now.
Guitar → iRig codec → NAM A2-Lite → headphones or amplifier
The model runs on the 500 MHz microcontroller already inside the interface. USB supplies power. The wheel still controls the headphone volume. The sound coming out is a 5150 capture with an OD808 in front, rendered in real time inside the iRig.
Photo from IK Multimedia's official iRig HD X image gallery.
There was a computer in the interface
This started immediately after I rewrote the HD X's USB audio path. That work made the interface usable with the ESP32-S3 in my pedal prototype. Once I had a firmware readback and understood how the box moved audio, the larger chip on the board became hard to ignore.
The HD X is built around an NXP MIMXRT1011DAE5A: a 500 MHz Cortex-M7 with hardware floating point, tightly coupled memory, external QSPI flash, SAI audio and eDMA. Its normal job is to configure the codec, move samples and handle the controls. Most of the processor was waiting between audio interrupts.
NAM A2-Lite was designed for exactly this kind of machine. It is the compact member of the A2 family we use in Taurus: one recurrent amp model and 48 kHz audio. I used a 5150 capture with an OD808 in front by jp_is_out_of_tune that I had found online—the same model I had been using throughout the embedded tests.
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