FPGA as instrument

[Altera_Forum]

I was wondering if a DE2-kit with a touch-screen, such as the Terasic one, could be used to create a melody instrument out of the FPGA. This would mean that the touch screen responds to touch, and produces notes depending on the geographic position of the finger. A sort of "touch keyboard".  

 I should mention that this is a part of a project in my micro controllers course.  So what my question boils down to is primary; Could this in some way could be possible? Secondary: What would be the workload (approx amount of hours spent) of such a project?

[Altera_Forum]

--- Quote Start ---  I was wondering if a DE2-kit with a touch-screen, such as the Terasic one, could be used to create a melody instrument out of the FPGA. This would mean that the touch screen responds to touch, and produces notes depending on the geographic position of the finger. A sort of "touch keyboard".   I should mention that this is a part of a project in my micro controllers course.  So what my question boils down to is primary; Could this in some way could be possible? Secondary: What would be the workload (approx amount of hours spent) of such a project?  --- Quote End ---    I am pretty sure this is possible as I've implemented many different sound effects in the past on the DE2 board.  I have never worked with a touch-screen before so I wouldn't know if the interface is suitable for the DE2 or how many resources it will take up. probably depends on the touch screen interface itself, but I recon its not gonna be too much resources.  Generating sound from some kind of sine lookup table in the FPGA shouldn't be too hard. I suppose including connecting the audio codec plus connecting the touch screen interface plus making some kind of sine look up table should take you between one and three weeks depending on your skill level. Then I can imagine you let the frequency of the sound respond to one axis and the volume on the other. If you want to do stuff like adding some LP filter on the second axis, then I suppose its gonna take some more time. If you want to create like a full Kaospad like Korg has, I suppose you'll be able to keep yourself busy for half a year :)  Good luck!

[Altera_Forum]

Thank you for your answer! Very helful, indeed! :) 

 Edit: And yes; I was thinking more in the lines of a Kaospad, with a fancy GUI and maybe a midibank for some nice sounding tones. This is cleary too ambitious for me at my skill level, but it's always good having it narrowed down by skilled people.

[Altera_Forum]

thanks guys