[music-dsp] Signed or Unsigned?

[Paul Maddox]

Joe,

>      I'm about to embark on developing YAAFPGA (yet another audio FPGA),
> and this time I'm trying not to tweak the hardware so badly that the
> software will suffer as a result. So, in this spirit, I'm wondering what
> everyone could live with regarding data types for audio. Due to hardware
> limitations, the source data coming from the oscillators is only going to
> be 16-bit data, but I'm debating on whether using signed two's compliment
> or unsigned binary. Any comments on this?

Signed gets my vote, makes doing thigns like real FM a lot simpler.

>      These oscillators will have the ability to import external wave data,
> to a degree - so I'm also trying to ease the conversion process from
> things like WAVs, AIFFs, etc.

to a degree?
I appreciate you can't say much, but can you ellaborate?

Paul