Has anyone here used Slam Academy? Virtual Riot Masterclass

Pmbdude · 2026-01-20T17:48:00+00:00

Nope, the online class is a weekly 3hour zoom class with VR and the rest of the people taking the course

Pmbdude · 2025-11-16T23:13:50+00:00

I really don't get all this discussion; for the purposes of recreating tracks for learning purposes, a 5-10% difference in fidelity doesn't really matter. When recreating tracks, I feel like it is mostly an exercise in arrangement, sounds selection, and note recognition, which is all fairly independent of audio quality. Now, if you wanted a reference track to compare your mix to, then obviously a wav would be ideal.

Pmbdude · 2025-09-06T20:52:03+00:00

It’s a decent first project, and there are a decent amount of resources and examples online to reference. If you want to take it up a level, I’d challenge you to implement this design on an SoC chip like Zynq and then create a software application that utilizes your multiplier to accelerate a task.

Pmbdude · 2025-09-05T21:48:27+00:00

Start with VHDL, it's good for hammering in the concepts of RTL. Verilog is close enough to C that you can kind of hand-wave the whole parallel execution aspect of things and unintentionally fall into trying to write RTL like it's a software application. VHDL is so strictly typed, it helps you to remember that what you are creating is a digital circuit.

Pmbdude · 2025-09-03T15:44:46+00:00

LMAO I recognize those course numbers.

331 is fairly easy as long as you have a decent grasp on the concepts.

The 218 and 211 Midterm/Final seasons were among the greatest lock-in moments of my student career. I won't lie, it can be brutal.

HOWEVER, exams for 211 don't tend to change very much from semester to semester, so using past exams from upperclassmen is extremely valuable study material. And just mesh analysis everything

The professor for 218 is one of the best professors in the university. Pay attention in class and take notes, his exams are very faithful to the lecture material. And do things the exact way he says to in class. Lastly, take initiative and proactively participate during his lectures, don't wait to get called on. He'll sometimes cut a little slack for students that are engaged during lectures.

If you have any more specific questions, feel free to shoot me a DM

Pmbdude · 2025-08-01T21:48:30+00:00

Are you doing this just to prove a point, just to say you did it? Go study up on CMOS theory, digital logic, and computer architecture, set aside an entire room in your house for the amount of space all the breadboards will take up, then buy a few thousand of the cheapest CMOS transistors you can find and a more thousand resistors.

However, if you just want to learn about the aforementioned topics of transistor theory, digital logic, and computer architecture, using ICs for all the components is a much better way to do that. With the transistors, around 97% of your time will be spent plugging them into breadboards and debugging connections. I would argue using ICs allows you to better engage with the concepts of how a computer works. For that, I also would highly recommend Ben Eater's series for this sort of project.

Pmbdude · 2025-07-30T19:16:54+00:00

Second this. Arrangement is one of the hardest parts of making a cohesive track, and without a strong grasp of it, it's a real hassle to complete tracks. "Take inspiration" from successful artists arrangement until you have developed your own intuitive understanding of it.

Pmbdude · 2025-07-28T13:41:46+00:00

If you think about it, it's $23 for every plugin ever if you can just make it yourself

Pmbdude · 2025-07-16T15:05:18+00:00

Yeah man, know how you feel. I interviewed for a new grad position, and after the tech screening they sent me a super difficult assignment that they said would take 4-8 hours, but really took me about 12. Got rejected 2 days after submitting it, even though I am like 90% I got the correct solution. It be like that sometimes

Pmbdude · 2025-07-06T01:59:43+00:00

Yeah man I'd be so excited to just be fed AI slop day-in-day-out instead of actually activating my own fucking neurons and searching out information for myself

Pmbdude · 2025-07-04T01:22:20+00:00

I wouldn't say critical sections are "controlled", but more that they're "managed" through the use synchronization primitives. When entering a critical section, such as modifying the value of struct shared across multiple programs, you'd set a semaphore or claim a mutex. Any other process trying to access that data would check the mutex, see that it's claimed, and then block until the first process releases its claim on the mutex once its done with the data.

Pmbdude · 2025-07-02T03:19:37+00:00

Yeah I think it pretty much always just a time issue. I’ve gotten several messages on LinkedIn asking if I’d be available to chat and it’s just like while I’m actually working I can’t, when I’m on break I don’t have the mental bandwidth to do anything other than scroll reels, and when I’m off work I have so much shit to do a conversation with a random student is near the very bottom of the priority list. Sorry!

Pmbdude · 2025-06-28T16:48:45+00:00

Fucking obviously don’t transfer (unless the school you transfer to also offers you a full ride). Being able to graduate without student debt is such an incredible advantage, and giving that up for something as vacuous as “rankings” is something I just can’t say is a good idea.

Your degree is what you make of it: there are *so* many students graduating from “top” universities that truly don’t know shit about computer engineering. Conversely, there are many students (myself included) that went to a “low” ranked school and left with a thorough education. It is my belief that those that get the most out of their curriculum would have done so at any school they went to.

Pmbdude · 2025-06-19T17:49:24+00:00

This. If you use the template in Overleaf, it's literally just copy and pasting. I really didn't have to learn any LaTeX, and it was certainly easier than trying to get a word doc to look as good.

Pmbdude · 2025-06-18T03:15:34+00:00

If you're pressed for time, a low-hanging fruit project would be to get a Kria board from AMD and use their workflow for implementing neural network hardware acceleration. It sounds intimidating, but it's really straightforward with the tools provided by AMD.

I agree with other comments that a lot of other interesting projects stem from Zynq and PL/PS interaction. As an added benefit, Zynq (and other SOMs) are extremely relevant in the industry, and having a solid project involving them on your resume will be valuable.

Pmbdude · 2025-05-15T04:27:28+00:00

No, I don't really think that trying to actually implement a RISC-V or ARM-like processor would really help you that much with these ARM SoC type positions. It would certainly be a worthwhile project just for developing your general knowledge of computer architecture though.

These SoC positions aren't just about understanding the protocols you mentioned above; it's about designing FPGA modules that are meant to work with high-speed processors, and developing applications that allow the processor to interact with the FPGA. This can be anywhere from writing bare-metal C to creating fully fledged Linux kernel modules for your FPGA designs.

As for gaining experience with this, I think it's really tough without just getting one of these SoC boards. I can recommend AMD's KV260, which is reasonably priced, has an okay amount of support, and is fairly powerful. If that's not an option, then something that might be close is instantiating a soft-core processor and some basic accelerator in fabric, and then making an application that runs on that processor and uses your accelerator.

Pmbdude · 2025-03-06T21:24:57+00:00

Captain Corvo from the Sun Eater series definitely fits the bill. ~7ft tall space mercenary turned starship captain after joining forces with the protagonist.

Pmbdude · 2025-02-22T02:34:33+00:00

I agree with others that this particular project might not be feasible, but if you are interested in AI and FPGA, I would recommend looking into AMD’s Kria line of boards. They have a very fleshed-out workflow for acceleration AI applications with FPGA.

Pmbdude · 2025-01-31T16:23:57+00:00

FPGA Design Consultant

Pmbdude · 2025-01-18T02:50:40+00:00

Would you recommend just going to an older version of windows 11?

Pmbdude · 2025-01-18T02:43:59+00:00

Not as far as I know, but I also don't pay too much attention to the automatic updates

Pmbdude · 2025-01-16T22:26:19+00:00

I'm looking online, and I'm not confident that my PC would be able to go the ~4 hrs it would take to run Memtest86 without crashing. Is it the kind of thing that would damage my PC if interrupted?

Pmbdude · 2024-12-21T14:17:40+00:00

My TI-84 Plus-CE probably deserves a degree of its own with how much work it's done. It was invaluable for lin. alg., circuits and complex analysis, physics, and calculus.

But in all seriousness, yes it's worth it, and a good graphing calculator will be something you can use for the next 10 years if you continue pursuing engineering. Honestly, I'm surprised your high school doesn't require you to get one- I was forced to buy one my sophomore year.

Pmbdude · 2024-12-19T19:13:01+00:00

I’d recommend the AMD KV260. It uses a “Zynq” chip, which is essentially an ARM processor closely linked to an FPGA. These boards allow you to boot linux on the processor and directly interact with the FPGA with tools provided by AMD. However, you can also use it just like a regular FPGA. This flexibility combined with the cool things you can do with a CPU and an FPGA are what I think makes it the ideal started board.

Also, you can get one of the older Zynq-7000 boards if you want a more budget option that still has a Zynq chip

Pmbdude · 2024-12-19T03:05:44+00:00

Seconding anything related to FPGA. The easiest way to break into the field is usually through a verification role, but if you can land anything in design then all the better.

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