DSP and Setting the Sampling Frequency in Arduino

Hi, this is a very interesting question:

the stompband behind this MAX frequency should be attenuated more than 70dB according to dynamic range of ADC

This value from the theoretical SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) for an N-bit ADC: SNR=6.02×N+1.76 dB
Arduino DUE ADCs are 12 bits so: SNR= 6.02*12 +1.76 = 74dB.
So we should attenuate 74dB over 20KHz to remove unwanted frequencies. This is usually done using the so called "anti-aliasing" filter.

In the input stage of pedalSHIELD there are some filters to remove unwanted high freqs:
- In ADC0, C2&R4 remove harmonics over 5.8KHZ at 20dB/dec.
- In ADC1, there are C5&R8 in addition to C2&R4 attenuating at 20dB/dec over 5.8KHz.

So there are several conclusions:
- ADC1 should "sound better" than ADC0.
- The input stage does not satisfy the theoretical SNR formula. The guitar signal does not have a very high content in high frequencies to be removed (most of the commercial digital pedals cut harmonics over 5KHz).
- In the purist hi-fi style, its important to satisfy this 70dB formula because sometimes you are listening to a piece of music with very subtle-low-volume violins where the ADCs are using only few bits but in pedalSHIELDa the input stage also adds gain, so the guitar signal is always way higher than the background noise so the ADCs are using most of their bits.
- There are some mods that you can add to the pedalSHIELD PCB to remove more highs; caps from R3, R8 and R9 to GND to create a fc around 5.8KHz.


At the output stage of pedalSHIELD there are also RC filters to remove freqs over 5.8KHz rolling-off frequencies at 40dB/dec: R13C9, R14C8 and R17C12