In this project, we will learn how to use an Active Buzzer and a 4Duino to create an Electronic Piano. An active buzzer is an electric piezo device which is commonly used to produce sound. When subjected to an alternating electric field, a piezo ceramic material disc inside the buzzer is caused to stretch or compress, in accordance with the frequency of the signal thereby producing sound. Buzzers are widely ...

When S/PDIF became available in the Teensy Audio Library I thought this might be the solution to ground loop problems I’d been having when interfacing projects to my PC. However, I quickly realized I didn’t have any sound cards with an S/PDIF interface. In the belief that I’d rather build than buy I decided to update one of my previous projects, a PCM2904 based sound card, to include an S/PDIF interface. Th ...

This USB sound card that presents itself as C-Media is one of the cheapest sound cards available with price $1.1-$2 depending on vendor. Device markings: HX2010-0705, production date 40th week of 2013 (or later?). Device enumerates as composite device: sound card + HID input. HID input part is used for audio volume and mute control and it functionality is slightly broken - same as with multimedia keyboard i ...

Making cool things with an Arduino is something, but making musical instruments out of an Arduino is something else! So behold, here comes the Musical-duino, an Arduino keyboard. To see what this does, check out the demo video at the bottom of this page. They say that “You can become anyone”, so why not become Beethoven or Mozart? The only limit is your imagination. The DIY Arduino keyboard or the Musical-d ...

As a part of being an artist in residence at Instructables, I took it upon myself to build of couple of noise machines / music boxes. My interest lies in designing objects that would enable people to explore the world of sound synthesis and for me to get a better understanding on how the different interfaces enables different interactions and sound qualities. It has been an intense experience. Trying to bui ...

The Clapper was a popular gadget in the 80's and 90's. It let you turn appliances on and off just by clapping. This can be pretty useful, but it has some limitations. First there is the problem of loud noises accidentally turning the lights off. Also, you can't control multiple outlets independently of each other. So I decided to make programmable version of the Clapper using an Arduino microcontroller. The ...

The MEMS (microelectromechanical system) market is starting to motor. It grew at just over 10% last year and is likely to grow even faster this year. This is good news for the ‘newest’ semiconductor device market. But can it continue to grow at this rate? Market analyst Yole Développement has already warned of price pressures pegging back revenue growth over the next few years. According to Yole, price pres ...

Musical Instrument Shield description: Provides access to the VS1053 MP3/MIDI decoder hardwired in realtime MIDI mode. The VS1053 provides 31 note polyphony in 128 GM1 standard instruments along with 50 percussion instruments. Musical Instrument Shield specification: Schematic Eagle Files Quickstart Guide Example Code Datasheet (VS1053) Illumitune Project (tutorial) (video) Musical Instrument Shield pinout: ...

MP3 Shield description: The MP3 Shield wires your Arduino up to a VS1053D MP3 audio decoder IC, providing it with the ability to decode audio files. The VS1053 is also capable of decoding Ogg Vorbis/MP3/AAC/WMA/MIDI audio and encoding IMA ADPCM and user-loadable Ogg Vorbis. The VS1053 receives its input bitstream through a serial input bus (SPI). After the stream has been decoded by the IC, the audio is sen ...

MIDI Breakout Shield description: The MIDI Breakout board gives your Arduino access to the powerful MIDI communication protocol. The MIDI protocol shares many similarities with standard asynchronous serial interfaces, so you can use the UART pins of your microcontroller to send and receive MIDI event messages. The MIDI Breakout provides both MIDI-IN and MIDI-OUT connections, as well as a MIDI-THRU port. The ...

Danger Shield description: The Danger Shield contains a variety of fun and useful electronic circuits that you can use to do fun and useful things with Arduino. It is a fully self-contained shield. You plug it into your Arduino, and you can immediately start using it. No extra things to hook up, no external components. Danger Shield specification: 3 x linear sliders w/ integrated LEDs (each independently ho ...

Beat707 Shield description: 32 step machine, (plus 32 double-steps for a total of 64 steps) with 16 step buttons and LEDs, LCD screen and navigation keys. It\'s like the classic Roland TR707 but with some twists, as it actually has 64 x 1/32 or 32 x 1/64 steps. The 2 note-step sequence feature allows you to do bass and/or synth grooves. The unit doesn\'t produce any sound, it\'s all MIDI based, so you can u ...