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    Arduino Lesson 10. Making Sounds: Created by Simon Monk

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    pedja
    Arduino lessons

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Arduino Lesson 10. Making Sounds: Created by Simon Monk

    Uploaded by

    pedja
    62 views10 pages
    Arduino lessons

    Original Title

    adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds

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    © © All Rights Reserved

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    Arduino lessons

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    62 views10 pages

    Arduino Lesson 10. Making Sounds: Created by Simon Monk

    Uploaded by

    pedja
    Arduino lessons

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 10

    Arduino Lesson 10.

    Making Sounds
    Created by Simon Monk

    Last updated on 2018-08-22 03:32:18 PM UTC


    Guide Contents

    Guide Contents 2
    Overview 3
    Parts 4
    Part 4
    Qty 4
    Playing a Scale 5
    Sound 7
    Pseudo-Theremin 8
    Arduino Code 9
    Other Things to Do 10

    © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds Page 2 of 10


    Overview
    In this lesson, you will learn how to make sounds with your Arduino. First you will make the Arduino play a 'musical'
    scale and then combine this with a photocell, to make a Theremin-like instrument that changes the pitch played as you
    wave your hand over the photocell.

    © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds Page 3 of 10


    Parts
    Part
    Qty

    1 kΩ Resistor (brown, black, red stripes)


    1

    Piezo sounder

    Photocell (Light Dependent Resistor)


    1

    Half-size Breadboard
    1

    Arduino Uno R3
    1

    Jumper wire pack


    1

    © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds Page 4 of 10


    Playing a Scale
    For the first part of this lesson, the only thing on the breadboard is the Piezo buzzer. One pin of the piezo sounder
    goes to GND connection and the other to digital pin 12.

    Program your Arduino with the following sketch:

    © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds Page 5 of 10


    /*
    Adafruit Arduino - Lesson 10. Simple Sounds
    */

    int speakerPin = 12;

    int numTones = 10;


    int tones[] = {261, 277, 294, 311, 330, 349, 370, 392, 415, 440};
    // mid C C# D D# E F F# G G# A

    void setup()
    {
    for (int i = 0; i < numTones; i++)
    {
    tone(speakerPin, tones[i]);
    delay(500);
    }
    noTone(speakerPin);
    }

    void loop()
    {
    }

    To play a note of a particular pitch, you specify the frequency. See the following section on sound. The different
    frequencies for each note are kept in an array. An array is like a list. So, a scale can be played by playing each of the
    notes in the list in turn.

    The 'for' loop will count from 0 to 9 using the variable 'i'. To get the frequency of the note to play at each step, we use
    'tone[i]'. This means, the value in the 'tones' array at position 'i'. So, for example, 'tones[0]' is 261, 'tones[1]' is 277 etc.

    The Arduino command 'tone' takes two parameters, the first is the pin to play the tone on and the second is the
    frequency of the tone to play.

    When all the notes have been played, the 'noTone' command stops that pin playing any tone.

    We could have put the tone playing code into 'loop' rather than 'setup', but frankly the same scale being played over
    and over again gets a bit tiresome. So in this case, 'loop' is empty.

    To play the tune again, just press the reset button.

    © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds Page 6 of 10


    Sound
    Sound waves are vibrations in the air pressure. The speed of the vibrations (cycles per second or Hertz) is what makes
    the pitch of the sound. The higher the frequency of the vibration, the higher the pitch.

    Middle C is usually defined as a frequency of 261 Hz. If you turn a digital output on and off again 261 times every
    second then that output will be middle C.

    To hear the output, we need to attach something that will convert the electrical signal into sound waves. This can be
    done with a loudspeaker or as we have used here a piezo sounder.

    Piezo sounders use a special crystal that expands and contracts as an electrical signal passes through it. This will
    generate a tone that we can hear.

    © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds Page 7 of 10


    Pseudo-Theremin
    The Theramin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theremin (https://adafru.it/aTB)) is a musical instrument that makes spooky
    synthesized sounds as you wave your hands in front of it. It was used in the theme music for the original Star Trek
    series.

    We are going to make a similar instrument, albeit a lot less musical, but it will change the pitch of the note as you wave
    your hand in front of it.

    We can leave the piezo sounder where it is, attached directly to the Arduino, but we will need the breadboard for the
    photocell and resistor that are going to control the pitch.

    © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds Page 8 of 10


    Arduino Code
    Upload the following code on to your Arduino board.

    /*
    Adafruit Arduino - Lesson 10. Pseudo Thermin
    */

    int speakerPin = 12;


    int photocellPin = 0;

    void setup()
    {
    }

    void loop()
    {
    int reading = analogRead(photocellPin);
    int pitch = 200 + reading / 4;
    tone(speakerPin, pitch);
    }

    The sketch is actually really straightforward. We simply take an analog reading from A0, to measure the light intensity.
    This value will be in the range of something like 0 to 700.

    We add 200 to this raw value, to make 200 Hz the lowest frequency and simply add the reading divided by 4 to this
    value, to give us a range of around 200Hz to 370Hz.

    © Adafruit Industries https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-arduino-lesson-10-making-sounds Page 9 of 10


    Other Things to Do
    Try changing the value 4 in the line below to lower and higher values.

    int pitch = 200 + reading / 4;

    This will expand or restrict the range of frequencies.

    Returning to the first sketch, try and modify it to play a tune. Hint, you can just change the values in the 'tones' array.
    Note that if you change the number of notes from 10 notes, then you will need to change 'numTones' accordingly.

    https://adafru.it/aUr
    https://adafru.it/aUr

    About the Author

    Simon Monk is author of a number of books relating to Open Source Hardware. The following books written by Simon
    are available from Adafruit: Programming Arduino (http://adafru.it/1019), 30 Arduino Projects for the Evil
    Genius (http://adafru.it/868) and Programming the Raspberry Pi (https://adafru.it/aM5).

    © Adafruit Industries Last Updated: 2018-08-22 03:32:13 PM UTC Page 10 of 10

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