Arduino Basics: Making Sound

The arduino is surely the little micro controller that could. you can do so much with it! We at instructables have been having so much fun with our arduinos, we wanted to show the instructables community how to do some of the basics!

This first tutorial will go over how to make your arduino make simple sounds, and turn your arduino into mini tone generator.

Step 1: Supplies

For this tutorial you will need the following

1 small 8 ohm speaker
1 arduino board
1 push button
1 10 k resistor
some solid core wire

For my purposes, i used the adafruit protoshield to help me lay it out my stuff!

Step 2: Playing a Melody

First to get you started, you should run the default melody program so you you know what to expect from the arduino.

You can get the melody example from the arduino IDE. But just in case here is the code:

/*
Melody

Plays a melody

circuit:
* 8-ohm speaker on digital pin 8

created 21 Jan 2010
modified 14 Oct 2010
by Tom Igoe

This example code is in the public domain.

http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Tone

*/
#include "pitches.h"

// notes in the melody:
int melody[] = {
NOTE_C4, NOTE_G3,NOTE_G3, NOTE_A3, NOTE_G3,0, NOTE_B3, NOTE_C4};

// note durations: 4 = quarter note, 8 = eighth note, etc.:
int noteDurations[] = {
4, 8, 8, 4,4,4,4,4 };

void setup() {
// iterate over the notes of the melody:
for (int thisNote = 0; thisNote < 8; thisNote++) {

// to calculate the note duration, take one second
// divided by the note type.
//e.g. quarter note = 1000 / 4, eighth note = 1000/8, etc.
int noteDuration = 1000/noteDurations[thisNote];
tone(8, melody[thisNote],noteDuration);

// to distinguish the notes, set a minimum time between them.
// the note's duration + 30% seems to work well:
int pauseBetweenNotes = noteDuration * 1.30;
delay(pauseBetweenNotes);
// stop the tone playing:
noTone(8);
}
}

void loop() {
// no need to repeat the melody.
}
}

You'll also need a file that defines your tones, that should also be in the IDE but here it is. Just copy this text into a .h file in the same directory as your code:
/*************************************************
* Public Constants
*************************************************/

#define NOTE_B0 31
#define NOTE_C1 33
#define NOTE_CS1 35
#define NOTE_D1 37
#define NOTE_DS1 39
#define NOTE_E1 41
#define NOTE_F1 44
#define NOTE_FS1 46
#define NOTE_G1 49
#define NOTE_GS1 52
#define NOTE_A1 55
#define NOTE_AS1 58
#define NOTE_B1 62
#define NOTE_C2 65
#define NOTE_CS2 69
#define NOTE_D2 73
#define NOTE_DS2 78
#define NOTE_E2 82
#define NOTE_F2 87
#define NOTE_FS2 93
#define NOTE_G2 98
#define NOTE_GS2 104
#define NOTE_A2 110
#define NOTE_AS2 117
#define NOTE_B2 123
#define NOTE_C3 131
#define NOTE_CS3 139
#define NOTE_D3 147
#define NOTE_DS3 156
#define NOTE_E3 165
#define NOTE_F3 175
#define NOTE_FS3 185
#define NOTE_G3 196
#define NOTE_GS3 208
#define NOTE_A3 220
#define NOTE_AS3 233
#define NOTE_B3 247
#define NOTE_C4 262
#define NOTE_CS4 277
#define NOTE_D4 294
#define NOTE_DS4 311
#define NOTE_E4 330
#define NOTE_F4 349
#define NOTE_FS4 370
#define NOTE_G4 392
#define NOTE_GS4 415
#define NOTE_A4 440
#define NOTE_AS4 466
#define NOTE_B4 494
#define NOTE_C5 523
#define NOTE_CS5 554
#define NOTE_D5 587
#define NOTE_DS5 622
#define NOTE_E5 659
#define NOTE_F5 698
#define NOTE_FS5 740
#define NOTE_G5 784
#define NOTE_GS5 831
#define NOTE_A5 880
#define NOTE_AS5 932
#define NOTE_B5 988
#define NOTE_C6 1047
#define NOTE_CS6 1109
#define NOTE_D6 1175
#define NOTE_DS6 1245
#define NOTE_E6 1319
#define NOTE_F6 1397
#define NOTE_FS6 1480
#define NOTE_G6 1568
#define NOTE_GS6 1661
#define NOTE_A6 1760
#define NOTE_AS6 1865
#define NOTE_B6 1976
#define NOTE_C7 2093
#define NOTE_CS7 2217
#define NOTE_D7 2349
#define NOTE_DS7 2489
#define NOTE_E7 2637
#define NOTE_F7 2794
#define NOTE_FS7 2960
#define NOTE_G7 3136
#define NOTE_GS7 3322
#define NOTE_A7 3520
#define NOTE_AS7 3729
#define NOTE_B7 3951
#define NOTE_C8 4186
#define NOTE_CS8 4435
#define NOTE_D8 4699
#define NOTE_DS8 4978


Just upload it and hook up your speaker like you see here in the picture, positive to pin 8, negative to ground, you you'll hear a little tune.

For more on the tone tutorial check out this: http://arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/Tone

Step 3: The Tone Function

Playing music in the arduino introduces a function known as tone(). This function controls your ability to play music. In the code it will look something like this:

tone(pin, frequency, duration)
or
tone(pin, frequency)

Where pin is the pin the speaker is hooked up to, frequency is the tone in hertz and duration is how long, in milliseconds.

If you use the 2nd convention, to stop the sound you must have a noTone() function.

noTone(pin)

In the previous step for the melody, you had to include the pitches.h file. This file just gives you a variable for every tuned note in hertz so you don't have to work out basic notes. This makes writing songs much easier!

Step 4: The Simple Keyboard

We will continue this tutorial by making a simple one key keyboard. This project basically combines the elements that we know from making tones and puts them with the ability to push a button to make sound.

Take a look at both the pictures and the fritzing example for the wiring.

Here is the code i whipped up. I basically took the button tutorial and added in the tone function, Don't forget your pitches.h (unless you want to calculate your tone by hertz):

/* Simple Tone Keyboard
Gregg Horton 2011
*/
#include "pitches.h"
const int buttonPin = 2; // the number of the pushbutton pin
int note1 = NOTE_C4; // define note sound

// variables will change:
int buttonState = 0; // variable for reading the pushbutton status

void setup() {
// initialize the pushbutton pin as an input:
pinMode(buttonPin, INPUT);
}

void loop(){
// read the state of the pushbutton value:
buttonState = digitalRead(buttonPin);

// check if the pushbutton is pressed.
// if it is, the buttonState is HIGH:
if (buttonState == HIGH) {
// sound tone
tone(8, note1);
}
else {
//turn off sound
noTone(8);
}
}

one the code is loaded and the circuit is put together. you should be able to push the button and hear a C note. Take a look at this video for the example:

Step 5: Jam Out!

Now its time to jam out! If you want to add more notes, just add more buttons and more code. If you build your own arduino full keyboard post it in the comments.

Stay tuned for more Arduino Basics!