MP3 recordable sound chip module

[Ross34]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MP3-Re-Recordable-Sound-Chip-Module-4MB-USB-Transfer-Model-making-crafts-gifts/292682749183

 

I was thinking about using this for ambient layout sound .. birdsong, traffic noise etc

I think I understand roughly how it works but my question is how loud would it be?... and if it isn't very loud how can could I increase volume?

 

Thanks

[mezzoman253]

The speaker is 0.5 Watt which would be adequate, for a home layout, I'd think. Although at full power it may distort somewhat.

 

You could add a small outboard amplifier if it wasn't loud enough.

 

Rob

[AY Mod]

A cheap MP3 player and speakers will give more storage and volume.

[Nigelcliffe]

A cheap player (or the device at top of thread) can only play one recording at a time.  For some people this is sufficient. 
A Raspberry PI, with the PiGame software (or other software of choice) can mix eight different sound files at once, to different levels, looping some, not looping others, to different stereo positions.  Can have more than eight files in the sequence, just only eight playing at any one time.   The GPIO pins on the PI are accessible in the PiGame software, so external buttons, or layout trigger switches, can cause the software to change what is played.    

[Ross34]

Thanks guys...

 

Nigel.. to be honest I had to Google "RaspberryPI" but it sure looks interesting.

[WIMorrison]

These are cost effective and they work 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TF-Card-MP3-GPD2846A-Decoder-Board-With-2W-Amplifier-Memory-Playback/293021290472?hash=item44396e0fe8:g:NCQAAOSwAzVcmJyr

 

and a card isn't dear either

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8GB-64GB-Micro-TF-Memory-Card-for-Android-Smartphone-Tablet-Class-10-SD-Card-lot/352876490070?hash=item522913ed56:m:m-iNbArbDZVoYgiTSb72NPw

 

I know that they work as I have some

 

[JimFin]

You can have great fun creating your sound tracks here -https://www.ambient-mixer.com/

 

 

[michaelp]

On 04/12/2019 at 19:25, WIMorrison said:

These are cost effective and they work 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TF-Card-MP3-GPD2846A-Decoder-Board-With-2W-Amplifier-Memory-Playback/293021290472?hash=item44396e0fe8:g:NCQAAOSwAzVcmJyr

 

and a card isn't dear either

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8GB-64GB-Micro-TF-Memory-Card-for-Android-Smartphone-Tablet-Class-10-SD-Card-lot/352876490070?hash=item522913ed56:m:m-iNbArbDZVoYgiTSb72NPw

 

I know that they work as I have some

 

These look interesting Iain, so how do you record onto them?

[melmerby]

On 04/12/2019 at 18:25, Ross34 said:

Thanks guys...

 

Nigel.. to be honest I had to Google "RaspberryPI" but it sure looks interesting.

A cheaper option would possibly be using an Arduino and add ons.

Arduinos are open source so anyone can make them with a result they can be bought for a pound or two, unlike a Raspberry Pi which are made in the UK by one company, so remain somewhat pricey.

IMHO Once a project has been developed you don't need all the extra complexity of a Raspberry Pi

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32672852945.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.672df028SgG45x&algo_pvid=26b554b7-8cb8-4b9d-a830-edd757457cdc&algo_expid=26b554b7-8cb8-4b9d-a830-edd757457cdc-3&btsid=a1a0e602-3bd9-4abf-a260-33f9b1fd4886&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_1,searchweb201603_55

 

There are loads of projects for model railways in the Arduino world.

 

 

[WIMorrison]

30 minutes ago, michaelp said:

These look interesting Iain, so how do you record onto them?

You stick the TF card into a SD carrier and then insert into your PC and just copy the music onto it.

 

Some computers have multi card readers that will accept these small phone sized cards.

[melmerby]

2 hours ago, WIMorrison said:

You stick the TF card into a SD carrier and then insert into your PC and just copy the music onto it.

 

Some computers have multi card readers that will accept these small phone sized cards.

Easier to think of it as a microSD card as TF is a proprietary name only used by SanDisk.

[Nigelcliffe]

15 hours ago, melmerby said:

A cheaper option would possibly be using an Arduino and add ons.

Arduinos are open source so anyone can make them with a result they can be bought for a pound or two, unlike a Raspberry Pi which are made in the UK by one company, so remain somewhat pricey.

IMHO Once a project has been developed you don't need all the extra complexity of a Raspberry Pi

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32672852945.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.0.0.672df028SgG45x&algo_pvid=26b554b7-8cb8-4b9d-a830-edd757457cdc&algo_expid=26b554b7-8cb8-4b9d-a830-edd757457cdc-3&btsid=a1a0e602-3bd9-4abf-a260-33f9b1fd4886&ws_ab_test=searchweb0_0,searchweb201602_1,searchweb201603_55

 

There are loads of projects for model railways in the Arduino world.

 

 

 

Can you point to some software or projects which can *mix* audio on the Arduino ?  eg. you have the noise of birds playing, and a layout event causes the dog to bark without the birds stopping, whilst at the same time, the noise of a lorry driving past ?     Only way I can see of doing it is to have one player for each of the sounds that are needed at the time, and triggering each Arduino to play its sound.  With the PI, I can easily mix eight sources from an arbitrarily large library of sounds, as well as move them around spatially. 

 

btw.  the PI is cheap in my view.   £35 for the full-feature does everything model, or well under £10 for the slightly slower and will do the audio stuff model. 

 

 

- Nigel

 

[WIMorrison]

Nigel

 

What you describe sounds interesting and I wonder if you have some details? How are you triggering the events and what program are you using on the Pi to achieve the results? I assume that you are amplifying the output somehow and that may be interesting to understand also - essentially a complete description of what you are doing and how you have achieved it

 

Iain

[Dave John]

Oddly I have recently been having a mess about with ambient sound. I wanted a relatively cheap solution since it might just annoy me and I would end up not using it. 

Anyway, a first play about. 

 

 

[Nigelcliffe]

16 minutes ago, WIMorrison said:

Nigel

 

What you describe sounds interesting and I wonder if you have some details? How are you triggering the events and what program are you using on the Pi to achieve the results? I assume that you are amplifying the output somehow and that may be interesting to understand also - essentially a complete description of what you are doing and how you have achieved it

 

Iain

 

Incomplete description follows, but hopefully enough to get started:

 

PI software:  PyGame, particularly the sound modules within it.   There are a lot of Raspberry Pi tutorials around, I found a lot of useful things in this one without it becoming complicated:

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/gpio-music-box

 

The tutorial covers the basics of connecting buttons to the GPIO pins (so those could be layout event devices, or control panel buttons), and playing multiple sound files simultaneously, mixing them.   Add in some reading of the PyGame sound module capabilities, and sound panning (left/right), fading in/out, looping, etc.. are all fairly simple to add. 

 

Sound comes out of either the audio jack (so needs amplifier, or powered speakers), or the HDMI slot (so uses speakers attached to a monitor/TV).  With the normal operating system settings, this is a simple setting to choose one or the other. 

 

What I've built so far is a proof of concept sound player.   
It has a general background sound from two sound files, of different lengths, which loop.  By being careful on their lengths, they won't re-loop to exactly the same place for many  days.   The levels of those two files go up/down using a fade on a pseudo random basis (each on a different random sequence).  If the level is above a "moderately high" threshold, then the louder sound is only held for a few seconds before it is reduced.   Thus, I have gulls getting loud on the shore, but then fade away fairly quickly before they get annoying.

Over the top of this are multiple event files, such as: rope/chain hauling noises, mechanical clanks/bangs, ships horn, conversation "babble" between people, etc..  These are triggered with push buttons attached to the GPIO pins, but may eventually be attached to layout events.   Some noises can be steered with button control to move left/right.   
The PI is configured to auto-start the PyGame application on startup, so turn on power and just wait for it to start.  There is a LED on a GPIO pin to indicate the sound player is running.  One GPIO attached button triggers a controlled "shutdown" of the PI, so it can be turned off safely.     Thus, when running, no need for screen, mouse, keyboard, etc..  Hence it could all run on a less than £10 Pi-Zero, rather than an "expensive" £35 Pi-3 or Pi-4.  

Not decided whether to do all the work to move a proof of concept to a usable layout device - depends in part on view of others involved in layouts as to whether they'd want it on the layout. 

 

 

- Nigel

 

 

[melmerby]

4 hours ago, Nigelcliffe said:

 

Can you point to some software or projects which can *mix* audio on the Arduino ?  eg. you have the noise of birds playing, and a layout event causes the dog to bark without the birds stopping, whilst at the same time, the noise of a lorry driving past ?     Only way I can see of doing it is to have one player for each of the sounds that are needed at the time, and triggering each Arduino to play its sound.  With the PI, I can easily mix eight sources from an arbitrarily large library of sounds, as well as move them around spatially. 

 

btw.  the PI is cheap in my view.   £35 for the full-feature does everything model, or well under £10 for the slightly slower and will do the audio stuff model. 

 

 

- Nigel

 

That's probably not on using my idea! Normal Arduinos don't do sound as there is no DAC on board (the Due has a 2ch one)

My thoughts were:

One Arduino + several MP3 boards each with a speaker located in a appropriate place (birdsong where there are trees, station announcements from the station building, traffic noise from a road etc.)

Triggers would run each sound using the Arduino as a programmable switching unit.

 

EDIT must check out the possibilities with my RPi 3B+ which I haven't done a lot with, apart from make a standalone DecoderPro unit.

Edited December 15, 2019 by melmerby

[Tim V]

I found some of those recordable Christmas/birthday cards. Gives you a 15 second(ish) sound chip, dead easy to record to using the microphone input. Remove that, use the sound out on the back of the computer. Dead easy to arrange to trigger it. used it for engine whistles etc. 

[Dava]

I'm experimenting with ambient railway sounds. Tne BBC has a fantastic sound effects archive of WAV files with over 200 railway recordings free for personal use, including steam, diesel, station and specific effects such as shunting.  Interior recordings of Class 40 startup at the end.

 

http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/?cat=trains

 

Here is a topical one: Inter-City 125, exterior, depart. (British Rail High Speed Train, Paxman Valenta Diesel engine.)

 http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/assets/07041140.wav

 

Dava