1SheeldToday I will make a detailed comparison between our Music Player Shield in 1Sheeld, and SparkFun Mp3 Player Shield.
I will cover the getting started points for each one, till you can play and pause music using both of them, and I’ve summarized the points of comparison between both shields in the table below:
| P.O.C |
SparkFun Mp3 Player shield | 1Sheeld Music Player shield |
| Length of code | 233 lines | 124 lines |
| Code memory size |
16KB | 7KB |
| No. of libraries | 4 | 1 |
| Max no. of tracks | 9 | As many as your smartphone can handle |
| File names | DOS 8.3 format (track001~track009) | Any file name |
| Files must be in root | Yes | No |
| Call a certain track | Yes | No |
| Complexity
|
Many functions built to make certain operation
obj.isPlaying() the object is taken from the library after initializing it. |
1 Line of code
|
| Tracks bitrates | Certain bitrate (192 kbps is recommended) | Any bitrate |
| Reserved pins |
10 pins |
2 pins |
| Soldered pin headers |
No | Yes |
| SD card required | Yes | No |
| Price |
$25 | $55 |
The first one is SparkFun Mp3 Player Shield, it depends on the VS1053B MP3 audio decoder which is an IC to decode audio files.
You can buy the shield from here but it comes without pin headers, so I recommend to get the needed ones from here.
After getting them, now we are ready to start the tutorial.
As the shield does not come with the pin headers, I assume to give the ability for makers to put it in PCBs, we have to get male-female pin headers and solder them to the shield using a soldering iron and solder.
Voila! That’s how it looks after soldering it.
In my case I am using an Arduino UNO board.
Get a micro SD card of any size and format it into FAT16 or FAT32. The default state of an SD card is to be formatted to one of them, but I recommend formatting it just in case.
Now it’s time to add some mp3 files to the SD card, but you have to consider the following:
1- The added files must be added to the root of the SD card not in any sub folder.
2- Only 9 tracks can be added and with a dedicated names in the DOS format of 8.3; 8 for the characters and 3 for the extension. So you have to rename your tracks from track001.mp3 to track009.mp3. Although this is an extra step, it allows you to play a certain file with its name.
3- The mp3 files must be compressed into a certain bitrate which describes your audio file resolution.
Check the datasheet (beginning in section 8 on page 26), to make sure your audio files are supported.
You can compress your audio file online here.
There are 4 libraries used to operate the Mp3 Player shield:
1- SPI : This library is already found in your IDE and used for the communication between SDcard and the Arduino.
2- SdFat : This library used to be able to deal with files in Fat format in the SD card.
3- SdFatUtil : This is an extra library added to the SdFat library.
4- SFEMP3Shield : This library simplifies the task of interfacing with the VS1053 and using the MP3 Player Shield.
Download SFEMP3Shield Arduino library, it is written by Bill Porter and it’s an amazing library for that shield and combined with the SdFat library which also included in the Github folder.
SdFat library is the library responsible for dealing with fat files in the SD card.
After downloading the library, unzip the whole folder then you will find two folders having both the libraries, SFEMP3Shield and SdFat. Copy both folders into your Arduino libraries directory then close the Arduino IDE and reopen it again.
Write the code then upload it to your board, but you have to check the library first if you are not using the Arduino UNO board to check if the library is compatible with your board and if yes, you have to change some parameters in it and you can find all of that in the library documentation here.
If you faced any trouble with the code, you can visit Bill’s webpage which offers a lot of troubleshooting hints.
Code: –
You have to initialize two functions one to initialize the SD card and the other to initialize the Music player
and then call them in your void setup after taking an object from both SdFat and SFEMP3Shield libraries
Then you have to check the order of the pressed switch and for every order play the corresponding track to it after stopping the whole music player and if you pressed the last ordered switch it will stop the music player.
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/* MP3 Shield Trigger by: Jim Lindblom SparkFun Electronics date: September 23, 2013 This is an example MP3 trigger sketch for the SparkFun MP3 Shield. Pins 0, 1, 5, 10, A0, A1, A2, A3, and A4 are setup to trigger tracks "track001.mp3", "track002.mp3", etc. on an SD card loaded into the shield. Whenever any of those pins are shorted to ground, their respective track will start playing. When a new pin is triggered, any track currently playing will stop, and the new one will start. A5 is setup to globally STOP playing a track when triggered. If you need more triggers, the shield's jumpers on pins 3 and 4 (MIDI-IN and GPIO1) can be cut open and used as additional trigger pins. Also, because pins 0 and 1 are used as triggers Serial is not available for debugging. Disable those as triggers if you want to use serial. Much of this code was grabbed from the FilePlayer example included with the SFEMP3Shield library. Major thanks to Bill Porter and Michael Flaga, again, for this amazing library! */ #include <SPI.h> // SPI library #include <SdFat.h> // SDFat Library #include <SdFatUtil.h> // SDFat Util Library #include <SFEMP3Shield.h> // Mp3 Shield Library SdFat sd; // Create object to handle SD functions SFEMP3Shield MP3player; // Create Mp3 library object // These variables are used in the MP3 initialization to set up // some stereo options: const uint8_t volume = 0; // MP3 Player volume 0=max, 255=lowest (off) const uint16_t monoMode = 1; // Mono setting 0=off, 3=max /* Pin setup */ #define TRIGGER_COUNT 9 int triggerPins[TRIGGER_COUNT] = {0, 1, 5, 10, A0, A1, A2, A3, A4}; int stopPin = A5; // This pin triggers a track stop. int lastTrigger = 0; // This variable keeps track of which tune is playing void setup() { /* Set up all trigger pins as inputs, with pull-ups activated: */ for (int i=0; i<TRIGGER_COUNT; i++) { pinMode(triggerPins[i], INPUT_PULLUP); } pinMode(stopPin, INPUT_PULLUP); initSD(); // Initialize the SD card initMP3Player(); // Initialize the MP3 Shield } // All the loop does is continuously step through the trigger // pins to see if one is pulled low. If it is, it'll stop any // currently playing track, and start playing a new one. void loop() { for (int i=0; i<TRIGGER_COUNT; i++) { if ((digitalRead(triggerPins[i]) == LOW) && ((i+1) != lastTrigger)) { lastTrigger = i+1; // Update lastTrigger variable to current trigger /* If another track is playing, stop it: */ if (MP3player.isPlaying()) MP3player.stopTrack(); /* Use the playTrack function to play a numbered track: */ uint8_t result = MP3player.playTrack(lastTrigger); // An alternative here would be to use the // playMP3(fileName) function, as long as you mapped // the file names to trigger pins. if (result == 0) // playTrack() returns 0 on success { // Success } else // Otherwise there's an error, check the code { // Print error code somehow, someway } } } // After looping through and checking trigger pins, check to // see if the stopPin (A5) is triggered. if (digitalRead(stopPin) == LOW) { lastTrigger = 0; // Reset lastTrigger // If another track is playing, stop it. if (MP3player.isPlaying()) MP3player.stopTrack(); } } // initSD() initializes the SD card and checks for an error. void initSD() { //Initialize the SdCard. if(!sd.begin(SD_SEL, SPI_HALF_SPEED)) sd.initErrorHalt(); if(!sd.chdir("/")) sd.errorHalt("sd.chdir"); } // initMP3Player() sets up all of the initialization for the // MP3 Player Shield. It runs the begin() function, checks // for errors, applies a patch if found, and sets the volume/ // stero mode. void initMP3Player() { uint8_t result = MP3player.begin(); // init the mp3 player shield if(result != 0) // check result, see readme for error codes. { // Error checking can go here! } MP3player.setVolume(volume, volume); MP3player.setMonoMode(monoMode); } |
And as you see in the code which is written by Jim Lindblom, we are using 10 pins as 10 Push buttons (0,1,5,10, A0~A4) for playing the nine tracks in the SD card and the push button on A5 to stop the music player.
Since these are the only available pins for programming in the Arduino Uno, as the shield has reserved all the rest of the 10 pins, whether in the communication with the SD card or with the speaker, or even with the Arduino as you see in below picture.
Connect the circuit as shown in the picture below. I’m not using any resistors as I am using the internal pull-up resistance in the code, so the push buttons are connected directly to the ground.
Now, moving on to our super Arduino shield: 1Sheeld, accessing the music player shield.
For anyone who does not know about 1Sheeld, it is a board that connects your smartphones sensors and peripherals to the Arduino, allowing your smartphone to control Arduino and Arduino to control anything on your phone.
The most important thing in 1Sheeld, is that you can make a lot of amazing things with only 1 line of code!
So, here we are going to control the music player shield in your smartphone and we will show you how you can play music with only 1 command and how to stop it with another one.
You can get your 1Sheeld on Amazon.
You will find two versions of it the 1Sheeld for Android phones and the 1Sheeld+ for iOS and Android phones from 4.3 and above.
Now let’s get started with the 1Sheeld
Warning! If you have an Arduino that works on 3.3V then you must make your 1Shield
to work on the 3.3V mode since it may damage your board.
You can check how to mount 1Sheeld to different Arduino board from this tutorial.
Download the 1Sheeld library from here and after unzipping it, copy the folder to your libraries directory.
Download the 1Sheeld mobile app from the website or you can visit Apple play store or Google play store to get the app.
The code here is using 3 push buttons one to play and the second to play the next track and the third one to stop the music player and to get more experienced with the music player shield you can check the shield documentation here.
code:-
You only need to initialize the communication in the void setup then you can play a track or the next one or stop it
with only 1 line of code for each operation.
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/* Music Player Shield Example This example shows an application on 1Sheeld's music player shield. By using this example, you can play and pause music from your smartphone or playing the next track using 3 hardware push buttons. OPTIONAL: To reduce the library compiled size and limit its memory usage, you can specify which shields you want to include in your sketch by defining CUSTOM_SETTINGS and the shields respective INCLUDE_ define. */ #define CUSTOM_SETTINGS #define INCLUDE_MUSIC_PLAYER_SHIELD /* Include 1Sheeld library. */ #include <OneSheeld.h> /* A name for the button on pin 12. */ int buttonPin1 = 12; /* A name for the button on pin 11. */ int buttonPin2 = 11; /* A name for the button on pin 10. */ int buttonPin3 = 10; void setup() { /* Start communication. */ OneSheeld.begin(); /* Set the two buttons pins as input. */ pinMode(buttonPin1,INPUT_PULLUP); pinMode(buttonPin2,INPUT_PULLUP); pinMode(buttonPin3,INPUT_PULLUP); } void loop() { /* Always check button 1 state. */ if(digitalRead(buttonPin1) == HIGH) { /* Turn on the music. */ MusicPlayer.play(); /* Wait for 300 ms. */ OneSheeld.delay(300); } /* Always check button 1 state. */ if(digitalRead(buttonPin2) == HIGH) { /* Turn on the music. */ MusicPlayer.next(); /* Wait for 300 ms. */ OneSheeld.delay(300); } /* Always check button 2 state. */ if(digitalRead(buttonPin3) == HIGH) { /* Turn off the music. */ MusicPlayer.pause(); /* Wait for 300 ms. */ OneSheeld.delay(300); } } |
After writing the code, make sure to set 1Sheeld UART switch to the upload mode before you upload your code on Arduino.
After uploading the code, the 1Sheeld is not ready to work until you switch it back to the operating-mode.
Operating mode is turned on when the UART switch is pushed towards 1Sheeld logo.
Open 1Sheeld application on your Android phone or iOS device.
The application will first scan over bluetooth for your 1Sheeld, it will take a few seconds and the phone will find it.
Once it appears on your screen as 1Sheeld #xxxx, you will be required to enter the pairing code (the default pairing code is 1234) and connect to 1Sheeld via bluetooth.
Select the shields you would like to use in your Arduino sketch (project) and press on the multiple shields icon at the top right of the app.
In this case, use Music Player shield.
Add as many mp3 files as you want!
As we are using the internal pull-up in the code so we are connecting the push buttons to the ground.
Check out my other comparisons:
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