Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board - Volume

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Benchworm
 
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Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board - Volume

Post by Benchworm »

(Reference Product ID: 2220)

I chose one of these boards as a simple, low cost solution to add audio to a project and it has worked very well for my application. I am using the sound board WITHOUT a microcontroller. Just a power source and a series of momentary pushbuttons to trigger various sounds, and adjust the volume.

My question is about the output volume of the board. My project provides buttons connected to the VOL+ and VOL- pins, but their behavior is different from what I'd expect. By the way, all pushbuttons in this project switch to GND when closed, as directed.

I assumed that the board would power up at some mid-or-low-range volume setting but it would appear that it powers on at full volume? After I power up my project, it appears that pressing VOL+ does not further increase the volume but pressing VOL- will in fact decrease the volume, which leads me to believe the board powers up at full volume or very close to it?

Can someone please confirm what the default power-on volume setting is when this board is used WITHOUT a microcontroller?

Thanks!
BW

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board - Volume

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

You are correct. The board does default to full volume at power-up.

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Benchworm
 
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Re: Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board - Volume

Post by Benchworm »

I had to take a bit of time away from this project and now I'm getting back to it. I wanted to thank you for providing support so quickly, and clearing up my issue. Now that I know that what I'm seeing the normal function of the board, I can design around that.

I have hit another issue with this sound board. I added a big "emergency stop" button and installed it so that it connects the RST pin to GND when pressed. My project is connected to a powerful audio amplifier and rather loud speakers, so I thought a button to terminate the audio playback was a good idea.

I am having a serious problem with this configuration. If the board is playing a file that is named *_LATCH- that is, a latched looping sound, pressing this reset button will briefly stop the playing sound but the board will almost immediately resume playing the looping sound at MAX volume, no matter what volume (always considerably lower than MAX) I was using to play the sound. So instead of being an emergency stop as I had imagined, the big plunger causes the sound board to boot back up and resume playing the sound VERY loudly.

Is this the proper, intended behavior of the RST pin?

If I use my battery cut-off switch to kill power to the board, I must leave it switched off for many seconds (IF a *latch sound was playing) or when I switch battery power back on, the board will come on at full volume and resume playing the sound, in the same way as when the RST pin is used. So is this an issue with capacitance?

Should I be using a different file suffix other than "latch" for my looping sounds?

Thanks again!

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board - Volume

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

I'm not familiar with the internal operation of the firmware on this board and how it handles a reset. But I can check with the designers of the board.

In the meantime, you might try trying some of the more advanced triggering techniques here:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-aud ... triggering

For example, you could have a 'foreground' loop that is an empty sound file and have your emergency stop trigger that: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-aud ... nd-1137392

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adafruit2
 
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Re: Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board - Volume

Post by adafruit2 »

sounds like the RAM isnt getting cleared when hitting reset.

what you can do is use it to cut power (second option) and, as long as you don't care about battery life because its plugged in, add a 1K 'draining' resistor between the power and ground pins so it really flushes out the power.

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