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[on:]

Hi,

I want my robot to play some sound files when an event occurs.
I planned to get a Waveshield to do that, but then I saw the rMP3 shield, and now I'm not sure which shield to choose.

- The Waveshield has a physical pot for volume, and can play loud directly on a HP. Does the rMP3 signal need an amplificator ? Is the volume easily controlled by software ?

- The Waveshield uses more pins, whereas the rMP3 is controlled through serial. What does this mean on the software side ?

- The rMP3 appears more feature-rich, but as I'm not a code genius, I want something easy enough to use.

What do you think ?  

[Reply #1 on:]

I will explain a few things  :

Those two are not the only music playing shields you can buy.
The rMP3 is designed for high quality music and is, as you say, feature rich.
There are also other MP3 playing boards such as those from sparkfun but they do not include as many features. (Not that your application requires them)

For an application such as yours the wave shield is more appropriate, it is more designed to play sounds rather than the other boards that are designed for music.

Make your own choice there I suppose though. If it is going to be permenantly in this robot then the wave shield is probably the most appropriate but if you think you might only want it for that temporarily then I would recommend the rMP3 as there is a lot more you can do with it.

Do a bit more research on them and the other alternatives before you buy  

- The Waveshield has a physical pot for volume, and can play loud directly on a HP. Does the rMP3 signal need an amplificator ? Is the volume easily controlled by software ?

I have not had a problem with volume but if you wanted to play loud sounds then it may need some amplication (so may the wave shield). This also depends on the speakers you use. I have some nice non-powered philips stereo speakers which are loud for saying they are not powered but if you just connect a speaker up to it then it might be too quiet.

- The Waveshield uses more pins, whereas the rMP3 is controlled through serial. What does this mean on the software side ?

Just like you said  ;D
As far as I know, the rMP3 takes less processing on the arduino side as it has its own ATmega644 to take care of that. I have not used a wave shield though.

- The rMP3 appears more feature-rich, but as I'm not a code genius, I want something easy enough to use.

It is not tricky to use. Some of the fancy features can be a bit more tricky but there is this forum for help with things like that and there are examples you can use/look at to get an idea.

Mowcius

[Reply #2 on:]

I've used the Wave Shield.  It has a pretty steep learning curve (for this noob at least) but Adafruit did a good job putting up all the info you'd need on their webpage, so as long as you read it all you'll be fine.  They've got everything from how the shield was made and what each part does all the way up to sketch examples and sample code.

I agree with Mowcius, both do what you want and as long as this is staying with this one project and not going to get parted out to another project, I'd go with what ever is cheaper.

[Reply #3 on:]

Thanks to both of you.
I get the global message, but it is still unclear for me what the Waveshield advantages are.

If I'm right, the rMP3 takes less pins, less processing, (less programming, too ?), can play compressed files and can do data logging to the SD.

How is the Waveshield "more appropriate for playing sounds", Mowcius ?

Maybe I should mention that both price are ok for this project.

[Reply #4 on:]

How is the Waveshield "more appropriate for playing sounds", Mowcius ?

I suppose from that it is not.

I was going to say that the waveshield is faster at playing sounds but I doubt it is if you are playing .wav files on the rMP3.

So yeah after all that I would probably recommend the rMP3.

Not sure about which is easier to code for but the rMP3 will take less processor memory space...
Sounds from what Schmidtn is saying, it could be easier.

For playing sounds for example you would include the libraries, define the song file path then send the command to play it. It's almost that simple...

Mowcius

[Reply #5 on:]

Correct, the Wave Shield is super easy.

1) Download the library and put it in the library folder
2) Download a sample sketch off their webpage and gut the void loop() then when you want to play a wav file from your SD card you type;

playcomplete("[file name].WAV");

That's it.  

For your robot this would be a very simple, headache-free choice.  
It's a question of quality vs ease.

[Reply #6 on:]

I was saying that the rMP3 was easy  

[Reply #7 on:]

...oh... :-[

hahaha...

[Reply #8 on:]

Basically sounds pretty similar then.

[Reply #9 on:]

Yeah, I guess the only difference is price and quality, but he said price isn't a problem so go for the rMP3.

[Reply #10 on:]

Hi Vertigo,

I bought the rMP3, but I've only just received it so it's too early to comment on its ease of use, however I did buy it based on the favourable comments in these forums.

If you choose the rMP3, please post your experiences on these forums.

[Reply #11 on:]

Well I have it but I presume some of those experiences you read about were mine

[Reply #12 on:]

I want my robot to play some sound files when an event occurs

I suggest this sound file ->

sorry I couldn't resist  

[Reply #13 on:]

I'll go for the rMP3. I hope that, unlike Hal, it will be able to do what It's supposed to do

I probably will come back with report and/or questions in the rMP3 thread.

Thanks guys for your help.

[Reply #14 on:]

I probably will come back with report and/or questions in the rMP3 thread.

I'll get ready then

I have some projects done with mine to get videos of soon. Might try get them up in a few weeks.

Mowcius