Help with Arduino Audio Output

Other Hardware Audio
1

Hey guys.

I'm working on a project and have run into a bit of a hurdle. I'm building a musical instrument (using Arduino) which translates video messages into audio. I constructed a circuit in which Arduino reads the serial values from three photocells and adjusts the pitch of the sound based on those values. It's relatively simple now, as I am only generating the default tones through a small, 8 ohm speaker.

I'm wondering what the process would be to assign a note or sampled tone to each analog input and manipulate that pitch through the speaker. Is it as simple as adding a tone library or is it more complex? Should I pursue this course of action or use a serial to MIDI converter and play the audio through my computer? These are the questions I'd like to get some feedback on.

Thanks.

2

through a small, 8 ohm speaker.

Not connected directly to the Arduino, hopefully.

You can use the tone library, but the output is pretty poor. If you want any sort of decent quality output, I'd go down the midi route.

3

Getting waveforms other than square waves is possible but you will need an external D/A converter and possible some SRAM to read the waveforms out of as well as some external EEPROM to store them it.
This came together in this project of mine:-

However it is not an easy thing to make.
Maybe you would be better with a wave shield.

4

awesome project!..

love the case/enclosure too! hahaha.