Hey All
I'm new to Ardunio. BUT I am a (17 years) experienced Electrical Engineer with Tons of Microprocessor Firmware (C and C++) and Hardware experience.
I've got a "project" where I want to play Audio Samples based on Different inputs (ex. Motion Sensor). Its for an Christmas Animatronic.
Its really just to annoy my buddy and his family. Last year I made V0.1 using the "M-BLOCK" CPU board from my son's M-BLOCK robot and some terrible old (like 5 second) voice recorder. As well I wired in the guts of a singing X-mas card. So it was "Multi-message" ha ha.
This animatronic ("Elliot the Xmas Moose") has some "history". Last years version was pretty "sketch" (I had VERY limited time) and barely worked when they came over. But hilarious. And then when they took "him" home, "he" sketch'd out late at night and started playing his recording over and over. ha!
So this year I'm (starting early) and looking to make v0.2 of Elliot better!
I will likely buy an Arduino board (probably a Mega, might as well get a good one).
But what I've been researching and need guidance on is how to generate the sound/music.
I did some research on a "decent" Voice Recorder and Playback.
- Looked at the ISD1820 boards...but the ISD1820 is barely 10 seconds and Single Message.
- I want multi-message, and more time.
- So I saw some ISD1760 based board/module. Seems better.
But what I'm REALLY wondering is if I'm buying a record/playback module for nothing. Should I instead just be using samples saved onto an SD Card and then played through the Arduino? I saw a project or 2 doing that. I would record on my PC, save to SD, then play the different samples based on the program/sketch/code.
Is there any problem with doing the .wav samples on the SD Card? Like is it slow? I need the samples to play fairly quickly as "he" starts to sing and move when you walk upto him...
But basing the sound on the ISD1760 seems REAL quick and easy...just IO control program. But I'm worried the board will not ship reliably...
Any guidance would be great!