Newish guy here that doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
I’m working with WS2812 LEDs and using a MAX4456 chip board from Sparkfun as an audio input. The Arduino sketch is one of so very many downloaded from the Internet. However, none of the sketches I’ve found do what I want them to do and I would like to make some changes but I don’t have the background to understand the MAX4456 data-sheet that I found.
My hope is that the output from the MAX4456 would include volume as well as frequencies, very similar to a microphone.
How do I ask the MAX4456 to send both amplitude and frequency information, or, can it even do that?
Sorry; It is a MAX4466. Not a typeo or finger check but bad eyes. The print was so small I had to pull out the magnifying glass. It definitely has a microphone module on it and is sensitive to sound.
Maybe that is why the the data sheet didn't make much sense to me. I'm not hung up on a chip but want something that will give me both volume info and frequencies. I guess, I could even use 2 chips (one for frequencies and the other for volume).
That leads me to ask, how do I change the title of this post?
I have both Arduino Unos and 2560 MEGAs. How can I process the signal from the MAX4466 to get both the amplitude and frequencies? Is there an example some where?
I think all I need is 5 or 7 ranges of frequencies but more would be interesting.
If you search for "Arduino Music Visualizer" or "Arduino Spectrum Analyzer" you should be able to find examples of how people use FFT or the MSGEQ7.
It's also possible to make a direct audio connection with an audio line-level of headphone-level signal if you don't want the thing to react to other sounds in the room. But you aren't using the MSGEQ7, you do need a simple bias circuit (2 resistors and a capacitor) because the Arduino can't read the negative-half of the AC audio signal.
...It's probably a good idea to use a direct signal for development/testing/debugging. i.e. You can generate tones at known frequencies with Audacity and you can test without room noise interference.
Please pardon a intuitively challenged person such as I, but there seems to be 2 FFT libraries for the Arduinos; 1 FFT by Robin Scheibler and the other ArduinoFFT by Rnrique Condes. Not to mention other flavors like fft (lower case), fix_fft and KickFFT.
Which FFT are you referring to (the better option for a new guy)?
This is a big project for someone just starting out.
Forum members strongly recommend to start with the simple examples provided by the Arduino IDE and learn how Arduino works, before tackling a complex project like a music visualizer. It is slower but will spare you endless frustration.
I have been looking the Internet for examples. Yes, I knew that the Arduino IDE had examples but I just didn't think it had examples for FFT, just a brain fart I guess.
And I see that there examples for both the ArduinoFFT and FFT. Gives something to mess around with.
Lets keep this open in case I have more questions (I probably will).
If you install a library using the recommended approaches, the library examples will appear in the Arduino IDE Files>Examples>Examples from Custom Libraries