VS1053 from LC Technologies - Real Time MIDI

Using Arduino Audio
1

Hello all,

I am sorry if this has been asked before, but I tried searching for this information in the forum and have got a lot of conflicting information. So in the hope that someone who has the same board and got through this problem, this is for you:

I have a VS1053 board from LC Technologies (green model without SD Card). My purpose is to use this board to send real time midi commands from an arduino mega to it, and from there it would be decoded to produce sound on a headphone. After reading several pieces of information about this, it is to my knowledge that this board is NOT initialized for Real Time MIDI. I read that this can be accomplished through a software patch which can be written into the program code. And this is where it starts to get confusing to me.

1 - I am having trouble knowing which are the required connections for this module to work with arduino mega. So far I connected this way:

5V - 5V
GND - GND
MISO - 50
MOSI - 51
SCK - 52
DREQ - D2
XRST - 8
XCS - D6
XDCS - D7

The above connections were based on microtherion code from GitHub :

2 - Following the above code from the link, it says we can start Real Time MIDI from the code. However I am not getting how to use the Real Time MIDI patch that is mentioned.

3 - Running the above code, out of the box, I cannot get any sound from the headphones. But it seems my board is working since I hear a low click when the arduino is reset (maybe probably because of power supply).

I hope anyone can help me out with this since this is my second board. My first board I tried the hardware attempt to solder directly the board to activate MIDI mode, however I was not sucessfull in this and ruined a perfectly good board ( its was a red board by the way).

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

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For reference, this is the board in question

800×800 137 KB

2500×2501 749 KB

3

Ok I have not got this specific board but I have used something similar.

My purpose is to use this board to send real time midi commands from an arduino mega to it

I used the Adafruit Music Maker FeatherWing which uses the same chip.
It was in a project for the MagPi magazine, free download at The MagPi issue 63 — The MagPi magazine
Read what I did.

I simply connected Pin 26 on VS1053 to the TX output fed signals into it. If you are using a 5V Arduino then cut down the TX signal with a 510R - 1K potential divider to get the signal down to 3V3 to match the chip.

4

Thanks Mike for the reply. I have previously tried the hardware approach that you mentioned, but due to my bear hands and walrus finger precision I messed up my board, and now it doesnt even powers.

I am looking for the software patch approach that is mentioned on the datasheet. I read all those patch information but still dont know how to adapt that code to arduino.

If you have done the software approach or know how I would like to have a share of process and code.

Thanks

5

As far as I know there is no software only support for real time MIDI.

Yes it supports playing of MIDI files of various types, but that is not the same thing as playing real time MIDI messages as they come in.

I could be wrong but that is the impression I get from reading the data sheet for this chip.

6

Actually there is a software patch that enables Real-Time MIDI mode:

I have been trying to get the patch to work on the LC Technologies VS1053 board but have not been successful, however, I was able to get a Greetech VS1053 board ( the one that is arduino UNO shield, red color) and worked out of the box with the code from the link. So all in all I guess there might be something missing with the LC Technology boards.

Anyway, I got my LC Technology board by mistake since what I ordered was a LC Soft Tech board, which I read online that is already Rea-Time Midi enabled, but got the LC by an error from the seller. I am going to return it, and probably by another Greetech red board since those seem to work without all the hassle of trying to make it work.

So my advice to anyone out there that wants a cheap board for Real-Time MIDI, go to the VS1053 red shield board for arduino UNO, which you can find on ali express and use the code from microtherion which will enable the Real-Time MIDI in SPI. No need for hardware modifications. Don't go soldering tiny wires on super thin chip legs because that is very risky. Hope this can help others out there.

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