Can I make midi music with a PIC16F873a

[skimask]

I'll gues I'll have to buy 1000 melody generators.......

Mathy

Or you could do as suggested...learn PBP, learn the PIC, learn a bit of electronics, sprinkle in some other components, and eventually have exactly what you want, built by YOU, with YOUR name on it.
Nothing better than that...

[mister_e]

Depending what type of sound you want to produce... but that's nothing a PIC would be able to do.

Just record a sound you like on you computer with a decent Sound Editor software, then zoom in to see how it's made....

PIC are way too limited for complicated and rich sound, Maybe DsPIC would be enough.

[JohnH]

You want the PIC to send MIDI messages to control/play the casio synthesizer.

The MIDI signal is just control data, not audio (a serial control signal that sends note value on/off and other commands).

The signal is organized into 10 bits (start bit, 8 data bits and one stop) running at 31,250 bits per second.

Here is a link that describes the specifications and command set for the signal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_MIDI_1.0_Protocol

I am not sure if your PIC has a UART, it could be used to produce the serial signal. Then you would need space for the storage of the song data, and a way to enter it.

[Ioannis]

Hmm, I am a little confused as to what really Mathy wants to do.

1. Control the Casio Synthesizer with a PIC to make some music, or

2. Reproduce the music from the PIC in whole?

The second is a big-big project as other members described above.

The first is easy done in software only.

Ioannis

[sougata]

Hi,

If I have understood correctly then you want a custom melody to be reproduced by a standalone circuit. You would play/sequence the number on your casio keyboard.

There is an application of a PIC playing 1bit audio available here http://members.home.nl/b.vandam/lonely/pagina47.html This may be interesting for you.

There are OTP (One Time Programmable) Voice chip available from APLUS INC. http://www.aplusinc.com.tw I have checked their Indian website and found that a chip capable of recording about 341 seconds audio costs around $2.5 USD. They sale in low quantities too. But I have no idea if they would ship international. Beware these OTP chips may need a dedicated programmer (costs around $200 USD). Do not expect great sound quality. Because it uses a maximum of 8KHz sampling rate and uses 4bit ADPCM compression. It can also record PCM but that will reduce the playback time. These can be controlled by a PIC to playback multiple segments . I have seen one application here by charudatt who uses a PIC clock to enchant digital mantras. I am not sure if he uses one of these. But they are available in his hometown Mumbai in India. I am attaching one datasheet for your reference.

Aplus also makes melody generators (sort of a MIDI playback engine mainly targeted as bells/ringers) . You don't get enough polyphony or rich sound due to the limited fm synthesis (May be there are some which uses a ROM table).

There are chips from Aplus which can record/re-record audio standalone or controlled by a micro. But they are more expensive.Price is directly proportional to the maximum recording time.

I think I have seen a post by Melanie producing tunes. Why not post your sample tune here ?! In MP3/Wave/Midi whatever.

Please describe your application in details. May be someone from here has done before.

[sougata]

Sorry guys. Here is the pdf datasheet. Its split into two parts by Winrar available from www.rarlabs.com . Remove the ".txt"

I tried ".bak" but didn't work. I should have gone through the entire list which files are allowed by the vbulletin admin.

You can also have look at the PICLIST here http://www.piclist.com/techref/microchip/io/audio.htm

P.S. - Original author's site is working . http://www.romanblack.com/picsound.htm