fnarify
commented
3 years ago It's been a long time since I've done anything with this library, or Arduino in general, so I'll see if I can help a bit.
Generally some more detail on the VS1053 module you're using specifically, same with the SD card module you're using, and whether the onboard SD card socket could do with a filtering capacitor, or maybe the pull-up resistors it's using are no good.
First up, you shouldn't need to change anything in the provided libraries, for SD_SEL you can just directly change the value on line 149 of the .ino file ( sd.begin() ) to the pin value you want, SD_SEL isn't used anywhere else that's important. What you can try doing is connecting the SD card's CS pin to pin 10 of the Arduino, as pin 10 can be used since it can only be used as an output. This might be useful as there aren't any other spare pins available. You could also disconnect the keypad and just use the serial monitor for testing to save on a few pins. The data lines for the SD card are fine with the defauult MISO and MOSI pins on the Arduino, they should be able to run over the top of the onboard SD card assuming the CS pin is different (which you might want to check for your module).
The only thing library wise that's important to check is around line 716 of SFEMP3Shield.h where these function prototypes listed should be changed from private to public:
void getTrackInfo(uint8_t, char, uint8_t);
static void Mp3WriteRegister(uint8_t, uint16_t);
static uint16_t Mp3ReadRegister (uint8_t);
uint8_t VSLoadUserCode(char);
Now quality wise using the on-board SD card it might be poor due to whatever recording device you're using. The onboard microphone is pretty bad I found with my module, and if you're using an external one you'd want to check it's impendace as the module might not be able to supply it with enough power. The maximum rated impedance is 30 ohms for the VS1053 IC. Especially when you consider unless there's something wrong with the tracks or the circuit, an SD card socket is just a socket there's not a lot of variation unless there's an issue with the solder joints.
Similarly, it might be worthwhile reformatting the SD card (FAT16/32) as there might be issues with the wear level of the SD card causing it not to write to it correctly, although unlikely as it seems you've tested it fine otherwise.
Otherwise in terms of recording quality, there are quite a few different recording profiles available from the manufacturer's website (http://www.vlsi.fi/en/products/vs1053.html) which you can convert using their batch file which is also provided in the plugins folder of this repo. Details on the profiles can be found here: http://www.vlsi.fi/fileadmin/software/VS10XX/VorbisEncoder170c.pdf
The profile I converted to make oggenc.053 which is needed for recording is called venc44k2q05, which is 2-ch and had the highest bitrate at 135kb/s. Let's be honest though 135kb/s at 44.1kHz is just okay and nothing that special. Do make sure both patches.053 and oggenc.053 are in the root directory of the SD card as well, although I assume this is correct as you'd get a warning otherwise. Interestingly enough, the manufacturer is still updating the chip with new patches, and they could be worth trying, but I doubt it'd change that much.
Otherwise, in terms of other things to consider might be the write block it does for the recording. This is done in two writes of 256 bytes with an exception if it's the last data block. The reason for this was because any larger wouldn't work as there isn't enough spare memory with the Arduino Uno. It's possible this might be writing too often for the SD card causing it to skip data. There isn't really much of an alternative though, apart from adding a short wait between writes.
x6000c
Hi, I am using your code to record ogg files with an Arduino UNO clone and a VS1053 mp3 shield (clone). Unfortunately my shield has a low quality on-board SD reader so I want to use an external one. I was not able to record any sound after having changed the last line of the following code snippet in SFEMP3ShieldConfig.h
`// otherwise use pinout of typical Sparkfun MP3 Player Shield.
else // otherwise use pinout of typical Sparkfun MP3 Player Shield.
define MP3_XCS 6 //Control Chip Select Pin (for accessing SPI Control/Status registers)
define MP3_XDCS 7 //Data Chip Select / BSYNC Pin
define MP3_DREQ 2 //Data Request Pin: Player asks for more data
if defined(__AVR_ATmega32U4__)
else // swapped between Uno and Leonardo.
endif
define MP3_RESET 8 //Reset is active low
if ( GRAVITECH == 1 )
else
a file is being created though and it is also filled with bytes but there is no sound in it. Also it cannot be read by Audacity. When I use the original pin 9 at least some sound is recorded and the file can be played. I have tested the shield and the reader with the Adafruit VS1053 library and both work (on pin 5 as CS pin for example). The recordings are not safisfactory though.
So I would like to be able to use pin 5 (or 4 or 3) for recordings. How can that be done?
Thank you!