MIDI files can sound great and can store classical symphonic scores in about 15K bytes per minute of sound. And attaching a serial EEPROM to hold sound waveform data is unlikely to work well if at all because the I2C 2-wire bus that these chips use is not fast enough for quality music beyond the level of an annoying ring tone. But making music this way requires a lot of memory that the AVR doesn't have. You can, as the other responders, have suggested, configure the AVR to output an 8-bit waveform using a stand-alone DAC, a R-2R ladder, or PWM.Īt best this will output a simple repeating waveform, a very brief sound burst, or a selectable repeating complex waveform such as DTMF telephone tones. The AVR is a rather difficult platform to use to make music with because its internal resources are too limited. No one seems to have done it before or posted any code application for playing a MIDI file from an AVR. Windows has a single API that plays a MIDI file, but it is do-it-yourself for the AVR.

Third, and this is the hard part, you need to write a program for the AVR that reads the MIDI file and sends the notes to the tone module at the right times. But MIDI files can still be found for all types of music. This is getting difficult to do because the various global corporations that have deluded themselves into believing that they 'own' music have started threatening jail and fines to anyone who puts MIDI files on the web. Then, download MIDI files for the music that you wish to present. These tone modules can always be resold on eBay for what you paid for them. Another excellent low-cost small-size option is the BOSS DS-330 for about $40-$50 or a Roland Sound Canvas unit. They are often found on eBay in the Musical Instrument:Synthesizer section for about $30-$40 US. This little box is a little smaller than the size of a VHS cassette, has a powered headphone output, and has the full General MIDI instrument set in excellent quality Yamaha XG voices. The best synth, (or rather, tone module - a synth without the keyboard) would be the Yamaha MU-5. The best way to make quality music with an AVR is to use the AVR to drive a small, inexpensive, high-quality MIDI synthesizer.

8 bit music converter app