MaixCAM MaixPy Playback Audio

Update history
Date Version Author Update content
2024-05-20 1.0.0 lxowalle Initial document

Introduction

This document provides instructions on how to play audio

How to use

Hardware operation

image-20240520134637905

The MaixCAM does not have a built-in speaker, so you will need to solder a 1W speaker yourself. The pins for soldering the speaker are shown in the diagram above on the VOP and VON pins corresponding to the Speaker.

Note: If the MaixCAM has copper posts attached to these pins, they can be soldered directly to the posts, or on the other side of the board for aesthetic reasons.

Code

Playing a WAV file

from maix import audio, time, app

p = audio.Player("/root/output.wav")

p.play()

while not app.need_exit():
    time.sleep_ms(10)
print("play finish!")

Steps:

  1. Import the audio, time and app modules:

    from maix import audio, time, app
    
  2. Initialize the player:

    p = audio.Player("/root/output.wav")
    
  • Note that the default sample rate is 48k, the sample format is little-endian format - signed 16-bit, and the sample channel is 1. You can also customise the parameters like this p = audio.Player(sample_rate=48000, format=audio.Format.FMT_S16_LE, channel = 1). So far only tested with sample rate 48000, format FMT_S16_LE, and number of sampling channels 1.
  • If it is a .wav file, the sample rate, sample format and sample channel are automatically obtained.
  1. Playing audio

    p.play()
    
  • This will block until all audio data is written, but not until all audio data is actually played. If you exit the programme after calling play(), some of the audio data to be played may be lost.
  1. Done

Playback with PCM data

from maix import audio, time, app

p = audio.Player()

with open('/root/output.pcm', 'rb') as f:
    ctx = f.read()

p.play(bytes(ctx))

while not app.need_exit():
    time.sleep_ms(10)

print("play finish!")

Steps:

  1. Import the audio, time and app modules:

    from maix import audio, time, app
    
  2. Initialize the player:

    p = audio.Player()
    
  • Note that the default sample rate is 48k, the sample format is little-endian format - signed 16-bit, and the sample channel is 1. You can also customise the parameters like this p = audio.Player(sample_rate=48000, format=audio.Format.FMT_S16_LE, channel = 1). So far only tested with sample rate 48000, format FMT_S16_LE, and number of sampling channels 1.
  1. Open and playback a PCM file

      with open('/root/output.pcm', 'rb') as f:
          ctx = f.read()
    
      p.play(bytes(ctx))
    
      while not app.need_exit():
        time.sleep_ms(10)
    
  • with open(‘xxx’,‘rb’) as f: open file xxx and get file object f
  • ctx = f.read() reads the contents of the file into ctx
  • p.play(bytes(ctx)) plays the audio, p is the opened player object, ctx is the PCM data converted to type bytes
  • time.sleep_ms(10) Here there is a loop to wait for the playback to complete, as the playback operation is performed asynchronously, and if the program exits early, then it may result in the audio not being played completely.
  1. Done

Other

The Player and Recorder modules have some bugs to be worked out, make sure they are created before other modules (Camera module, Display module, etc.). For example:

# Create Player and Recorder first.
p = audio.Player()
r = audio.Recorder()

# Then create the Camera
c = camera.Camera()