Learn Audio Electronics with Arduino

Practical Audio Circuits with Arduino Control

Charlie Cullen

• Publisher: Focal Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429588884
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Computer Science General
• Index: Computer Science

Learn Audio Electronics with Arduino: Practical Audio Circuits with Arduino Control teaches the reader how to use Arduino to control analogue audio circuits and introduces electronic circuit theory through a series of practical projects, including a MIDI drum controller and an Arduino-controlled two-band audio equalizer amplifier.

Learn Audio Electronics with Arduino provides all the theoretical knowledge needed to design, analyse, and build audio circuits for amplification and filtering, with additional topics like C programming being introduced in a practical context for Arduino control. The reader will learn how these circuits work and also how to build them, allowing them to progress to more advanced audio circuits in the future. Beginning with electrical fundamentals and control systems, DC circuit theory is then combined with an introduction to C programming to build Arduino-based systems for audio (tone sequencer) and MIDI (drum controller) output. The second half of the book begins with AC circuit theory to allow analogue audio circuits for amplification and filtering to be analysed, simulated, and built. These circuits are then combined with Arduino control in the final project – an Arduino-controlled two-band equalizer amplifier.

Building on high-school physics and mathematics in an accessible way, Learn Audio Electronics with Arduino is suitable for readers of all levels. An ideal tool for those studying audio electronics, including as a component within other fields of study, such as computer science, human-computer interaction, acoustics, music technology, and electronics engineering.

Chapter 1

Electronics fundamentals

This chapter will introduce some of the fundamental concepts that you will need to learn about electronics. Electronics can be a little overwhelming when you first start to learn it, so the chapter begins with a brief introduction to scales, symbols and equations. A lot of the mistakes that new electronics learners make are caused by the many different scales, quantities and symbols that they have to contend with – not their own lack of knowledge or aptitude. This can quickly become very demoralizing, so from the outset try to remember that learning the language of electronics will take time as well as effort.

The chapter continues by addressing the fundamental concepts of electronics – current, voltage and resistance. These have been covered in great detail by many other sources, but they can still be confusing at first – particularly when presented as ‘easy’ concepts that you are expected to understand straight away. The idea of current being the movement of electrons and resistance being the means of slowing this movement should hopefully become clearer, but the concept of voltage being the potential for electrons to move can often take time to fully understand – we will return to all of these concepts again in later chapters so don’t be too concerned if certain aspects seem a little confusing at first!

The tutorial in this chapter introduces the Autodesk Tinkercad application, which is an online circuit simulator for simple Arduino projects. We will use this application in the first half of the book to test our Arduino code and simulate control systems for our circuits, so this chapter takes you through the basics of circuit simulation. After testing and simulation, we can then progress to prototyping our circuit using an actual Arduino, basic electronic components (resistor with LED) and breadboard. The chapter ends with our first circuit of an LED being lit by power from the Arduino – this is not a complex (nor impressive!) project, but it helps to introduce the project structure employed throughout the book. The chapter ends with some self-study questions, which are always popular with learners! It is hoped that you do not skip them to get to the more ‘interesting’ material – electronics is a language, and all languages require repetition for effective acquisition.

What you will learn

The importance of scales and symbols in electronics

What current, potential difference (voltage) and resistance are (covered again in chapter 3)

How a battery uses oxidization and reduction to create cations and anions

What open and closed circuits are

What a simple electronic circuit schematic looks like

How to use the Arduino with a resistor to light an LED

1.1 Scales, symbols and equations

When beginning to learn electronics, many of the terms used will be new to you. Just like mathematics and physics, electronics has its own language and so this chapter begins by discussing some of the fundamental elements involved. Before we do this, it is important to know a little about the mathematical scales used and how they relate to each other – they can often be a major source of confusion when learning some of the concepts and equations used in later chapters. Table 1.1 lists the common mathematical powers of ten and the symbols used to represent them.

Table 1.1 Powers of ten and their symbolic equivalent. The table lists the mathematical powers of ten, their relative scale and the symbols used to abbreviate them in electronics equations. The example quantities used are commonly found in computing (e.g. B for bytes) and engineering (e.g. V for volts, A for amps) – we will cover these quantities in more detail as the book progresses. Note that for each prefix the powers scale in three decimal places each time, with the exception of centi, which is commonly used for distance (cm) and liquid volume (cl).

Prefix	Power of ten	Multiplier	Symbol	Example
Terra	10^12	1,000,000,000,000	T	4,000,000,000,000B = 4TB
Giga	10^9	1,000,000,000	G	3,000,000,000B = 3GB
Mega	10^6	1,000,000	M	3,000,000 = 3M
Kilo	10^3	1,000	k	25,000W = 25kW
None	10^0	1	none
Centi	10^–2	0.01	c	0.1m = 10cm
Milli	10^–3	0.001	m	0.005A = 5mA
Micro	10^–6	0.000001	μ	0.000002V = 2μV
Nano	10^–9	0.000...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Electronics fundamentals
• Chapter 2 Systems and transducers
• Chapter 3 DC circuits
• Chapter 4 Digital systems 1 – Arduino output
• Chapter 5 Digital systems 2 – Arduino input
• Chapter 6 AC circuits
• Chapter 7 Audio amplifiers
• Chapter 8 Audio filters
• Chapter 9 Arduino audio control
• Chapter 10 Conclusions
• Appendix 1 Self-study questions
• Appendix 2 AC equation derivations (chapter 6)
• Appendix 3 Standard component values
• Index