I have the Qwiic MP3 Trigger board and, regardless if triggered by the jumpers or software, there is a noticeable click before a file is played. When I put the Micro SD card in the computer and play using VLC Media Player, there is no click.
Now, once we get past the click, the sound as played by the Qwiic MP3 Trigger board, is great.
I looked at the files in Audacity and they play fine there and I do not see any indication of a click on the waveform.
But the click destroys any illusion that the sound is trying to create.
Anything I can do to mitigate this or is this a characteristic of the board?
I came here to post this same issue. It’s more than a single click for me, it’s the crackly static you get when you plug a line jack in (several clicks/pops). Then the audio plays fine. I also get this regardless of how the sound is triggered. I’d really like to find a way to suppress it.
So do you get any noise (especially at the start of play) after your audio system is plugged in and that noise has stopped?
I used the internal amp with a small speaker, so no contact noise. In addition to the click, you can tell that the noise floor seems to increase very slightly. All of my sounds are generated with TTS generators and the mp3 files sound clean when played anywhere else.
It’s a shame because the board is super easy to use, but the click it totally destroying what I am trying to do, which is add a voice to a robot for some believable personality. The click says: “I am playing a file.”
I have the Qwiic MP3 Trigger board and, regardless if triggered by the jumpers or software, there is a noticeable click before a file is played. When I put the Micro SD card in the computer and play using VLC Media Player, there is no click.
Now, once we get past the click, the sound as played by the Qwiic MP3 Trigger board, is great.
I looked at the files in Audacity and they play fine there and I do not see any indication of a click on the waveform.
But the click destroys any illusion that the sound is trying to create.
Anything I can do to mitigate this or is this a characteristic of the board?
I’ve tried a few of these boards made at different time and I’m not able to duplicate the clicking you hear. I do hear some clicking at power-up, but not when I start a track. Can you guys try a few different SD cards and see if maybe the card has something to do with the clicking sound you’re getting? I’m using older, low capacity, low speed cards so if you have anything 8gb or less in size, give those a try.
I’ve finally wired it up with I2C code to trigger playback. First playback from silence always causes the static/noise, but if I start playback while a track is still playing, there’s no noise. If I stop playback first, then start a track playing, there’s always noise.
I’m using the Sparkfun I2C library in an Arduino sketch. I’m using a 1 GB SanDisk microSD card.
This is not my board, and I have no direct experience with it, but after looking at the schematics, I’m wondering about the shutdown function of the on-board amp. Do you hear this click on the stereo line-level output, a speaker connected to the mono amp output, or both?
With the amplified outputs, I do hear a click but through the headphone output, I don’t.
After checking the schematics, it looks like the amp is controlled by the WT2003S IC’s busy pin and that shuts the amp off when noting is being played. Other than cutting a trace on the board, there isn’t a way to disable this, but using the headphone output with an amplified speaker would be a work around.
It might be hard to see in the photo below, but it’s the third trace in from the edge of the board on the back left hand side.
Cutting that will disconnect the SHUTDOWN pin on the amp from the ATtiny and the WT2003S. That will keep the amp on all the time, but I don’t know for sure if this will cause other problems with the board since it also removes a pullup resistor from the ATtiny. (Doing this will keep the amp on all the time but might cause other issues so do this at your own risk.)
robertsonics:
This is not my board, and I have no direct experience with it, but after looking at the schematics, I’m wondering about the shutdown function of the on-board amp. Do you hear this click on the stereo line-level output, a speaker connected to the mono amp output, or both?
