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Tips on hardware for a digital pitch pipe

Former Member

I'm new to hardware hacking, so I'm looking for some advice from the hardware side on how I should start. I'm an experienced software engineer, so I can handle the software side of things.

 

Basically, I'm trying to create a digital pitch pipe for my choir. Our old fashioned pitch pipes are half broken, and a lot of people just don't know how to use them properly. I thought a simple device might work better.

 

I have some experience with the Raspberry Pi, so I had thought of a Zero as a potential basis for the device, but I would be open to other platforms. Here are the basic requirements:

 

13+ buttons (12 notes in a scale plus one to give the complete octave)

Small speaker

Volume wheel

Rechargeable

 

I've done a little bit of searching, but I have yet to see anything with more than a few buttons. For the speaker, I'm guessing I'd either have to hardware the speaker to the board or find a USB device. The USB device might be easier for the volume control piece.

 

Does anyone have advice as to where I should start?

 

Thanks,

-Brian

  • 0

    Is a pitch pipe something used for tuning instruments?

    You could certainly add 13 or more buttons but you'd need to do some soldering. An alternative option might be to just use a touchscreen to select your note and to set the volume.

    Then your problem is reduced to software only, which is good if you're a software engineer.

     

    As you say, a USB sound card could be used, or an amplifier can be connected to the (low-fi) built-in audio output which is not fantastic for music but may be fine for single tone pitch purposes.

     

    The entire thing can be powered off USB battery supply like those used for charging mobile phones.

     

    You might also want to consider applying for the 'Music Tech' challenge, see here: MusicTech

  • 0 in reply to shabaz

    Thanks. That's helpful advice. I was shying away from the touchscreen, but maybe that's a safer route for someone who's less hardware-oriented. Plus, I could provide options for something other than single notes, which can be helpful sometimes.

     

    A pitch pipe can be used for a variety of things, but we use it to give the choir a pitch so we all start on the right notes. My wife was actually suggesting it would be good if it could sound like a human voice, since that is easier for singers to match. That means that the onboard speaker would probably not be good enough. Besides, I'm not sure how well that could actually do something like produce a real A440. Since it would have to match handbells and an organ, I probably need a speaker that's a bit more reliable.

     

    Thanks for validating my thoughts about the USB battery. I was planning to do something like that, but it helps to know that it should work.

     

    I'll take a look at the Music Tech challenge.

  • 0 in reply to Former Member

    Hi Brian,

     

    It's a good point, a thicker sound like a voice could be better than a single tone.

     

    One idea (if you need it to be loud) may be to find a speaker enclosure and build your project with that. For example, Tivoli speaker boxes are quite cheap on ebay often, they are about

    half the volume of a shoe box. They contain nothing but the speaker and are intended for connecting up to an existing amplifier.

     

    Or you could build an enclosure for your chosen speaker of course.

    If you don't need a lot of volume and size matters then laptop speakers with enclosure are an option, e.g. these type of things:

    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/LENOVO-03T9566-THINKCENTRE-A70Z-SPEAKER-ASSEMBLY-/111838449126?hash=item1a0a174de6:g:mpoAAOSweuxWSA5u

    The enclosure is necessary to get a reasonable level of sound output at the lower frequencies.

  • 0 in reply to shabaz

    I definitely don't need a lot of volume. I'm trying to decide between doing something very low-key and getting half a set of headphones to plug into a USB sound card and something more like your laptop speaker enclosure idea. I may start with the simple solution and see if it would be useful to move to a larger speaker. We usually use this in a fairly quiet space, so we don't want something that can be easily heard more than a few feet away.

     

    Pitch pipes usually only go an octave up from middle C (260-ish to 520-ish Hz), so low notes aren't required.