I2S, or Inter-IC Sound, is a standard for transmitting digital audio data. It requires at least three connections. The first connection is a clock, called bit clock (BCLK, or sometimes written as serial clock or SCK). The second connection, which determines the channel (left or right) being sent, is called word select (WS). When stereo data is sent, WS is toggled so that the left and right channels are sent alternately, one data word at a time. The third connection, which transmits the data, is called serial data (SD).
Typically, there is a transmitter device which generates the bit clock, word select signal, and the data, and sends them to a receiver device. In this case, your microcontroller acts as the transmitter, and an I2S breakout acts as the receiver. The MAX98357A is an example of an I2S class D amplifier that allows you to connect directly to a speaker such as this one.
I2S and CircuitPython
CircuitPython supports sending I2S audio signals using the audiobusio module, making it simple to use the I2S interface with your microcontroller.
In this section, you'll learn how to use CircuitPython to play different types of audio using I2S, including tones, WAV files and MP3 files.
Necessary Hardware
You'll need the following additional hardware to complete the examples on this page.
The bit clock and word select pins must be on consecutive pins! They can be on any pins you like, but they must be in consecutive order, for example, A0 for bit clock and A1 for word select.
- Pico 3V3 to breakout VIN
- Pico GND to breakout GND
- Pico GP0 to breakout BCLK
- Pico GP1 to breakout LRC
- Pico GP2 to breakout DIN
- Speaker + to screw terminal +
-
Speaker - to screw terminal -
I2S Tone Playback
The first example generates one period of a sine wave and then loops it to generate a tone. You can change the volume and the frequency (in Hz) of the tone by changing the associated variables. Inside the loop, you play the tone for one second and stop it for one second.
Update your code.py to the following.
Click the Download Project Bundle button below to download the necessary libraries and the code.py file in a zip file. Extract the contents of the zip file, open the folder that matches your CircuitPython version, and copy the code.py file to your CIRCUITPY drive.
Your CIRCUITPY drive should now look similar to the following image:
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2018 Kattni Rembor for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
"""
CircuitPython I2S Tone playback example.
Plays a tone for one second on, one
second off, in a loop.
"""
import time
import array
import math
import audiocore
import board
import audiobusio
audio = audiobusio.I2SOut(board.GP0, board.GP1, board.GP2)
tone_volume = 0.1 # Increase this to increase the volume of the tone.
frequency = 440 # Set this to the Hz of the tone you want to generate.
length = 8000 // frequency
sine_wave = array.array("h", [0] * length)
for i in range(length):
sine_wave[i] = int((math.sin(math.pi * 2 * i / length)) * tone_volume * (2 ** 15 - 1))
sine_wave_sample = audiocore.RawSample(sine_wave)
while True:
audio.play(sine_wave_sample, loop=True)
time.sleep(1)
audio.stop()
time.sleep(1)
Now you'll hear one second of a 440Hz tone, and one second of silence.
You can try changing the 440 Hz of the tone to produce a tone of a different pitch. Try changing the number of seconds in time.sleep() to produce longer or shorter tones.
I2S WAV File Playback
The second example plays a WAV file. You open the file in a readable format. Then, you play the file and, once finished, print Done playing! to the serial console. You can use any supported wave file.
Update your code.py to the following.
Click the Download Project Bundle button below to download the necessary libraries and the code.py file in a zip file. Extract the contents of the zip file, open the folder that matches your CircuitPython version, and copy the StreetChicken.wav file and the code.py file to your CIRCUITPY drive.
Your CIRCUITPY
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Kattni Rembor for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
"""
CircuitPython I2S WAV file playback.
Plays a WAV file once.
"""
import audiocore
import board
import audiobusio
audio = audiobusio.I2SOut(board.GP0, board.GP1, board.GP2)
wave_file = open("StreetChicken.wav", "rb")
wav = audiocore.WaveFile(wave_file)
print("Playing wav file!")
audio.play(wav)
while audio.playing:
pass
print("Done!")
Now you'll hear the wave file play, and on completion, print Done Playing! to the serial console.
You can play a different WAV file by updating "StreetChicken.wav" to be the name of your CircuitPython-compatible WAV file.
You can do other things while the WAV file plays! There is a pass in this example where you can include other code, such as code to blink an LED.
I2S MP3 File Playback
The third example plays an MP3 file. First, you open the file in a readable format. Then you play the MP3 and, once finished, print Done playing! to the serial console.
CircuitPython supports any MP3 file, as long as it is the right bit rate and sample rate for your board.
Mono and stereo files less than 64kbit/s work, with sample rates from 8kHz to 24kHz.
You can find an example of converting an MP3 file using Audacity in this guide. The parameters suggested above may not be exactly what's in the guide, but the concept will be the same.
Update your code.py to the following.
Click the Download Project Bundle button below to download the necessary libraries and the code.py file in a zip file. Extract the contents of the zip file, open the folder that matches your CircuitPython version, and copy the slow.mp3 file and the code.py file to your CIRCUITPY drive.
Your CIRCUITPY
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Kattni Rembor for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
"""
CircuitPython I2S MP3 playback example.
Plays a single MP3 once.
"""
import board
import audiomp3
import audiobusio
audio = audiobusio.I2SOut(board.GP0, board.GP1, board.GP2)
mp3 = audiomp3.MP3Decoder(open("slow.mp3", "rb"))
audio.play(mp3)
while audio.playing:
pass
print("Done playing!")
Now you'll hear the MP3 play, and on completion, print Done Playing! to the serial console.
You can play a different CircuitPython-compatible MP3 by updating "slow.mp3" to the name of your MP3 file.
CircuitPython I2S-Compatible Pin Combinations
I2S audio is supported on specific pins. The good news is, there's a simple way to find out which pins support audio playback.
In the example below, click the Download Project Bundle button below to download the necessary libraries and the code.py file in a zip file. Extract the contents of the zip file, open the directory CircuitPython_Templates/i2s_find_pins/CIRCUITPY drive.
Your CIRCUITPY drive should now look similar to the following image:
Then, connect to the serial console to see a list of pins printed out. This file runs only once, so if you do not see anything in the output, press CTRL+D to reload and run the code again.
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2021 Kattni Rembor for Adafruit Industries
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
"""
CircuitPython I2S Pin Combination Identification Script
"""
import board
import audiobusio
from microcontroller import Pin
def is_hardware_i2s(bit_clock, word_select, data):
try:
p = audiobusio.I2SOut(bit_clock, word_select, data)
p.deinit()
return True
except ValueError:
return False
def get_unique_pins():
exclude = [
getattr(board, p)
for p in [
# This is not an exhaustive list of unexposed pins. Your results
# may include other pins that you cannot easily connect to.
"NEOPIXEL",
"DOTSTAR_CLOCK",
"DOTSTAR_DATA",
"APA102_SCK",
"APA102_MOSI",
"LED",
"SWITCH",
"BUTTON",
]
if p in dir(board)
]
pins = [
pin
for pin in [getattr(board, p) for p in dir(board)]
if isinstance(pin, Pin) and pin not in exclude
]
unique = []
for p in pins:
if p not in unique:
unique.append(p)
return unique
for bit_clock_pin in get_unique_pins():
for word_select_pin in get_unique_pins():
for data_pin in get_unique_pins():
if bit_clock_pin is word_select_pin or bit_clock_pin is data_pin or word_select_pin \
is data_pin:
continue
if is_hardware_i2s(bit_clock_pin, word_select_pin, data_pin):
print("Bit clock pin:", bit_clock_pin, "\t Word select pin:", word_select_pin,
"\t Data pin:", data_pin)
else:
pass
For details about the I2S API, check out the CircuitPython docs.
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