Tindie
Cheerful Electronic
Overall Rating:
All Reviews
Benjamin | Jan. 13, 2021
Clear sound, simple construction, max value!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Built it, jumpered it, uploaded the test program, and it just works!
If only the rest of life was this easy and fun.
If only the rest of life was this easy and fun.
Taehyun | Dec. 4, 2020
Better analog amp quality than OPL2 audio board.
For OPL3 Duo!
It takes 1 month to get board.I think covid-19 situation may affect delivery processes. It is better to provide more option for shipping ( track is required )
Beside of that, overall quality is very good. I love to hear FM sound from OPL3 using my arduino.
Beside of that, overall quality is very good. I love to hear FM sound from OPL3 using my arduino.
Jacob | Sept. 23, 2020
Great board
For OPL2 Audio Board
Beautiful and easy to assemble all-through-hole PCB. Great example code available through the Arduino app and on GitHub. It’s especially nice that a second set of chips is optionally available.
Vaclav | Sept. 9, 2020
Easy to build, works perfectly!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Great little kit, comes with nicely done documentation. Easy to build, since all components are THT. The kit I built worked out of the box, the examples and library listed at GitHub page worked with my Arduino Nano Every without problems...
In less than two hours since opening the package with the parts I've been playing my favorite VGM tunes from SD card, that's a success I think! (Again, via an example provided by the library.) Thank you!
In less than two hours since opening the package with the parts I've been playing my favorite VGM tunes from SD card, that's a success I think! (Again, via an example provided by the library.) Thank you!
Erik | Aug. 31, 2020
This is a pretty cool project and was fun to build
For OPL2 Audio Board
It's a pretty straight forward layout and worked with my Arduino IDE with the Arduino UNO board. The only critique would be to add a second set of power (5V and ground) pins along with a second Data and Shift pins (MOSI and SCK respectively) for hooking up a microSD card breakout board for the UNO, but even without it, it was still easy to hook that up as well. Loving the old Ultima 6 tunes!
Romain | Aug. 17, 2020
Simply perfect !!!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Thanks for the fast shipping !! Perfect product for synth or drum machine... very efficient !! Easy built !
Philip | Aug. 13, 2020
Fantastic!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Shipped fast, extremely well-documented, easy to assemble, and worked immediately. Very cool gadget!
Greg | Aug. 12, 2020
Awesome board, easy to assemble. Great documentation.
For OPL2 Audio Board
Very well designed and easy to assemble board. Worked first go. Special thanks for using IC sockets, this made it less stressful for a kid to assemble.
Documentation, Libraries and examples are first rate and extremely helpful.
Many thanks for designing and making this kit available.
Considering the current shipping conditions, it arrived from NL -> AUS quite quickly.
Documentation, Libraries and examples are first rate and extremely helpful.
Many thanks for designing and making this kit available.
Considering the current shipping conditions, it arrived from NL -> AUS quite quickly.
Antonio | Aug. 8, 2020
Good product, very easy to build
For OPL2 Audio Board
It's really easy to build, the included instructions are useful to check where each compoent goes. Easy to follow.
Justin | Aug. 5, 2020
Exactly as advertised, and got here quicker than I expected!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Everything in the box that I ordered and a really nice PCB with great instructions. I am excited to mount this on another project I'm working on that will hopefully arrive soon. Also shipping was a bit quicker than I expected given everything going on.
Seyed Poorya | May 26, 2020
great product; extremely easy to build
For OPL2 Audio Board
There is a reason this board has became reference for enthusiasts. assembly guide; parts were perfect. the best part is software library and endless possibilities that come with it.
Marc | April 13, 2020
Amazing product!
For OPL2 Audio Board
It's quite amazing to hear some of that old game music playing with such clarity through modern speakers. Wish I had, had this setup back in the day. Great product and great communication from a seller that clearly cares about the product they have produced. Now to make a fun project with the board. Thanks
Boyko | April 3, 2020
Recommended
For OPL2 Audio Board
Excellent product! The documentation is quite clear, easy to assemble, easy to test with the example, fast shipping!
Martin | March 22, 2020
Works perfectly!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Tested with Arduino Uno R3, works perfectly, drums and music.
The hardware works fine directly from the start.
The manual could be improved and we have discussed this.
We ordered immediately more of these boards for educational purpose.
I recommend this board to everyone who likes to add music to the embedded experiments or projects. And yes I am sure it works also on your Raspberry Pi.
The hardware works fine directly from the start.
The manual could be improved and we have discussed this.
We ordered immediately more of these boards for educational purpose.
I recommend this board to everyone who likes to add music to the embedded experiments or projects. And yes I am sure it works also on your Raspberry Pi.
Thomas | March 15, 2020
Very useful board
For OPL2 Audio Board
Board is easy to build. The example software is a good guide to devolopements of your own. Really nice!
Snorre | March 3, 2020
Great board!
For OPL2 Audio Board
This was a great evening project. Everything was included, the instructions were concise, the code samples readable and everything worked on the first try,
Anthony | Feb. 15, 2020
Love it
For OPL2 Audio Board
Arrived very fast, I'm very thankful for this fully assembled kit, saved me so much time. Assembled easy, but the pinout instructions on the printed info (included with the kit) for the Teensy++ 2.0 was A0-> C6 and I got no sound, whereas this page (https://github.com/DhrBaksteen/ArduinoOPL2/wiki/Connecting) has the A0 connecting to E1 and Voila I had Sound !!! I'm aware these settings can be changed in software but this is for people ( like me ) who aren't very familiar with Teensy programming. I had no luck with the OSX version of the Opl3 bank Editor program, but I tried it on a PC running XP. I needed to install the Teensy Usb driver found here: https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/serial_install.exe. got the OPl3 bank editor running, it recognizes my new Com port, I load Instruments.. and every instrument had a slight distortion ( a fizzy/hissing sound) most obvious with quieter instruments. I tried adjusting the volume pot on the board but it's present at any volume.
UPDATE:
Maarten contacted me with info on how to test the LM386 amplifier chip which appears to be damaged making that noise. Now I can hear a beautiful clean signal produced by that fantastic YM3812, I'm so happy now. Thank you Mr. Janssen you are a genius.
UPDATE:
Maarten contacted me with info on how to test the LM386 amplifier chip which appears to be damaged making that noise. Now I can hear a beautiful clean signal produced by that fantastic YM3812, I'm so happy now. Thank you Mr. Janssen you are a genius.
Response from Cheerful Electronic | Feb. 16, 2020
Hi, can you please contact me directly to see how we can troubleshoot the issue you're having with the hissing?
Juan Carlos | Feb. 9, 2020
Super recomendable
For OPL2 Audio Board
The build is as easy as it can get.
It sounds 100% like the real thing, because it is the real thing, no emulators here.
And it comes with a lots of examples so you can use it with your arduino, teensy, rasperry and even with a OPL3 Bank Editor than runs in the computer. I had a little problem setting up this one ans Maarten has solved the doubth in no time.
Also, the packet arrived in less than a week and the packaging was delicious. So Im so happy with this board and I recommend it to anyone that is reading
It sounds 100% like the real thing, because it is the real thing, no emulators here.
And it comes with a lots of examples so you can use it with your arduino, teensy, rasperry and even with a OPL3 Bank Editor than runs in the computer. I had a little problem setting up this one ans Maarten has solved the doubth in no time.
Also, the packet arrived in less than a week and the packaging was delicious. So Im so happy with this board and I recommend it to anyone that is reading
Slavi | Feb. 9, 2020
Cannot stop smiling
For OPL2 Audio Board
Kit worked on the first try. Instructions couldn't be more clear. There's a whole library to work with. What more can you want? I've been sitting here resetting the Arduino for the past half hour just to hear the same demo melody again. 100/10 project and that's not a typo.
Joonas | Jan. 8, 2020
Does what it promises!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Very good documentation, easy to use. Excellent work on soldering! I highly recommend this profuct and seller!
Georgi | Dec. 22, 2019
A valuable addition for my DIY synth!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Very easy to build, works like a charm! Recommended for starters and retro-sound enthusiasts! All the examples work without any issue! My intent is to build a simple FM synth with pre-defined banks and instruments. Unfortunately didn't manage to make OPL3 Bank editor to work with the board, I've tried the serial pass-trough example with no luck. More documentation on the matter will be appreciated!
Overall great kit at bargain price, I love it!
Overall great kit at bargain price, I love it!
Joost | April 20, 2019
Good hardware, great software
For OPL2 Audio Board
Great Arduino and Raspberry pi libraries, examples and documentation.
(A basic explanation of the opl2 hardware and how the api manipulates it would be a great addition I think but it can be found elsewhere on the web and playing a bit with the functions makes it a bit more clear.)
(A basic explanation of the opl2 hardware and how the api manipulates it would be a great addition I think but it can be found elsewhere on the web and playing a bit with the functions makes it a bit more clear.)
Daniel | April 13, 2019
Excellent quality, great fun kit.
For OPL2 Audio Board
This was just what I was looking for - aside from being a great nostalgia trip to revisit the music from games I enjoyed years ago, this kit is great for understanding more about how the hardware works, and experimenting with its capabilities. Since the board is essentially a nice serial interface to the YM3812 (plus a DAC and amplifier), you have full control over the chip.
The kit is very easy to assemble, with concise but clear instructions. I was concerned I might have to source the YM3812 and Y3014B chips myself but all the parts, including all the ICs and sockets, are included and carefully packaged.
There's comprehensive software support too - I haven't used it with an Arduino yet, but for Raspberry Pi there's a library that takes care of communication with the board and some great example code, including a player program that can handle a few different file formats. There are even a few sample tunes included, so it takes very little time to get up and running.
Very happy with my purchase!
The kit is very easy to assemble, with concise but clear instructions. I was concerned I might have to source the YM3812 and Y3014B chips myself but all the parts, including all the ICs and sockets, are included and carefully packaged.
There's comprehensive software support too - I haven't used it with an Arduino yet, but for Raspberry Pi there's a library that takes care of communication with the board and some great example code, including a player program that can handle a few different file formats. There are even a few sample tunes included, so it takes very little time to get up and running.
Very happy with my purchase!
Kilian | March 26, 2019
Very nice board, easy to use
For OPL2 Audio Board
Ordered the board last year because of nostalgia (the Ad Lib card was my first music card), didn't actually came around to using it until recently. It's a very nice design, and very easy to connect to an Arduino with the given instructions. The API documentation could be a tad bit better, but with the examples and source code available, it's easy to program.
Nander | Feb. 12, 2019
Really cool board. Works as advertised.
For OPL2 Audio Board
I bought this board to try and make a strange self-made synthesizer, using a DIN5 midi connector, and, at some later stage, with an actual physical control interface (currently it listens to commands over the usb serial cable, so I can test it out).
I have a question though: it seems my midi code is much more silent than the dosbox example, and if I try to increase the volume, it seems to be distorting the sound. The dosbox example is a lot more loud, but doesn't seem to distort.
I have a question though: it seems my midi code is much more silent than the dosbox example, and if I try to increase the volume, it seems to be distorting the sound. The dosbox example is a lot more loud, but doesn't seem to distort.
Response from Cheerful Electronic | Feb. 12, 2019
Hi, thanks for your review!
The DosBox example is using the OPL2 output from DosBox, so there you rely on the conversion from MIDI to OPL2 provided by DosBox. If you look at the TeensyMidi example then you see that I'm also jumping through some hoops to calculate good sounding values for the volume as I was having the same issue. I'm not sure if the MIDI volume scale is supposed to be logarithmic, but that could be the source of it. I hope this is helpful to you.
The DosBox example is using the OPL2 output from DosBox, so there you rely on the conversion from MIDI to OPL2 provided by DosBox. If you look at the TeensyMidi example then you see that I'm also jumping through some hoops to calculate good sounding values for the volume as I was having the same issue. I'm not sure if the MIDI volume scale is supposed to be logarithmic, but that could be the source of it. I hope this is helpful to you.
Richard | Dec. 11, 2018
Great little board
For OPL2 Audio Board
Board arrived well packaged and quickly. The PCB is high quality and great value for the price. Was easily able to follow the instructions and example code to get the board up and running with an Arduino and Raspberry Pi. Now ordered a Teensy to explore Midi.
Robbie | Dec. 7, 2018
Very fun board for AdLib music enthusiasts
For OPL2 Audio Board
This is a great little board which makes it easy to play around with a classic FM chip. The library also offers some useful functions I wasn't expecting (e.g. a single command to load an instrument from a byte array, configuring all aspects of a channel and its ops in one go). For me, though, the best part is that it's possible to directly write any value to any register on the board, meaning you can take full control of the OPL2, even allowing things for which there are no library functions, e.g. CSW mode for speech synthesis fun.
There is a lot of noise even with the volume pot at minimum (muted) when using headphones directly, so definitely use a separate amplifier (as others have recommended), which allows you to set the board's volume high enough for the signal-to-noise ratio to be much better.
The example programs themselves are good demonstrations and they all worked first time, although the ones which stream music as OPL commands from the computer to the Arduino suffer slowdown issues. The code implements a buffer to help avoid slowdowns with sudden bursts of data but the buffer refills slowly so it doesn't help with sustained high throughput, plus the timing is all relative rather than absolute (seconds of delay build up over a few minutes of playback). I made some simple modifications to fix this (Python sends chunked data, Arduino tracks absolute playback time), in case anyone is interested (to the seller: Please _don't_ include my real name if using this code):
- Python: http://puu.sh/CeeIq/f4d7ef78a7.py
- Arduino: http://puu.sh/CeeIE/e9b2f92bb1.ino
Also, there is a "DosBoxPassthrough" Arduino example included, but it would be nice to know how to use this with DOSBox (is a modified version required?).
In any case, if you are considering buying this board but are unsure, I highly recommend it. The example program issues I described are easy to fix, and besides, isn't it more fun to write your own code? :)
Just make sure you start with the volume pot fully anticlockwise, as the audio output can get extremely loud and distorted (I've never been able to take it above 50%).
I'm very happy with the board will probably buy a second one so that I can have a dual-OPL2 setup.
There is a lot of noise even with the volume pot at minimum (muted) when using headphones directly, so definitely use a separate amplifier (as others have recommended), which allows you to set the board's volume high enough for the signal-to-noise ratio to be much better.
The example programs themselves are good demonstrations and they all worked first time, although the ones which stream music as OPL commands from the computer to the Arduino suffer slowdown issues. The code implements a buffer to help avoid slowdowns with sudden bursts of data but the buffer refills slowly so it doesn't help with sustained high throughput, plus the timing is all relative rather than absolute (seconds of delay build up over a few minutes of playback). I made some simple modifications to fix this (Python sends chunked data, Arduino tracks absolute playback time), in case anyone is interested (to the seller: Please _don't_ include my real name if using this code):
- Python: http://puu.sh/CeeIq/f4d7ef78a7.py
- Arduino: http://puu.sh/CeeIE/e9b2f92bb1.ino
Also, there is a "DosBoxPassthrough" Arduino example included, but it would be nice to know how to use this with DOSBox (is a modified version required?).
In any case, if you are considering buying this board but are unsure, I highly recommend it. The example program issues I described are easy to fix, and besides, isn't it more fun to write your own code? :)
Just make sure you start with the volume pot fully anticlockwise, as the audio output can get extremely loud and distorted (I've never been able to take it above 50%).
I'm very happy with the board will probably buy a second one so that I can have a dual-OPL2 setup.
Response from Cheerful Electronic | Dec. 11, 2018
Thanks for your review!
The Python example was kindly contributed by another user. Since I'm not an expert Python coder I will try out your changes and see if I can add them in the next library update :). As you requested I will not mention your name.
For the DosBox passthrough there is a modified version of DosBox available on my Github page https://github.com/DhrBaksteen/ArduinoOPL2.DosBox. It includs a build for Windows and allows you to use your OPL2 board as a real sound card. You simply configure the COM port in the DosBox config (See the readme.md). I'd love to hear from people using this custom build to hear what they think and if they have any suggestions!
The Python example was kindly contributed by another user. Since I'm not an expert Python coder I will try out your changes and see if I can add them in the next library update :). As you requested I will not mention your name.
For the DosBox passthrough there is a modified version of DosBox available on my Github page https://github.com/DhrBaksteen/ArduinoOPL2.DosBox. It includs a build for Windows and allows you to use your OPL2 board as a real sound card. You simply configure the COM port in the DosBox config (See the readme.md). I'd love to hear from people using this custom build to hear what they think and if they have any suggestions!
Gregory | Nov. 12, 2018
Really cool little board
For OPL2 Audio Board
Works great, super easy to assemble, and really cool to hear some real OPL2 tunes. I was pleasantly surprised to find a complete set of IC sockets supplied even though the assembly instructions mention them as optional. I look forward to getting it up and running as a MIDI controlled device. Remarkably, it runs fine on a 3.3V supply being controlled and powered by a Teensy 3.5.
Ian | Nov. 2, 2018
Lovingly made product
For OPL2 Audio Board
I had a huge smile on my face when I opened up this little box. I could tell that a lot of care and love went into this kit, and it's been a pleasure to tinker with. I'm very excited to play around with the libraries and make some weird sounds!
There's no tracking on the shipping, but I think that's a fair trade off for $5 transatlantic shipping. Mine arrived within two weeks to the US.
There's no tracking on the shipping, but I think that's a fair trade off for $5 transatlantic shipping. Mine arrived within two weeks to the US.
Timothy | Sept. 20, 2018
Great quality and fun to build
For OPL2 Audio Board
I put this together while on discord with my friend. It was really easy and then I got to listen to some nice chip tunes when I was finished. Connected it to the adafruit metro, same as the Uno. Worked great, wiring was easy enough too.
Chon Hou | Sept. 10, 2018
it just works
For OPL2 Audio Board
:) the second board had arrived, finally.
and today i tested it. just works, perfectly.
thx.
https://youtu.be/pfzQlnjHK5o
and today i tested it. just works, perfectly.
thx.
https://youtu.be/pfzQlnjHK5o
Patrick | Aug. 25, 2018
Awesome little board!
For OPL2 Audio Board
Received the product in a week or so- GREAT BOARD!
Only complaint I'd have is the board is a bit too noisy, but maybe it's me?
Otherwise, lots of fun!
Only complaint I'd have is the board is a bit too noisy, but maybe it's me?
Otherwise, lots of fun!
Steven | Aug. 8, 2018
Awesome product!
For OPL2 Audio Board
My board arrived today (shipping 3 days to Belgium), just soldered it up and I'm over the moon !
I cannot give this product & merchant enough thumbs up. Open sourced design, nicely packaged & excellent documentation. It's a very easy soldering job, good clearance between components, while still keeping the board size small. Loaded up the demotune sketch on a teensy 3.2 and it works like a charm. If you are considering this, just go for it, you'll love it.
I cannot give this product & merchant enough thumbs up. Open sourced design, nicely packaged & excellent documentation. It's a very easy soldering job, good clearance between components, while still keeping the board size small. Loaded up the demotune sketch on a teensy 3.2 and it works like a charm. If you are considering this, just go for it, you'll love it.
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