How to Play Mulitple Buzzers at Once

Pages
Contributors: Blade
Favorited Favorite 0

Polyphony in Action

Simple electronic sound devices, such as the SparkFun Qwiic Buzzer can output one note at a time. For a simple beep here or a buzz there, this works just fine. However, if your project needs a little more pizzaz than a single note then you’ll have to utilize multiple buzzers at once. This is what is called Polyphony. Polyphony is simply when two or more separate tones or melodies are sounded out simultaneously. As mentioned before, Qwiic Buzzers only make one sound at a time so in order to create a polyphonic melody you would need to utilize multiple Qwiic Buzzers. This involves setting each buzzer to a different I2C address and playing different notes simultaneously, creating more complex and rich soundscapes in your projects.

In this tutorial, we'll connect three Qwiic Buzzers to a RedBoard microcontroller and play a melody, harmony, and bass part of one of the most recognizable tunes of all time; the Super Mario Bros theme!