In this chapter, you learn how to use sound with your Raspberry Pi. There are recipes both for playing sounds in various ways—using loudspeakers or a buzzer—and for using a microphone to record sounds.
15.1 Connecting a Loudspeaker
Problem
You want to play sounds from your Raspberry Pi.
Solution
Attach a powered speaker such as the one shown in Figure 15-1.
Having attached the speaker to the audiovisual socket, you will also need to configure the Raspberry Pi to play through the audiovisual jack, not HDMI, using Recipe 15.2.
Figure 15-1. Attaching a rechargeable amplified speaker to a Raspberry Pi
An alternative to using a general-purpose speaker like the one shown in Figure 15-1 is to use a speaker kit designed specifically for the Raspberry Pi, such as the MonkMakes Speaker Kit for Raspberry Pi, shown in Figure 15-2.
Figure 15-2. The MonkMakes amplified speaker and a Raspberry Pi
This speaker is connected using the audio lead supplied with the kit, and the speaker uses the Raspberry Pi’s 5V power supply, connected using the female-to-female leads.
Raspbian comes with a handy program to test that your speaker is working. Type the following command in the Terminal:
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