Sparkfun Music Instrument Shield
I had this shield working within 15 minutes of opening the package. All I had to do was solder in some headers (only 3 lines to connect) and a jumper for MIDI mode, plugged it into a test program on a Arduino Yun (could have been any Arduino), plugged in the headphones, and then sample MIDI sounds came through loud and clear. I still need to test a more extensive MIDI program, but the very basic one just worked flawlessly. All that I will be changing is to play sounds from different instrument banks (e.g. drums). I did originally try a Featherwing Music Maker (which uses the same chip), but I think I stuffed up with the power supply as I wasn't connecting to a Feather board. Probably my fault and the same program should have worked on this one too. The advantage of the Sparkfun board was it had the 5v to 3.3v power supply on board, but the Featherwing looks like a good option if I had a Feather compatible board. Very impressed with Little Bird and Australia Post with the Sparkfun board. I ordered Friday morning, and had the board on my doorstep by mid afternoon on Monday, and had it tested before bedtime on Monday night!
Grant Andrew
