Audio with Maestro 12?

Hi there! I am working on an Animatronic and need a way to animate to an audio track. I have read that there are ways to do it with the Maestro 12, but I’m a little clueless when it comes to it. Does anyone have any advice or resources for adding an Audio Sync on this board? Or do I need a sound card? I’m new to this whole thing, so simpler is better. Thanks!

Hi.

The Maestro controllers do not have any special features for choreographing movements to an audio track and cannot play audio tracks directly, but they can output digital signals from servo channels configured as outputs, which various sound boards can accept to trigger a track, like the MP3 Trigger V24 from Sparkfun. Additionally, note that some audio boards can accept TTL serial commands; the Mini Maestro boards support the “SERIAL_SEND_BYTE” script command which lets you send serial commands from a Maestro script, so that could be another option.

If you are planning on controlling the Maestro through a computer instead of a Maestro script, you might consider looking into the Visual Show Automation program from Brookshire Software, which has built-in support for the Maestro to help match the sequence to audio.

You might find the information in this forum post by Brandon helpful as well.

-Ryan