MaixCAM MaixPy Audio Record

Update history
Date Version Author Update content
2024-05-20 1.0.0 lxowalle Initial document

Introduction

This document provides the usage of audio recording and supports recording audio in PCM and WAV formats.

The MaixCAM has a microphone on board, so you can use the recording function directly.

How to use

Getting PCM data

If you don't pass path when constructing a Recorder object, it will only record audio and not save it to a file, but you can save it to a file manually.

from maix import audio, time, app

r = audio.Recorder()
r.volume(12)
print("sample_rate:{} format:{} channel:{}".format(r.sample_rate(), r.format(), r.channel()))

while not app.need_exit():
    data = r.record()
    print("data size", len(data))

    time.sleep_ms(10)

print("record finish!")

Steps:

  1. Import the audio, time and app modules:

    from maix import audio, time, app
    
  2. Initialize Recorder

    r = audio.Recorder()
    r.volume(12)
    
    • Note that the default sample rate is 48k, the sample format is little-endian format - signed 16-bit, and the sample channel is 1. You can also customise the parameters like this r = audio.Recorder(sample_rate=48000, format=audio.Format.FMT_S16_LE, channel = 1). So far only tested with sample rate 48000, format FMT_S16_LE, and number of sampling channels 1.

    • r.volume(12) is used to set the volume, the volume range is [0,100]

  3. Start recording

    data = r.record()
    
    • data is bytes type data in PCM format that holds the currently recorded audio. The PCM format is set when initialising the Recorder object, see step 2. Note that if the recording is too fast and there is no data in the audio buffer, it is possible to return an empty bytes of data.
  4. Done, you can do voice processing on the PCM data returned by r.record() when doing your own applications.

Records audio and saves it in WAV format.

If you pass path when constructing a Recorder object, the recorded audio will be saved to a path file, and you can also get the currently recorded PCM data via the record method. path only supports paths with .pcm and .wav suffixes, and the record method does not return WAV headers when recording .wav, it only returns PCM data.

from maix import audio, time, app

r = audio.Recorder("/root/output.wav")
r.volume(12)
print("sample_rate:{} format:{} channel:{}".format(r.sample_rate(), r.format(), r.channel()))

while not app.need_exit():
    data = r.record()
    print("data size", len(data))

    time.sleep_ms(10)

print("record finish!")

The code means basically the same as above.

Record audio and save to WAV format (blocking)

If the record_ms parameter is set during recording, recording audio will block until the time set by record_ms is reached, unit: ms.

from maix import audio, time, app

r = audio.Recorder("/root/output.wav")
r.volume(12)
print("sample_rate:{} format:{} channel:{}".format(r.sample_rate(), r.format(), r.channel()))

r.record(5000)

print("record finish!")

The above example will keep recording 5000ms and save it to WAV format, during the recording period it will block in record method, note that PCM data will not be returned when record is set to record_ms.

Other

The Player and Recorder modules have some bugs to be worked out, make sure they are created before other modules (Camera module, Display module, etc.). For example:

# Create Player and Recorder first.
p = audio.Player()
r = audio.Recorder()

# Then create the Camera
c = camera.Camera()