Importing and Exporting Audio

Wiring

Make sure you have the speakers plugged into the speaker ports. As well, for audio to play out of the speakers, you will need to have the provided power adapter plugged in that also powers the servos. The speakers cannot run off of USB power, they need to use the external power adapter.

Adding Audio and Video files to Bottango

In order to play music on the Solar control board, you’ll need to import audio/video files into your Captain Cogbrow project. If you haven’t already done so, be sure to check out the tutorial video on adding audio and video to your project.

We can also use the default “Ballad of Captain Cogbrow” demo song that is included by default in your Bottango project, and export the audio from that file.

Audio/Video Track In Animations

Importing the audio / video file into the Bottango project is a start, but you’ll need to also add it to the animations you want to play it on. Audio will only play in the Bottango application as well as on your hardware when audio keyframes in animations tell it to.

You can see in this example, the demo Captain Cogbrow song has a keyframe for the imported video file at the beginning of the animation.

Mount the Solar SD card on your computer

Included in your Bottango Solar is a micro SD card. Remove it from Bottango Solar, and mount it on your computer. You will need either a computer with a micro sd card slot, or a usb micro sd card reader.

Note

In a future version, the Bottango application will support transferring the audio files directly to the SD card while still in your Bottango Solar. However, that will always be a slower option compared to directly mounting the card on your computer, exporting the required audio files, then placing it back in Bottango Solar.

Connect to Bottango Solar

Make sure Bottango Solar is currently fully connected to Bottango and up to date. Bottango Solar will report to the Bottango application that it has audio playing functionality, and the additional options discussed below will only be shown if you have connected to Bottango Solar.

Set Up “Play On Hardware”

For any audio file you want to also play on your Bottango Solar board, you’ll need to enable the “Play On Hardware” option in the “Import” menu. When you do that, additional options will show up (be sure you’re connected to Bottango Solar). We’ll use the built-in demo song in this example, but the steps work for your own imported media files as well.

Configure Options

There’s a few options you’ll need to be aware of:

• Live: Just like setting a servo live / not live, audio on hardware needs to be toggled live or not live. For any audio file you want to play on hardware, after you export the audio files, be sure to toggle it live or else it won’t play.

• Driver: This selects which board the audio will play on. It should default to “Default Driver” which is your Bottango Solar. If you have set up Pro Kit Wireless, and it has selected “Nova,” be sure to set this back to “Default Driver”

• Unique Identifier: Each audio file you want to play on hardware needs a small unique name. The name can be 8 characters or less. You just need to pick something unique per audio file.

For video files, at this time the Bottango application cannot “copy out” the audio only from a video file, so you’ll need to provide a separate audio file in .WAV or .OGG format that will be used to generate the data to export what Bottango Solar needs. There are many online converters that can generate audio files from video files. Once you have an audio file, set its location in the “Audio File For Export” section that shows up in video files. You can use the “folder” button in that section to select a file on your computer.

Export Audio Files

Click the “Export Audio Files” button at the top of the menu, and follow the steps. Make sure “Default Driver” is selected, and place the exported “audio” folder at the root of your SD card.

Eject the SD card and put it back in Bottango Solar.

Set the Audio File Live In Bottango

With the audio files exported onto the SD card, and placed back in Bottango Solar, now turn the audio files you want to play on the hardware “Live.” Bottango will check for you if the SD card can be found, if the Audio file can be found on the SD card, and will check if the audio data on the SD card matches what’s on your computer. You’ll be given a warning if audio is out of date so you can update it, but you’ll still be able to play the audio.

If everything went to plan, you’ll see the audio file live in Bottango, and the SD card status as expected.