I have what I hope is a quick (and simple) question.
I am looking for a small MIDI synth module to use with a Pico/Pico2. From a quick read about ADA1381, it looks like it would fit the bill, as ideally I would drive it from a UART on the Pico.
From reading the description, it would seem that I can drive it with 3.3v, which makes it much easier (no need for level converters!). In the Adafruit tutorial, it says to connect VCC to 5V, but is this just because the tutorial uses an Arduino board?
Has anyone done this already on a Pico (I won’t be using the Ardunino environment, but it’s the hardware compatibility than concerns me)?
You should drive it from 5V. It has an internal regulator which generates 3V3 and 1V8 as needed by the chip. You could drive it from the Pico 3V3, but that pin might not provide enough current, so why bother.
A side note: depending on what you really want to do, you should consider CircuitPython, which has superior MIDI support already built in. No need for an external board with extra wiring.
Ah. So the regulator means that while you power the board with 5V, all the signals brought out to the headers are 3V3.
Python’s not my language of choice for most things, TBH, I started over 40 years ago with C on UN*X based systems, and while I have dabbled with C#, Python (principally Python3 and MicroPython), mostly I tend to use C and C++. I know CircuitPython is ‘similar’ to MP, and has good support from AdaFruit, who used to be my go-to for breakouts etc, until a certain Sheffield company started…
CP is a fork of MP and every new MP version is merged so the difference for all but the very advanced Python-hackers is minimal. Drivers, libraries, documentation, hardware APIs differ though. But they are stable across architectures and versions.
I also use C/C++, but only for things that need tight control of resources.