I want to connect PC to microcontroller using USB for audio/music transfer. There are PIC microcontroller with USB like pic18F4450 and another option is to use AVR with FT232 chip. Would these work for my application? Is 8-bit micro sufficient? Also what bit size DAC should be used if I want to play the audio/music with speaker from the microcontroller.
why no simple USB - audio device? Cheap and ready to buy. Plug and play.
Or a blouetooth - audio device? Cheap and ready to buy. Plug and play.
Why do you need a microcontroller?
If you want to process the digital audio data somehow, then I recommend a DSP.
If you don´t want to process the data, then I don´t recommend a controller at all.
I need to control the switching of audio/music from different type of source to headset, so using a microcontroller for that. Also I have to play the audio/music on a loudspeaker so a DAC is also required. What DAC is suitable for playing music MP3,MP4? or can i use just anyone?
Switching audio sources: a little drawing could clarify what exactely you want to do.
(Usually this is done in the PC)
MP3, MP4: I assume there is no DAC that can process this data format directely. I need an MP3/MP4 decoder for this.
(Usually this is done in the PC, too)
i have attached picture to illustrate what i want to do? I want to listen to music from PC on the headset/headphone or record from headphone mic input in PC. how can I do this, which microcontroller can be used and any other things(IC,DAC etc) I need to add/know about. I am thinking of pic18F4550 for microcontroller. will it work?
There are better and worse options. The ideal choice in my opinion would obviously be a microcontroller with enough capacity of RAM in order to buffer the data received in a FIFO array, such as the ARM or any other which has abundant external volatile memory, since your system must to be previously loaded before playing the music, in case the PC data upload rate is not synchronized with the sampling rate - which is the expected scenario.
Let's forget about the switching the audio sources for the moment, i would be happy to receive any good advice for the simple diagram above first. what microcontroller, ARM is high end, i think there are other easier microcontrollers that can do the job. i will attach the picture with audio sources later. but i think it is not hard to imagine different audio/music sources that is connected to micro which switches them. For example audio sources from cell phones connected to system via another usb or bluetooth