Microcontrollers

VS1053	Comment	ESP32	ESP8266	RP2040	STM32 Blackpill	UNO R4
SCK	SPI Serial Clock	18	D5	D18	PA_5	D13
(MI)SO	SPI Master Input ← Slave Output	19	D6	D16	PA_6	D12
(MO)SI	SPI Master Output → Slave Input	23	D7	D19	PA_7	D11
(X)CS	SPI Chip Select: Configured in Sketch	5	D1	D17	PA_1	D6
(X)DCS	Data Chip Select: Configured in Sketch	16	D0	D9	PA_2	D7
DREQ	Data Request: Configured in Sketch	4	D3	D10	PA_3	D2
(X)RST	Hardware Reset Pin: low=reset	15	RST	D11	PA_4	D8
CS_SD	CS Pin for SD Drive					D9
5V	Power Supply	5V	5V	VBUS	5V	VIN
GND	Ground	GND	GND	GND	G	GND

The pins marked as Configured in Sketch are just proposals that can be changed in your sketch. The setup is for for the Arduino SPI object. The RP2040 was using the implementation from Earl Phil Hower.

Breakout Boards

I was mainly using some cheap Chinese boards for my tests:

VS1003

This board is easy to use and I did not have any issues. The major drawback however is that it uses only a VS1003:

Note that the pin marked as CS is standing for XCS !

VS1053

I had plenty of issues with this board and in the beginning I did not get any sound out of it - though the SPI was working properly - but suddenly it started to work.

Note that the pin marked as CS is for the SD drive!

Alientek VS1053

VS1053 MP3 Shield

This board is a shield for the Arduino UNO and also contains an SD drive!