# A hardware question about the sound 'chips' **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [November 3, 2022, 4:14pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/a-hardware-question-about-the-sound-chips/16157 "2022-11-03T16:14:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Salex](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/salex/32/15835_2.png) [@Salex](https://forum.makecode.com/u/Salex)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2022, 4:14pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/a-hardware-question-about-the-sound-chips/16157/1 "2022-11-03T16:14:33Z")
The sound category in the editor seems to only allow one melody/sound to be played at a time. However, using the ‘Timer’ extension, you can have the ‘on background’ block to allow more than one note at a time, like chords. Will this work on actual hardware, any limitations like sound voices (how many notes allowed to play at a time) or anything? I can’t test this at the moment… Hope you understand what I’m on about ---
**Author:** ![UnsignedArduino](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/unsignedarduino/32/592_2.png) [@UnsignedArduino](https://forum.makecode.com/u/UnsignedArduino)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2022, 4:43pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/a-hardware-question-about-the-sound-chips/16157/2 "2022-11-03T16:43:07Z")
There is an artificial limitation of 6 con-current notes, but I believe you can surpass that by writing sound frames directly to the queue (my ArcadeMIDI extension uses this) instead of using the high-level API. This should all work on hardware. (including the timers stuff you said) ---
**Author:** ![Salex](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.makecode.com/salex/32/15835_2.png) [@Salex](https://forum.makecode.com/u/Salex)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2022, 6:39pm UTC](https://forum.makecode.com/t/a-hardware-question-about-the-sound-chips/16157/3 "2022-11-03T18:39:08Z")
Thank you