I want to create some code for some LED music visualizer so the party can be hm.. LIT! I only have 3 days to do this project. Let’s do this!
We are doing the wedding planning ourselves, and a lot of the things you normally hire someone to do, we are doing ourselves to save a little bit of money. We are hiring a family friend to be the DJ and we are setting up the equipment for him. We need this party to be amazing! With that, we have a fog machine, sound system, computer, but we are missing a light show. I think that some LED synced with the music would be awesome! We are going to have some black lights, a drink with tonic water that will glow in the dark, so I am pretty excited to do this!
Materials:
Mega2560 Microcontroller: Amazon
RGB LED Strip: Amazon
LED Amplifier: Amazon
12V 5A Power Supply: Amazon
Downloads:
The Project
Some time ago, I ordered some RGB LED strips. My idea is to use this above the dance floor making a cool effect with the fog machine. This strip has 4 pins. One of them is the positive ground and the other three are the negative terminals for the LED (RGB). You can flash those lights in different frequencies making a mix of colors with red, green and blue, that turn into other colors.
I also have an LED amplifier that allows you to draw more current on the output. I am going to have the LEDs with the amplifiers, and the idea is to control the lights with a computer program on Python that is going to analyze the frequencies that are coming out of the speakers and represent those as a graph on Arduino. And I want to represent those frequencies with different colors with the LED Music Visualizer.
Step 1. I’m going to do a little research to see what similar projects are out there. I can also use the code that I wrote for two similar projects I had on Python. The Furnace controller and hot plate styr. They both use the same principle where the computer takes in input from the Arduino, does a little bit of calculation, and compares that, let’s say, to a temperature control graph and outputs it back to Arduino. You can check these projects here.
Now we plan how to tackle the issue. While I’m processing the signal, I realized that low frequencies are being drawn out by a 60 Hz Signal. Which is Likely the House electrical system. There are a few reasons why this is happening.
- A ground loop or The AC is not connected to the signal path and the mic is receiving the information of the magnetic field that is travelling through the air.
- The voltage travelling thru the air
- The cables I’m using are interfering.
I fixed that and now it’s testing time. Since I’m using the laptop, there isn’t really noise because everything is digital, opposite from my desktop. I asked the program to tell the Arduino when to flash and what color to flash.
Let’s change this code just a little bit… there it goes… Now it’s starting the audio capture. Well the red is working, sort of. When I turn the sound up, it flashes more, when I turn it down, it flashes less. I really hope I can add some beat detection.
Well, now it is only working on red, let’s make some changes…
I might only have one of these strips, because I don’t want to give anybody a seizure. It’s not working perfectly, maybe we can detect the beat a little better. I might stay up all night to do the beat detection. So, let’s see if I’ll do that!
So I optimize my code a little bit. That’s so much better! To hell with beat detection, this is good, this LED Music Visualizer will work. Beat detection would make this better, but I don’t know if anyone will notice. Time to put things together!
I hope you enjoyed this project! Let me know if you have any questions on the comments below!