Intro
Addressable LED strip projects were making the rounds on maker blogs a while ago and it got me wondering if you could make them react to music in interesting ways. Not surprisingly, someone had already done a similar project and I was able to borrow some concepts from their code.
Backing board
Cutting the shapes out of fiberboard. Did most of the geometry layout with a compass which was tricky but fun.
Frame
Electronics
LEDs
The wood frame was mostly to give it some depth and hide the junky edge of the fiberboard. It also allows you to route the LED strip without kinking it. Another bonus is that the LEDs reflect off the wall instead of shining at you directly – they’re way brighter than I anticipated.
Up and running
I’m happy with the build overall but the sound processing could use some work. If I was writing it from scratch I’d probably try to implement better beat detection and have different brightness and colors for different frequencies and beats.
Even without the sound detection running it was fun programming different light sequences. I made a pretty convincing lightning simulator which involved some research into what makes lighting look like lightning. Anything periodic looks artificial and anything purely random doesn’t seem natural. You can also make cool rippling patterns which look like some kind of sea creature dazzle camouflage.
