A wearable sound-to-light display, without a microprocessor - the Musicator Junior.

Step 4 Fire it up!

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Once it's tested and working, you'll find that it's a real conversation piece at your next party or dance.

You can slip it inside a shirt pocket with the perfboard on the outside. The mic will pick up the sound from around you and the LEDs will 'perform' to it.

A final touch - cut short pieces of a clear or translucent drinking straw to fit over the tops of the LEDs. This will spread the light to give you the 'bar of light' effect.

The last image is my test rig for this project.

A video of the Junior Musicator in action here.

Comments

[indiantinker]

Awesome Instructable..i have done something like this using Arduino and Processing!
But this one is real portable!
Im making this one...
Cheers!

[qs]

Thanks! I hope you have fun building this simple project.

And check out my Arduino powered Level Display too!

[umfan110]

is there any way that you can split it into high, mid, and lows

[qs]

I have a couple of other projects that do that, including this one: http://www.instructables.com/id/A-Triple-Channel-Musicator-the-TriM/ and the Android driven Musicator: http://www.instructables.com/id/The-LED-Matrix-Panel-or-LMP-for-the-Arduino-micr/

Hope they're what you're looking for!

[umfan110]

This was exactly what i was looking for did you hook this up to a mic or to a 1/8 audio jack. Mine my iggnorance but what dose COM mean i never understood that i know there is left and right but com?

[qs]

COM stands for Common - if Red and White are the RIght and Left channels then the Common is usually the Black wire.

[az5625]

REGGAE MUUUUUUSIC!

[basher345]

haha can't WAIT to finish this!:)

[lazer155]

 I tried building it but mine doesnt seem to be very sensitive to sounds or music.  I have to play the song really loud directly into the microphone.  What did I do wrong?

Super tutorial by the way! :)

[shacklebolt]

Mine is the same way, it might have to do with the LEDs i used not being very good ones so it's hard to see. I used the 100K resistor instead of the 47K I wonder if that makes a difference.

[lazer155]

 I got mine working now after asking qs what was wrong with it.  I was also using a 100k resistor and that was the problem.  As soon as I put the 47k resistor on it started working perfectly.  Try the 47k, I think it will fix it.

[basher345]

you can use anywhere between 10k and 47k.

[fro.in.bixby]

oh what a great song! great instructable too, i'll definitely make one.