Music Visualization without Computer

Step 4 The Magic!

Pour a little bit of water into the speaker cone. It can cover the dome or not. Play music through the speaker. You will probably have to turn it up a bit, but then you will see pattern form on the surface of the water.
There are three basic patterns:
The first and simplest is rings, and it looks like a standing ripple. It will change dimensions depending on the music.
The second happens with more complex music and especially bass. It appears as a bunch of high but small radius circles that will move around and interact with each other to create a constantly moving interference pattern.
The third happens when you turn the music up quite loud. The water will jump (I've had it go two and a half feet) and continue to do so in a lovely shower of drops in the loudness which will get anything within a foot or two damp.
Old one:

And after the polyurethane

Yay!

Comments

[kallen8]

Does it change the sound at all?

[nikolardo]

Yes - it's significantly muffled. The water dampens the speakers vibrations. However, it's certainly still audible.

[nametaken]

Clever design :) Do you think sand would work just as well?

[nikolardo]

I'm inclined to think not - I know I've seen things on youtube with sand resonating, but they're generally surface patterns on something flat. I certainly don't know, and you should definitely try it, but I suspect that sand isn't fluid enough to move quickly enough to show these effects - my guess is that it would just muffle the sound.