Pulsing rgb LED's to the beat of music

Using Arduino Audio
#1

Ok so I want to be able to plug in some sort of mp3 device like an ipod into an arduino, have the arduino read the music's beat frequency, and depending on what frequency the beat is playing at i want the LED's to turn certain colors. So basicly, the lights will flash a certain color to the beat of the music depending on the tone (frequency)the music is playing at. I dont really know where to start this except that I know i'll need an arduino, some RAM to process all of that info since i read somewhere that the arduino is slow at doing this, an ipod, some LEDs, and some sort of input jack to connect the ipod into the arduino. I have basic knowledge of C++ and have written some programs but I haven't made anything Physically interact with the software.

If anyone can point me into the right direction as far as components that i will need and some ideas on how to go about completing this project, it would be awesome.

Thank you in advance.

#2

I think someone did this fairly recently. Try searching for FFT (which will give you the frequencies). Example search:

arduino fft led
#3

ok so i found this. Do you think this could help me achieve my project?

http://www.bliptronics.com/item.aspx?ItemID=116
#4

It might. I found about 12,700,000 results for that search. Some of them must work. Some may not need extra hardware apart from some way of getting the sound into your Arduino.

#5

I don't believe the Arduino ADC is fast enough for full-range (20-20khz) FFT...

But, it is plenty fast-enough if you do the frequency-filtering first, and it just has to read & process the voltage (volume) for each frequency-band.

You could build frequency-filters (bandpass filters) and peak-detectors with op-amps, but I think the simplest approach would be [u]this chip[/u] which gives you outputs for a 7-band spectrum analyzer. If you want, you can just use 3 of the bands and connect the output to 3 of Arduino's analog inputs.

I just finished an audio-lighting project and I have a couple of hints that might make your set-up work better by automatically-adjusting to the volume level... (My design doesn't have any knobs or controls.)

Once per second, I load the volume-reading into an array/buffer. The array holds 20 values, and when I get to the end, I start-over. This gives me 20 seconds worth of "data". I take an average and find the maximum every time I update it. (I'm not finding the minimum in my application, but of course you could.)

One of my effects simply compares the input to the average (in a loop, of course), and whenever the input is greater than average, the lights come-on, and if it's below average, they go-off. This makes the lights "flicker" to the music.

Another effect is a VU meter effect. The bottom light comes on whenever the signal is above average, and the top-light comes-on when the signal is slightly-less than the maximum. The in-between lights are scaled to come-on proportionally in-between. Of course, this is not a good "meter" because the display is meaningless, but it works as a great meter-effect.

In addition, I check the maximum value in the array to select the 1.1V or 5V ADC reference. If the maximum value is 1023, the ADC is clipping. If I'm using the 1.1V reference and I get 1023, I change to the 5V reference. If I'm using the 5.5V reference and the maximum is below 200, I switch to the more-sensitive 1.1V reference. When I switch ADC reference levels i re-calculate the values in the array, so that I dont' have to wait 20 seconds for the array to re-fill with good-data.)

#6

how about this - FFT on Arduino in software...

PS I'm not the author, waaaaay to clever for me.... :roll_eyes:

#7