Control LED strip based on music

markussen

Hi all,

I've recently configured a Raspberry Pi 3 with Runeaudio v0.3-beta (which BTW works just great!), but I'd like to add some more features to it. Next thing I'm setting up is the 7" LCD touchscreen.

However, my purpose is to have the Raspberry Pi controlling RGB LED strips based on the music it plays. As a concept:

Runeaudio playing --> FFT (Fourier) --> GPIO to send LED strips signals to light up/down and color/intensity

1. Would something like this be possible from programming perspective? If so, how could I start programming? I'm pretty confused about how to use python here.

2. If there are constraints (performance being the larger I guess), what would they be? Would they be still a problem in a Raspberry Pi 3? (taking into account its power?

Thanks a lot.

dunghnguyen

Is this the one that you are concerning? http://s.aliexpress.com/neuy2qeM

markussen

Hi dunghnguyen,

Nope, I'm actually looking forward to get something like this, so the music ouputted from the RuneAudio can generate the light flashes or color changes based on the music as it sounds (lights+music in sync):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCUiZQ_tbCs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y76uy2eROmY

I've looking for a workaround (not RPi based only, but using other devices) and I'm already working on it. It basically consists of a Sparkfun Spectrum shield for arduino which receives the ouput from RuneAudio, gets FFT signal (however, only 7 channels/frequencies), outputs the audio on one side (for the speakers) and gets the FFT info to the LED's. If you google the Sparkfun shield I mentioned, you can find it.

However, I'd like to use as least components/resources as possible, por portability and power consumption.

Thanks anyway.

hondagx35

Hi markussen,

the Pi (RP2/3) should be powerful enough for this task.
You can use a special python fft library that uses the GPU for calculations.
https://github.com/colin-guyon/rpi-audio-levels

- use the pipe output from MPD
- calculate the audio levels
- use neopixels or some sort of WS2811 rgb leds

Frank

markussen

hondagx35 wroteHi markussen,

the Pi (RP2/3) should be powerful enough for this task.
You can use a special python fft library that uses the GPU for calculations.
https://github.com/colin-guyon/rpi-audio-levels

- use the pipe output from MPD
- calculate the audio levels
- use neopixels or some sort of WS2811 rgb leds

Frank

Thanks a lot Frank. I'll give it a try using this library. This is the first time I'm programming with Python on Raspberry Pi, but from what I read in that link, it seems a great solution as it allows you to define as many frequency bands as you want, what makes this solution more flexible than the Arduino+Sparkfun I mentioned (plus less components, obviously).

I'll give it a try and I'll let you know what the outcome is as soon as I have some results. Thanks again.