My search came up empty so I'm asking.... I have purchased a sound activation module for my lights and I am less than impressed with how it well it works. With the unit inside my case, it picks up a lot of noises so the lights don't quite react with music like one would want. First Question(s) I was wondering if any of you folks have had any success with relocating the tiny mic to the bezel somewhere. Maybe it would pickup more of the sound you want and less of the sound you dont? Maybe someone could recommend a better mic if that's necessary? Second Question(s) The tiny pot for adjusting the mic sensitity is too sensitive. Could I replace it with a "regular sized" pot that I could put a knob on? Wouldn't that give me a smoother range of adjustment? Third Questions(s) I have a pair of red ccfls and a pair of uv ones. The effect I was hoping to achieve was that the red would stay on and the uv would pulse with the music and make my uv reactive goodies inside "flash". Much to my dissapointment, the red really drowns out the uv. It really diminishes the effect of the uv. Does anyone know how I could make the red turn off at the same instant the uv turns on? I think it would make a great effect. Sorry for such a lengthy post, I was just trying to be thorough. If this topic has been covered somewhere, please point me in the right direction.
Yes, i have yet to see a sound interface unit thats any good. Most of them look like crap strobes that miss loads of beats! in awnser to your questions 1:its possible 2:yes 3:yes again, what load are red CCFL(s) The problem is beat detection is hard, well thats not exactly true, detecting the beats that are with the tempo of the music is hard. Myself i am playing about with high-ish-end micro's using FFT to try and get something that looks good, but so far haven't had anything spectacular. If you look at the AVS in winamp 5, you will see even that has problems catching beats all the time.
If you've a spare output socket on your soundcard it should be possible to wire to that instead of the mike. It will need the voltage reducing a lot, but you could include a filter to just catch the bass end.
if its just for music, use a spare port on your computer and make a winamp plugin, its not hard and will get the best effects. you could use a un-used pin on a comm port, or the lpt port.
I should have included that though I have understand some very basic concepts of electronics I'm not too familiar with most of the components. Sorry. I don't know how to find out what the load is. A little of my little theory about beat detection: I think the little condenser mic picks up certain frequencies better than others. My lights will flash pretty acurately on snare drum hits and other notes in that small range. (I'm happy with that. It doesn't have to flash on the bass as long as it's consistent). I think the "cone" in the mic just resonates at that frequency.
I've been thinking about the some more. Are you familiar with how crossovers work in car/home audio? They split the frequency range up so that your speakers only try to play the frequencies they were designed for. For example: A 3 way crossover will send 3 different frequency ranges to your tweeters, mids, and subs. I think if one were creative enough, something could be made to send certain frequency ranges to different lights. I know a low pass filter can be made with a coil, a high pass filter can be made with a capacitor, and a bandpass filter can be made with both. These are used at speaker level though. Active crossovers do their filtering at the preamp stage at much lower voltage. Active crossovers in cars also run at 12V which is kinda convenient doncha think? Comments anyone?
soo...in theory you can have this filter and it should work...but once the sound is filtered what does it go into to make the lights blink? maybe some sort of relay or something (i'm just tossing out ideas i dont really know) and when current passes thru the line the lights go on and once the sound stops the lights stop...but i'm wondering if you can ajust it so instead of when youre playing a song (there is always noise when a song is playing) the lights go on you can make it more dramatic some how...
More "theory"... Maybe someone more experienced will pipe up, but here goes... Wire your mic to one of the line in rca jacks. Wire the line outs to the mic inputs on your sound activation module. Like this:
