ColorChanging LED Makes Techno Music
While we love addressable LEDs for their compliance, why do we still need to control everything? Attendees to the Music Maker Hackclub, part of February's Artifact Festival, know that sometimes we just have to sit back and listen to our electronics.
At the end of the Artifact Festival, they still have the LED echo microphone that changes color from the rescued toys. When powered by a 9V battery, the LED begins to display a tiny light that flickers and dims, blending the three primary colors at best. However, vocally, he spends most of his time in quiet splendor.
As you know, LEDs of this type contain integrated microcircuits. This IC modulates the amplitude of the current pulses in a pre-programmed pattern via a light-emitting junction, creating colorful lighting effects.
To create the LED ring, the participants added a 1 kΩ series resistor to the "anode" of the LED, which accurately converted the current flowing through the LED into a measurable change in voltage. This signal can be fed to a small amplifier or mixer. Lead expressed his gratitude for the life-changing promotion by singing his discount song.
This particular IC appears to be operating at a switching frequency of around 1.1kHz and the resulting square wave signal drives the mixer. However, not everything we hear can be explained by PWM alone. Rhythmic impulses, pitch changes, loudness and more are there to be analyzed and studied. Not to spoil the fun of the simulated beeps and crackles (feel free to spoil your own in the comments!), we hope you enjoy the video and thank the folks at STUK Belgium for sharing their insights.
