maniac sabayon

[alonsoty]

Are you a fan of gadgets?

I have a colleague who arrived in December with the USB Christmas tree!

[Fitzcarraldo]

What would be quite cool would be if you could play music on your PC using e.g. Amarok and the lights on the USB Christmas tree would flash in synchronisation with the music. A bit like the following, but on a much smaller scale: Christmas Lights Gone Wild. That house in 2004, belonging to a guy named Carson Williams of Ohio, had thousands of Christmas lights firing in synchronisation to the Trans Siberian Orchestra's 'Christmas Eve in Sarajevo'. The owner transmitted the music via low-power FM radio, so people driving by his house could tune in to the correct frequency and watch the lights while listening to the music on their car radio. Now he is a gadget freak!

[alonsoty]

Fitzcarraldo not tempt me ....
I'm a maniac...

I mess with the professional audio equipment and the DIY Hi-Fi systems for 15 years now.
I did annoy the teachers of the Faculty of Electronics with my passion for audio!
Right now(in these days) I like to design a system of sound reproduction by amateur...



The effect that you say requires at least one software module that functions as a Beat-Detector (maybe a plug-in including also a FFT algoritm) then the rest of the electronics is very easy!

[Fitzcarraldo]

Nice! (And I did notice the 'scope. )

[alonsoty]

Oh... connoisseur (the hidden things are always the best)
This is the last and glorious fully analog Kikusui(still amazing after 20 years).
But the only downside is that you must turn it on at least 15 minutes before making a valid measurements.
But I'm being excessively protagonist...

So why do not we think of a true Sabayon geeks gadget (maniac style), that everyone can build itself easily.

I'm seriously thinking about the DIY USB tree with the song of Trans-Siberian Orchestra in mind...

[Fitzcarraldo]

I like the sketch!

Have you heard of the open-source Arduino project? There are sometimes articles with Linux projects using Arduino in Linux Format magazine. I think that would be a good way of doing it.

Arduino Home Page

Arduino Forum

YouTube -- How-to Tuesday: Fun with the Arduino Starter Kit

And, yes, someone even used an Arduino to fire LEDs synchronised to the TSO's Christmas music (actually I was mistaken in my earlier post: the track is entitled 'Wizards of Winter'): Wizzards_Arduino.MOV. Another guy posted a video on YouTube of his house done this way too: wizards in winter.MOD. There are many videos of Arduino projects on YouTube. Looks fun.

P.S. The TSO are a blast, aren't they?! Gotta love those chopping axes!

[alonsoty]

Fitzcarraldo, you are great.
With you it can always find different ideas for discussion.

I knew Arduino but probably not enough, because I did not know he had a development system that runs on Linux!

I have some funny experience with Microchip PIC (using C language and JAL) but have not yet learned to use the USB communication (mea culpa).
They also have some very nice Starter Kit to learn and have fun with microcontrollers.

I also remember a plug-in for XMMS that could control some features ...
I have to go searching through my old stuff!

TSO is a really interesting musical project (an iron fist in a velvet glove).
I have always loved extreme combinations (ie Royal Philharmonic with Deep Purple...)