Adding a Mic

WHY I DO WHAT I DO

I love things that light up and blink in time to music .There is something magical about not just hearing music, but being visually immersed in it. My most successful product to date is the DALCON which lets you pre-program LED strips to go along with music. But it is built for a pre-staged show, not for walking around at a concert or going to a dance party. These glasses need to respond to music in real time and that means it needs an ear. And not just any will do, we need a MEMS microphone as an ear.

It is the same type of microphone you will find in a cell phone or a smart phone. They are very small, low power and very durable. With very few components it can be attached to the MCU (brain) of the glasses and let it hear similar to the way you hear. All that needs to be done is to interpret that raw data and turn it into a beautiful visual show that I will be proud to wear on my face.

HAVING FUN WITH MATH

Turning the raw data coming from the microphone into something that can be displayed is no small task. It involves a branch of mathematics called Fourier Transforms. More specifically a programming algorithm called a FFT (Fast Fourier Tranform). Basically it takes the raw data and transforms it into the volumes of individual sound frequencies. It makes the data look more like the way we hear sound.

With the data transformed it becomes an artistic exercise of making pretty animations. Finding the right microphone, designing the proper amplifier circuitry and performing the math is simply what is required. The audio visual animations is the really needed part. It is the part that drives me to continue working, continue building and continue making the next pair of PEGS. 

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