Use Op-Amps to Make a LED Color Organ

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Collin Cunningham’s awesome videos are always great to watch. This time, Collin shows how to build a Color Organ, which is a light display that responds to sounds around it, allowing you to build cool visualizer effects to go with your tunes.
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Long before the dawn of digital music, folks employed the power of the electric color organ (aka “light organ”) to add some synced visuals to their hi-fi experience. Schematics for building such a beast based on AC power and incandescent bulbs can be be found fairly easily on the web, but plans for comparable LED-based designs seem a bit harder to come by.

Adapted from Aaron Cake’s 3 Channel Spectrum Analyzer, I built my own analog LED Color Organ to enhance the aural experience. The circuit uses 4 operational amplifiers plus ultra-bright 5mm LEDs to respond visually for bass, mid, and treble frequencies.

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My interests include writing, electronics, RPGs, scifi, hackers & hackerspaces, 3D printing, building sets & toys. @johnbaichtal nerdage.net

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