AudioVisualizer

A simple python application for visualising music on a led strip

This project was developed during my seminar work about music visualization and representation. It's a simple program with a few effects for visualising the audio output from your device on a led strip. This project is especially designed for people who want to start to code in the field of music visualisation / digital signal processing. The code therefore is well documented. But of course everybody else can also use this project and have fun with it :)

In addition, I want to give some credits to the projects LedFx and Audio Reactive LED Strip who helped me to understand the practical usage of many concepts.

If your wish to read our documentation to the seminar work, you will find it here

Demo

Watch the full video on YouTube

How does it work?

The program takes the audio signal from your preferred input device and analyzes it. If your wish to visualize your music output on your pc, enable and set the input device Stereomix as the default device. Stereomix takes the output from your soundcard and loops it to the input again

When the program rendered the signal, it will be send over the sACN protocol through your LAN to a microcontroller with an led strip connected. If your pc is connected through an ethernet cable with your LAN, the connection is more stable than through WLAN.

With this structure you can place the led light in your apartment wherever you want and can connect to it with your pc to start the visualization

Usage

To use the application on your computer you need:

• Python 3.1 (Anaconda is preferred) and an IDE

• Stereomix enabled on your computer (to visualize your music output)

• An led strip: We tested the application with a ws2812b/sk6812 strip

• An ESP32 or ESP8266 with a led software to receive the transmitted signals from the computer. Note that the ESP8266 could be to weak for WLAN. We used an ESP32 and WLED for this

• Recommended but optional: Extra power supply to prevent the current from flowing through the whole esp. Without this, the esp doesn't deliver the maximum 5V (Only 3.3V) and he could get hot.

• I build an adapter circuit to solve this issue: esp32-led

Install the dependencies

with Anaconda

Create a conda virtual environment (optional but recommended)

conda create --name visualization-env python=3.1
activate visualization-env

Install the dependencies with pip and the conda package manager

conda install numpy scipy pyqtgraph
pip install pyaudio
pip install sacn
pip install PySide2
pip install customtkinter

Without Anaconda

Use the pip packet manager to install all necessary packages

pip install numpy
pip install scipy
pip install pyaudio
pip install sacn
pip install PySide2
pip install pyqtgraph
pip install customtkinter

If pip is not found try to use python -m pip install instead

When you are finished you can start the program with the gui.py file. A little window is popping up where you can switch between all effects If you wish to create an own gui use the main interface program.py

Make sure your microcontroller has sACN over multicast enabled. If your wish to use unicast for sending, change the sACN configuration in sender.py

Issues and Future

This project was developed with the intention to help other ongoing programmers to start in the field of music visualization/digital signal processing during my seminar work. Because of that, regular updates are not planned currently.

I will do some small updates in the future for sure (a better gui for example), but not big ones. If your wish to extend this project or build a new one, feel free to create a fork or use the program code from my program