Hi, I am new to FastLED and I just ordered 12 meters of 60 LED/p WS2812 strip for my “disco basement” in my house for doing small home parties.
I am doing some experiements with a bunch of single LEDs put together and I am amazed by the possibilitiesof FastLED, I also got it working together with Glediator.
and I am wondering how this might be done. I cant beleive that the patterns shown are a result of just music auto detection of any means. Do you think this is a pre-programmed sequence which is somehow synced exactly to the music/the beats?
While a lot of standard patterns or music reactive patterns are ok, I would actually like for a limited number of songs, to do individual patterns. As kind of a sequence which only works with one specific song. Similar to those christmas light installations that you can find everywhere on youtube.
Has anyone done anything like that and is aware of information sources on the net I could use? I could think of a “beat detection” on the arduino which will then count through the beats of a song and based on the “beat number” play the predefined pattern.
thanks for the helpful link. I also found out how the sequence on the video was done. It was done with the QLC+ software which is a DMX sequencer and then a DMX to WS2812 controller was used (so not really FastLED related, sorry)
Hey @Sebastian_Stuecker the give away is in that you tubers notes, he\she mentions LOR (light o rama)which the animated Christmas lighting folks often use to sync a light show to a given musical track. They typically run Vixen with their LOR controllers. Vixen speaks DMX and theatreNet aka e1.31
hanks for this comment. I got much more into it now. A free alternative seems to be Vixen Lights. I successfully connected this software to the Arduino with a simple FastLED sketch and the serial output module of Vixen. I will look into possible Artnet integration or similar, because on the long run I dont want to run it through Serial but over my LAN. While Vixen has a number of nice effects to play with, there are limitations. What I am thinking about is to use some extra “channels” not for direct driving of the LED colors, but for sending parameters to effects which are actually rendered on the Arduino using the more advanced FastLED capabilities. I will keep this group updated.
Very interesting code. For my trials I just use a serial connection, I am going to look into the network transport later, as I am sure it will work somehow.
After playing with Vixen, I am rather disappointed about the built in effects, especially since you cannot add effects to effects, e.g. a blur to moving pixels, etc.
I think what I will do is a step by step approach to build my personal libary of in-built effects rendered all with FastLED on the Arduino and then use a sequencer not to send the actual pixels, but just for selecting and parameterizing the effects. Its a bit hard because I am still working with just 10 LEDs, waiting for my 720 pixel strip
Yes, vixen is very basic, but for syncing music to light to create a show, it does an ok job. Lots of the christmas guys are still using “dumb” rgb strands, so they have no concept of blurring etc. If they want blur, they rely on POV.
BTW, this is how it starts, just a 720 pixel strip…
