MSGEQ7, SFE, and LED Matrix Links

wpsuperadmin audio, LED Matrix Link, sparkfun Leave a Comment

I have been wanting to play with the MSGEQ7 that Sparkfun sells. The MSGEQ7 is a graphic equalizer display filter that splits the audio into 7 bands and outputs via an analog signal. So in my last order, I decided to toss in the SFE shield with the MSGEQ7. This shield is all ready to go and it can analyze right and left audio channels. I am using it with a Arduino Leonardo.

Now I just need a way to display the output. What better way than using 2 LED Matrix Links?! You find them in our Tindie shop and they make it really easy to drive 8×8 LED Matrix displays. The kit comes with everything you need, just add your ArduinoCompatible micro and you are ready to go.

After an evening of coding I came up with a way to display the Left and Right channels, one per display. I started with the example from this site: http://tronixstuff.wordpress.com/2013/01/31/tutorial-arduino-and-the-msgeq7-spectrum-analyzer/ and I was then able to code the rest to take the analog data and display it.

Here is a quick video on how it turned out.

The only thing left is to have the option of transposing it so it displays horizontally. This still needs to be done using the setRow function. If you use the setColumn otherwise, it will update too slow.

Code is on Github: https://github.com/FriedCircuits/LED_Audio_Display

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