LED Matrix sync with my DIY modular

DIY STUFF
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I’ve been spending my past weeks on this 16x64 programmable LED Display made with 2x 16x32 LED matrix from Adafruit & 2 Arduino Unos.
This box contains 2 CV gate In and 2 MIDI In sockets, so the animation can be synced with the gate or with some MIDI notes, or be changed with some Program Change (I use a MPC in my live setup, so it’s super easy to send Program Change to it!). Also … when the MIDI send “STOP”, everything is shut down too … till you press PLAY.

So this video is a small demo with a “digital waterfall” animation. I programmed something around 14 animations yet (I think) to be display during my live gig, sync with the music. I think I will do more in the future (it takes time to program these things, especially because you don’t have a lot of memory inside the Unos so you have to be clever about how you use it!)

The arduino code is available here : GitHub - alexiszbik/liveleddisplay: LED Matrix animated for my live setup
But I think it’s useless without any schematic. Even there’s nothing “complicated” here in terms of electronic I might drop it in this thread in the future weeks if somebody is interested !

Also, here is some pictures of the matrix (it fits in a case, which is perfect for touring ! haha)

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Very nice !!!
(more char…)

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This looks really cool, so was the video of your music linked at the end.

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Great idea! It look like one of those “learn piano from a midi file” videos.

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the plants are an awesome addition to a great build .

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Just add this:

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@eric ahah yes I should let the plant draw something :stuck_out_tongue: that’s a good idea.

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There are a number of programs that can take image and video files and export/translate it to ASCII or matrix, (sometimes called marquee ). This would make creating compact clever animations. It must be a real slog to do this all in a text editor.

It might be fun to sync this asciimation with a modular synth and perform it like an old silent movie and live music. Enjoy.

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Hey! I love those ASCII arts!

The thing is, in terms of “size”, only 2 rows of characters can be displayed. I mean, the official GFX library has 6 pixel tall characters when you choose the minimum size of font.

So I did some animations with kaomojis :slight_smile: … you know like (* ^ ω ^)
But, some special characters can’t be drawn because this GFX library only understand pure ASCII.

So, I should write my own lib with 4-pixel tall chinese chracters but … it looks like a lot of work!
Also, the other tricky thing is that I discover that Strings (I mean, text) takes a loooooot of space in the Arduino. There’s some tricks though to put it in the Flash Memory instead of the actual SRAM …

So I think I should build a BIGGER led display now :smiley:

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Now we’re on the topic, I don’t believe anyone here has designed any Kosmo video synthesis modules, right? Would be incredible cool

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This was always a fun trick to show people with telnet.

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