New installation - Augio
Using 16 Adafruit Neopixels and more wire than I’ve ever had to measure and cut in my life, Augio is designed to produce colourful responses to the sound emanating from 8 speakers. Low, mid, and high frequency bands affect the brightness of the Neopixel’s red, green, and blue LEDs respectively. As well as providing an additional visual element to the sound performances, Manoli hopes that, given a little more development, this might also help hearing impaired audience members with the location and perception of sound.
I got some positive responses to the prototype I presented at the first Metanast* event, which was held at Underland on Wednesday the 9th of April, and learned a few lessons to take forward to the next revision of Augio. The Neopixels draw quite a lot of current, and they’re separated over a fairly long distance (5m between each speaker) so I have to reduce the maximum brightness a little to prevent crashes when there isn’t enough power to go around. I may eventually split the installation in half and power it from two supplies, and will also be working on some boxes to contain LEDs, in which I’ll put some reflective material or mirrors to spread the light around a little.
I wasn’t able to get any decent footage on the night – the overall darkness of the space confused my phone’s camera – but I got a brief bit of video while I was still in the process of soldering everything up:
It may not have been the best idea to test the system with drum loops and dance music, as the spectral variety and occasional intensity of electroacoustic music meant the LEDs were pushed a little harder on the night! Despite this, it was a good field test and I look forward to developing the project further. Stay tuned for updates.
*My heartfelt thanks to Manoli for letting me give this a trial run at his event, and for splitting the costs of Augio down the middle with me. The event was a great success, and I plan to write a review of it at some point in the next week!