March 06, 2015

The "Illumaphone" - a light-based Arduino-controlled musical instrument

With some imagination and an Arduino you can make all sorts of musical instruments, and the following example by Bonnie Eisenman is an excellent demonstration of what can be done. Created for a university project, hter "Illumaphone" uses light sensors for different music notes - with each sensor used to control the volume and vibrato for each note.

The sensors are arranged in small cylineders allowing the artist to control the amoutn of light falling over each sensor. Then the Arduino takes the data from the light sensors and converts this into commands for a PC running musical synthesiser software and finally into sounds. A demonstration of the Illumaphone is given in the following video:

To learn more about this project and the construction details, visit the project page. And for more, we're on facebook, twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.

Looking for a light sensor? Although it can be tempting to use a light-dependent resistor, they're fragile and can give varying results. Instead - consider our LIGHT: light sensor module based around the digital TEMT6000 sensor. It gives consistent and reliable readings, and is incredibly easy to use with our Getting Started guide. For more information and to order, click here!

 

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