http://www.pyroelectro.com PyroElectro.com brings you cool projects & tutorials that you can do at home. Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:15:06 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2012/02/01/sudoglove-hardware-controller/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2012/02/01/sudoglove-hardware-controller/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:55:16 +0000 Chris http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=3962

“The SudoGlove is a gesture controller that can be easily interfaced with hardware or software via a wireless connection. The glove implements an array of sensors plus filtering circuitry and mathematical analysis firmware to derive state values for each sensor and transmits them to an authorized receiver. I have used the glove to drive an RC car, to synthesize music, to manipulate openGL video, to control arbitrary processing software, and to control performance lighting effects.”

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2012/02/01/sudoglove-hardware-controller/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/12/29/fpga-audio-peak-and-correlation-meter/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/12/29/fpga-audio-peak-and-correlation-meter/#comments Thu, 29 Dec 2011 22:15:56 +0000 Chris http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=3703

“I started this project more to gather some experience with FPGAs, rather than to design or own such a device, but it ultimately developed into a complete design, consisting of several boards.”

The design is not over complicated and it's a great example of how a simple FPGA project can turn into a useful tool for audio processing.

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/12/29/fpga-audio-peak-and-correlation-meter/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/12/01/taming-your-music-collection-album-artwork/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/12/01/taming-your-music-collection-album-artwork/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:00:30 +0000 Ben http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=3471

“In this article we are going to use the Last.fm web service to grab the last piece of data we need to make our music collection perfect: the album artwork. We're going to use the same techniques we've used in the past articles to expand the functionality of our application to do something new. With the concepts we employed in the previous articles, the possibilities are nearly limitless.”

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/12/01/taming-your-music-collection-album-artwork/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/12/shruthi-1-mutable-instruments/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/12/shruthi-1-mutable-instruments/#comments Sat, 12 Nov 2011 18:00:00 +0000 Chris http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=3313

“The Shruthi-1 is a hybrid digital/analog monosynth. Its hardware design is deceptively simple, but the sonic range is wide: sometimes grungily digital like a PPG-Wave, fat and funky like a SH-101, videogame-y like a Commodore 64, weird and warm like an ESQ-1 ; but more often than not, truly original.”

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/12/shruthi-1-mutable-instruments/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/11/a-morse-code-keyer-in-vhdl/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/11/a-morse-code-keyer-in-vhdl/#comments Fri, 11 Nov 2011 18:00:12 +0000 Chris http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=3322

This VHDL morse code keyer is written in VHDL by Jim Brady. He has posted the source (for a Xilinx Spartan 3A). He also posted his vintage keyer designs from the 1960's and 1970's. A nice throw back using some modern tech.

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/11/a-morse-code-keyer-in-vhdl/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/03/taming-your-music-collection-file-structure/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/03/taming-your-music-collection-file-structure/#comments Thu, 03 Nov 2011 18:00:44 +0000 Ben http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=3284

“This article will be the first in a series of software articles describing the process of organizing your music collection. I’ve decided to write the application in Python for a number of reasons: I’ve never used Python myself, Python has modules for reading and writing mp3 tags, and Python is easy to install and configure.”

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/11/03/taming-your-music-collection-file-structure/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/10/24/digital-sound-level-meter/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/10/24/digital-sound-level-meter/#comments Mon, 24 Oct 2011 18:00:37 +0000 Chris http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=3160

“This circuit is a digital sound level meter with a LCD screen, capable of displaying 80 characters (4 rows with 20 characters on each). You can build this LCD display. It also provides more debugging information, such as the minimum and maximum analog-to-digital samples that were measured during each period.”

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/10/24/digital-sound-level-meter/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/10/08/phantom-powered-xy-mic/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/10/08/phantom-powered-xy-mic/#comments Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:00:31 +0000 Chris http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=2980

Don't let the phantom power scare you away, this mic is powered by the music flowing into it.
“The circuit is constructed on a Radio Shack Multipurpose PC Board (Cat # 276-150) which has been modified by snapping off about 1/2" of its length to provide clearance for the two DIN sockets.”

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/10/08/phantom-powered-xy-mic/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/09/16/led-sensor-piano-keyboard/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/09/16/led-sensor-piano-keyboard/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:39:48 +0000 Chris http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=2837

Building a digital piano is actually not as difficult as you might think. This article explains how to build a mini digital piano that can play tones across a single octave. An AVR microcontroller does all the intelligent processing and tone output and some LEDs are used to provide input from the musician. The article has all the hardware, software and theory explained.

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]]> http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/09/16/led-sensor-piano-keyboard/feed/ 0 http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/08/21/wind-harp/ http://www.pyroelectro.com/2011/08/21/wind-harp/#comments Sun, 21 Aug 2011 20:50:48 +0000 Chris http://www.pyroelectro.com/?p=2657

A project for you music lovers:
"The wind harp was displayed at Maker Faire and Robogames during 2008. A fan was placed nearby to blow across the strings to make it play. Visitors to my display can change the wind patterns to the harp by blocking the air stream and make it play differently."
The article has a pdf of the hardware schematic and construction photos.

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