Miss/LED - two more LED music visualisers

I find these things fascinating. They're largely pointless and these two are difficult to justify given the high price, but I must admit I could find space for the second one. Looking forward to the sequel to the sequel Mat!

I've got to admit I liked the look of the first one and when you showed the second I was thinking what I could make the box out of. Then you told us the price and I realised I didn't need it that much.

The second one would have been almost perfect, but it looks like they made the spectrum linear instead of logarithmic. That's why the very highs take up so much space and don't do much.

In 1983 or so I built a 8 channel one of these from a design in Practical Electronics. I taped up and etched the boards drilled and populated them. Took me months to afford the components from my pocket money. All entirely analogue using filters based on 741 opamps and an LM3915 in each channel for the display.

It really seems like the makers of the LED panel product don't understand that our perception of audio frequencies is logarithmic. Its display seems a lot more linear, with even midrange frequencies showing up at the left end of the display. Midrange frequencies ought to be in the middle, especially if the upper end of the range is limited to a few kHz.

The LED panels in the second one are the same ones used in video walls - Adafruit were selling some a while ago. I'm impressed at the programming they've done to use three of them. However, I agree the lack of a case is a big omission!

Wow! That second one ( £182.49 ) - those DMD boards can be purchased on Aliexpress for £6.00 each, and I'd say the PCB module would be another £8.00ish... So, about £150.00 too expensive!

9:11 "using a higher level 32 bit ARM processor" what a time to be alive when we have 32 bit processors controlling blinky lights for our music viewing pleasure!

That first one was absolutely amazing... awesome!

I’ve always thought the Winamp built in visualiser on pc looks great, hypnotic and capable of much more than these hardware devices

The "operating system" on that second system really places it into a higher class of device from those ones where you have to click one button dozens of times and you can't save your settings between boot ups.

Am I the only one wondering if the first one's "seemingly useless switch" was for switching between a mono source (so it displays on both sides) and a stereo source?

Interestingly, Item 2, the LED panels specifically use what's known as Hub75 for the protocol/interface. Meaning that these are the very same panels that are used in those LED advertisement billboards on the street. I have a few of these panels myself, along with a controller that can do video and even take HDMI in.

The second panel interests me, I could see creating a simple metal framework to make a corner mounted display, which would be lovely in this dead space in the corner next to me. As you said though, the price is eye watering. At nearly $200 US for the smaller 3 panel kit, that prices it outside of my fun money budget.

As an EE, I was delighted to see the aliasing effect on the frequency sweep, when the Input signal exceeded the sampling frequency of the device. Really cool.

The second visualizer is missing an ocilloscope feature so if you have electronic music playing like chiptunes you can see square waves triangle waves.

These episodes are my favorite breakdown videos. I'm not entirely sure why dancing LEDs bring me so much satisfaction, perhaps my genetic coding went wrong along the way. Anyways, nice built-in teaser for future episodes, taunting us with a big, heavy unit and then saving it for another time. Nice work Matt. Oh and converting to Canadian Dollars was a nice touch...

That second one seems pretty nice as a decorative thing. I love the single-pixel columns modes particularly.

That first one was not only duplicated, it was also mirrored mono and was obviously so as soon as it began working. That second one was my favourite though.

That second one is 97 band and 30 step if I'm counting correctly. Depending on how those frequency settings affect it, it might be an accurate and useful tool for fine EQ adjustments.
The cost is not unreasonable for what it does.

This general class of gadgets makes me nostalgic for the Virtual Light Machine in the old Atari Jaguar CD, which was probably the coolest non-game function ever included in a game console.

I like the idea of the second display. You can rewire these panels in a different order once in a while - 123, 231 and so on, so the LEDs would degrade more or less equally.

For the price of the second one you could "almost" buy a long LCD panel and make a display that could do more than music. I know, not quite the point of flashing LEDs but a little more useful.

_£350??_ You could've got another bundle of used MiniDisc players for that!
But seriously, thank you for the work you do and your channel. You bring to the fore so many fascinating pieces of history and present them in a loving way, even when they're utter tosh.
You know, I'm surprised we haven't had a decent mini amp with a visualiser bolted on top using something like a phone screen. Or if there is, at least and affordable one. But I guess the market is quite slim for that in an age of wireless headphones (whose batteries are probably quite knackered by now...).

The second one is very cool, it can be easily to setup in some places without a case, I imagine they would look very cool mounted directly on a wall, if you don't care about the audio input jack and are ok about using only the mic there is no need to have the audio input jack accessible too.

I love visualizers. Was fascinated with them ever since the Winamp days. Always enjoy your impressions for these physical ones. Looking forward to more impressions when the others arrive. Btw, the random currency converter made me laugh lol

Nice Swiss Army knife. Looked like you clicked “all” for which blades you wanted to have off the options list 😀

If that first device actually worked, i.e., it was in stereo, I'd say it would be pretty neat for parties or the like.

That second one would look pretty sick if ya put it into the wall, or well, a recession in the wall, right above your stereo set and between the speakers.
The gap between the panels would dissapear when putting it into a box that's dark

One thing coming out of this video, I noticed my speakers were wired up so the left speaker was the right channel...so cheers for that.

The mono/stereo thing in Item 1 may be so it can support mono inputs. It feels to me like instead of autodetecting if there's signal in both cables, they just clone the Left into the Right in the processor, so it will have full display on either case.

I think the only real advantage of wiring something like this in is you get the true stereo display. That is if the device uses it properly in the first place 😂

Thanks Matt, you saved me time & money - can't wait to see the assembly of device number 3, whether its hot air soldering, conventional or both, how you handle the components; type of flux etc.

Always good to see your visualiser reviews :-)
I don't think there's anything 'wrong' with the first one. It's just a fake - not 14 bands.
Nice enough effect, though, with the mirroring - and you don't really need separate L and R displays for this. Second is very attractive, and might even be useful in a studio.

Thanks once again for “taking one for the team”. As fascinating as these displays are, I feel they should not cost more than a decent useable cell phone or tablet. And we would not know this if you did not review them for us. Thanks again.

I think that if they can better make the second one a bit more flush and especially bring down the price it'd be rather interesting to buy!
Thank you as always for great content

I have always loved techno gadgets. I remember fiddling with a oscilloscope for far too long on my friends stereo when I was in high school.
I always wanted something like that, but never knew I could buy them separate from the music devices.

A better way to balance the spectrum (rather than limiting the frequency range) would be to tilt the response curve, most professional EQ displays offer tilts like 3dB or 6dB (etc) per octave, so the upper frequencies are more prominent.
If you have the knowhow you can tilt the audio before the input stage.

Nice fair review, Mat. I’m going to ask the elves what kind of led VU meters they can come up with.

I love the second one. Since you anyways need to build a case for it I wonder if it would look nice with translucent white plexiglass on top of it, that would also hide the seams.

Would have been cool to test the EQ on the first light display such as kick drum only for bass register and snare or other for the upper register. Nevertheless great vid as always 😊👌

Music sounds better with visuals…Acme research proven! Great vid, thanks 👍

there's actually a bug in the FastLED library that causes red pixels like in the first visualizer. wouldn't have guessed it used an arduino but that's s crazy specific bug

Thank you for the review of these.
I have a different version of the first one , it is a 14 band single channel device, not 2x7 band device, so shows 63H to 16kH from left to right across the 14 towers. This works fine, and a frequency sweep shows it works as intended, and the device uses the average of left + right channels. I am happy as I prefer something physical rather than a panel which I can simulate better on a computer screen (or TV monitor), my preference being a 3D item that is coloured.
Since I can simulate the second option on a cheap TV + computer then it is not what I wanted, while the 1st option has a value to me as cutting 20x14 blocks of acrylic was not possible without expensive equipment.
Your millage and thoughts probably vary.
My guess for the problem of the first one is that the microphone (mono) is connected into the stereo input and is "shorting" out the stereo signal - maybe disconnect the mic input plug to see if this fixes the problem.

The larger one could really benefit from some kind of, display graphics-option. It's possible, considering the logo.

Great video as always. I loved the second one with 3 large panels - looks the biz! Looking forward to the next video with the 3rd product.

The second one seems like it's representing the spectrum linearly instead of logarithmically. The latter would make much more sense. With the linear representation you basically get most of the action from the lows and mids in the left half and all the top end on the right half. With the 5k "Frequency" setting, 1kHz would still be about at the center of the leftmost panel.

I've been looking for a device like this to add to my hifi setup and lately I've been seriously considering the leaf nano. It would fit this segment really well, and a techmoan review would be really helpful - the others I've found have been vague.

With some other electronics, you can turn these LED panels into a nice scrolltext display. Or maybe even reprogram the existing controller.

Wow that is one HECK of a swiss army knife. Mat must have like 10 video projects going at once. The quality, quantity, and consistence is quite perfect.

I personally don’t care if they are stereo or not since I’d be using them for decoration and fun, not analysing sound waves, which I don’t suspect they’d be great for anyway. So for pure pretty, number one gets my vote. Thanks for your hard work!

The thing near the beginning round 2:04 where the LEDs look cyan then green might just be to do with green LEDs being more efficient, they light up stronger with less power, than blue ones do. So whatever simple way they've done the LED dimming (PWM probably), fading the green and blue LEDs by the same level will disproportionately affect the appearance of the colour, so producing that effect.

7:00 isn't the magical switch on the back responsible for changing between mono and stereo mode?

The first LED panel looks to run from something very much like the Teensy (2.0 ++) controller. If so, it would be possible to check their code. Processing isn't a terribly difficult language.

as a child of the 90s, these were always so fascinating.

El segundo se ve mejor, sin embargo, creo que por el precio, pudo haber tenido algunas mejoras. Principalmente, estéticas. Da la impresión de un kit para armar desde cero .

This series will be of particular interest to me. This is something I'd love to add to my music related videos. However, these two products are a no go for me, too expensive for what they are.

Yo, Techmoan, love your presentations! I want to share...Had a friend years ago who purchased an osilliscope, hooked THAT into his stereo. One of the coolest things I ever saw.👍🏻. Keep up the outstanding work, and thank you.🙂

This LED spectrum would be fitting at music producers as well. IMO, the first one looks astonishing!

Great video. The three panel model would be worth the price if it had an option to display a digital clock or the ability to scroll text across the three panels.

I always love it when Canadian and / or Australian dollars get a mention. I hope New Zealand will pop up for the third one!

Fun to see! I bought my first spectrum display after seeing your review of it here a few years ago. It is really cool and I still use it. Coincidentally, I bought the second one in this review last year. I only bought a single panel version and I am in the process of building a custom frame for it. My project will have a glass front plate etched with the Pioneer Elite THX logo. It should make a good aesthetic highlight for my home theater. Your electronic interests and projects often align with mine. Great Job!

Thank you for this video! It came at the right time for me as I was looking to buy a visualiser. After this, I end up buying the second option even though I agree, the price is too high.

The second one is nice, I like the fact that it can drive multiple panels, I just think however if you're contemplating a spectrum analyser display this large then maybe just get a widescreen monitor, raspberry pi and program it to be a VU meter or an old fashioned winamp style visualisor!.....

Love that second one, until I saw the price tag!
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Then nearly died! lol

Thank you for having such a calm voice and a calm subject matter about things that should be lame but you actually make them very engaging and interesting. I especially like the history lessons in your videos because it brings a real human aspect to the topics you discuss, and above all thank you for making videos that help me calm down and fall asleep when I'm feeling anxious and restless. I don't fall asleep because they are boring, I fall asleep because they bring me peace.

Despite the price I really like the second one, might get it if it ever goes on sale.

Great video. The second one from Aliexpress is always more expensive if you get the kit all-in-one. What I did was to get 3 LED matrix panels (£11 each) the controller (£17) and the power supply (£3). There was no way I was paying £180+ for the same kit. There are a million sellers on Aliexpress selling the same items and they range from very cheap to overly expensive, it always pays to spend some time to compare prices.

Yesss! Your first few music visualizer videos encouraged me to look into making one myself using an arduino... I haven't gotten too far in the goal of making one with an arduino (turned out to be a lot harder than expected for a complete novice like myself), but I learned a lot about how to use an arduino along the way!! I'm looking forward to more music visualizer videos!!

13:45 I'd have loved to have had one of these back in the 1980s installed in my car!! Does it run on 12v DC?? 😜

Awesome video. 😁👍
Keep up the good work.
I like music visualizers, they're cool.
The first one was the best to me.
But I wouldn't buy it, because the input is not in stereo.

I'd love to have that second one as a showpiece RTA next to my soundboard at gigs.

Great bit of kit m8! I'm looking forward to getting the 2nd screen and the next video.
All the videos on point. Love them!

It's always hard to find a good spectrum analyzer for a cheap price. Luckily my keyboard has a left-right channel one built in as a feture with the backlights.

Thanks Mat - I appreciate these reviews. I'm going for a sort of DJ boothish vibe around my hifi in the lounge so one or two of these kinds of things might feature for parties and suchlike.

Cheers on the video! Always a good day when techmoan drops a video! Just got in a batch of lm3915 ic's for a new VU meter project so needless to say I've already got dancing LEDs on the brain

Great video. Did you notice if with the 3 panel display there is a option to flip / mirror the image (so you could have two of these either portrait or landscape and create a symmetrical display)?

The gaps between panels can be mitigated by putting electrical tape on the back side of the seam to keep light from coming through the crack. I do this with multi-monitor setups when perfect alignment is impossible. It sure beats being able to see the wall behind.
ᴇᴅɪᴛ: I have also discovered the wonder that is black hot glue.

Thanks for showing the modes on the wide panel one -- as one of those people for whom it's an audio tool, I'm always interested in how close it will get to what I need, which is separated bars, peak hold, and "real" colors (70% green, 15% yellow and 15% red, or so)...

YOU ALWAYS DO A GREAT JOB, KEEP IT UP

Great content as always. Has Mat ever reviewed the honeycomb display visible during his intros? It's on the top right corner, I'm intrigued by that one.

I watched the other audio displays last year and I'm mostly intrigued with them. Be nice as a background audio thing.

When a man who opens packages with a Swiss Champ XAVT tells you something might not be worth the money, listen to him. (Just jealous of course; that's the most insane SWAK ever!)

Love your work!!! Long time watcher!! You really shed some light on the subject!!!

That swiss knife is MASSIVE! Love it. As a kid my favorite tools was always the magnifying glass and scissors.

The reflection on your work surface during the second unit demo is a nice touch.

Great video. I've been looking for something does not use XLR as a control interface, these arent great but it's nice to be an informed consumer.

The first unit looks really cool design as a show-piece on a sideboard near the stereo . The second design could have been thought out better as those connections could have been made to slide in sideways or even on the side of the panels so they connected when joined together and mount the electronic controller on the back. As to mounting, maybe some long stand-offs on a large dark-coloured back panel would work. That said, I think it would have look better with a mirrored option that started in the middle and went outwards on both sides as the right-hand panel is mostly unused.

In further reviews of these type products, give us a good frequency sweep using a tone generator for accuracy testing ; )
I watched this using a proper old school Spec Analyzer (ADC Sound Shaper SA-1) Item 2 seems complete novelty, and item 1 is actually somewhat accurate to a degree. Lowest freq response from item 1 was around 120hz or so FYI.

Thanks for the video. I'd say you should probably complain about the Mono VS stereo issue so the seller/manufacturer can improve... Though I'm not sure what the realistic chances of that working are.

Thanks for continuing to cover these. Finding something that works right is such a STRUGGLE. I am STILL looking for something like this I want one the ACTUALLY where the lights responds to specific frequencies but they have gotten so out of hand price wise that I cannot justify the purchase. The 3 segment led panel functions the way I would want but it is $150-$200 USD and with $50 shipping and it is just naked electronics so you still need to build a cabinet and it is made rather simplistic manner. Considering how few COMPONENTS and the fact it is not done it should be MUCH cheaper Maybe 60$ or $75, if it was complete maybe in an acrylic or 3d printed housing maybe $100-$125 but $200 is outrageous ESPECIALLY from aliexpress, so the quest continues

Oh dear - bank account is going to take
Another hit lol Great video Techmoan! Absolutely love visualisers! 👍🏻👍🏻

These are great.. Never knew such thing exists. Thanks for the demo

I think the first one looks good, being that the display is symmetrical, the second one, when a box is made the gaps would be less visible, finally, I like the second one when it was upright, cheers!

I would have loved these ones as a child. In fact I just dug out the 12" Luminglas plasma disk I bought with my hard earned pocket money back then. Classic ones are expensive, especially the 20" versions, but there is something very satisfying to seeing lightning bolts move to the music. New ones are fairly affordable.

The aliexpress page shows 2 options: 14 segment finished and Double 7 segment. The photos show the frequency range too, so this isn't stereo just a dubble mono option for the same price as the 16 column version.

In less than an hour since this video was uploaded, you had 1,400 views. The amazing thing is that 1000 of those 1400 upvoted it. I don't see that level of engagement on most channels. 👍

I like the look of the second one, can't wait for the sequel to this video.

I love the VU meters, especially the second one you have.

I was hooked until I saw the price...LOL, both are pretty sweet although I would like a mode for using the proper spectrum and splitting in true stereo, a few more options as such for the second one and I might consider it worth the price. I could make my own sweet looking case for it and possibly even make it an infinity mirror.