Instructions
Instructions
User Manual:
Open the PDF directly: View PDF 
.
Page Count: 6
INSTRUCTIONS
Audio Sources: The controller’s audio input is a 3mm (1/8”) stereo male plug. Just about any audio
source can be used, including the “record” or “line” output of a stereo or the headphone jack of a music
player, cell phone or tablet. Generally, a Y-cable is needed to split the signal between the color organ
and a boom box or stereo because plugging into a phone or tablet’s earphone jack disables its internal
speaker. A Bluetooth receiver “dongle” paired to the cell phone or tablet can also be used, although the
Y-cable is still needed to split the audio signal since Bluetooth devices operate only in pairs.
A boom box or stereo with an audio input is necessary because Bluetooth introduces a delay, so a
second Bluetooth link behind the Y-cable would make the color organ appear to respond to music
before you heard it.
Remote Control: The IR sensor is a small black dongle on the end of a black 4’ cord that plugs into
3mm (1/8”) female jack on the controller. Its lens is a bubble on one side of the dongle, which can be
hidden in plain sight as long as the lens roughly faces the remote.
LED Strings: The four LED strings are identical and interchangeable. Although the strings have a
green connector at each end, the wire is much too thin for them to be daisy chained. They must be
individually connected to the controller at the end with the white connector. The four connectors on the
controller are numbered 1 through 4 corresponding from top to bottom of a Christmas Tree
The green cords are electrically interchangeable, but are different 5’, 7’, 8’ and 10’ lengths to reach
from the bottom to the top of a Christmas tree.
Christmas Tree Use/Trimming Tips:
For a proper rainbow effect, trim the tree in a downward spiral from top to bottom, from the end of
each string to the end with the white connector. Connect the controller at the bottom of each string.
1
2
4
3
Power Supply
Controller
BT
Receiver
Laptop or
Tablet Music
Source
Amplifier or
BlockRocker
Remote
Sensor
Hide in
Plain Sight
Wall
Wart
COLOR ORGAN
When power is applied, the LED strings will light solid violet, blue, green, and yellow, from top to
bottom to confirm the proper connection. After two seconds, the color organ will start automatically.
If there is an audio signal, the LEDs will begin to follow it instantly; otherwise, the LEDs will go out.
If there are no other lights in the room or on the tree, this may be a bit stark, so you can opt for a “Quiet
Color” which will take effect whenever the music stops.
The Quiet Color is adjustable by pressing the Quiet Color button. This stops color organ operation
even with audio and shows the Quiet Color, initially blacked out. Press the Bright button to start with
a dim white, which you can further Brighten, Deepen into a blue, then change that color by pressing a
Hue button. Return to color organ by pressing the Color Organ button. Your new Quiet Color will
remain in effect for as long as the controller is plugged into power.
Volume Setting: The color organ self-adjusts to the level of the input signal over a fairly wide range,
but if your volume setting or input signal is too low, the colors will not reach full brightness. If your
volume setting is too high, no damage occurs but only soft passages will show color and loud passages
will turn on all colors at once, producing mostly pastels. Whether you have control of this depends on
the type of input source you are using. Line and record outputs on a stereo are best because they
deliver a constant level independent of your volume setting.
The color organ can be turned OFF and back ON with the ON/OFF button. When turned back ON,
the color organ will resume as it was when turned OFF, including the Quiet Color as long as the unit
hasn’t been unplugged while OFF.
HUE FADE HUE
ON/OFF
QUIET
COLOR
SPARKLE NO
SPARKLE
TRICKLE
DIM
SOLID
COLORS
COLOR
ORGAN
♪
RANDOM
COLORS
RAINBOW
DEEPEN BRIGHT
Press to Dim
the Quiet Color
Press to Brighten
the Quiet Color
Press to Deepen
the Quiet Color
Press to Fade
the Quiet Color
Press to Rotate
the Quiet Hue
Press to Return
to Color Organ
Press to Show and
Change the Quiet Color
ON/OFF Button
Press to Rotate
the Quiet Hue
Color Organ Controls
SPECIAL EFFECTS
As an alternative to music input, the Remote can be used to choose virtually any uniform color of
arbitrary hue, saturation and brightness or one of the animations described below.
A Solid Color can be selected by pressing the Solid Colors button. Pressing it a second time will rotate
around the hue circle shown on the remote; pressing it again and again will slow the rotation until a
blink signals that its as slow as it can go.
A Rainbow can be selected by pressing the Rainbow button. Pressing Rainbow a second time will
rotate it around the hue circle shown on the remote, with the effect that it appears to slide along the
strings (or trickle down a tree.) Pressing Rainbow again and again will slow the trickle until a blink
signals that its as slow as it can go.
Random Colors can be selected by pressing the Random Colors button. Pressing it a second time will
start changing colors randomly. Pressing Random Colors again and again will slow the changes until a
blink signals that its as slow as it can go.
Sparkles can be added to any other effect by pressing the Sparkle button. Pressing it a second time
will start changing colors randomly. Pressing Sparkle again and again will slow sparkling to the point
you will barely see them. Sparkles can be turned OFF by pressing the No Sparkle Button.
Trickle Down Sparkle can be triggered with the Trickle Button. Pressing Trickle again and again will
slow it down until a blink signals that its as slow as it can go.
The controller can be turned OFF and back ON with the ON/OFF button. When turned ON, the
controller will resume the color organ or whatever special effect was running when it was turned OFF.
HUE FADE HUE
ON/OFF
QUIET
COLOR
SPARKLE NO
SPARKLE
TRICKLE
DIM
SOLID
COLORS
COLOR
ORGAN
♪
RANDOM
COLORS
RAINBOW
DEEPEN BRIGHT
Press to Dim
the Color
Press to Brighten
the Color
Press to Saturate
(Deepen) the Color
Press to Desaturate
(Fade) the Color
Press to Rotate
Hue around Circle
Press for Solid Color
Press to Change Color
Again to Slow Changes
ON/OFF Button
Press to Rotate
Hue around Circle
Special Effects Controls
Press for Rainbow
Press to Trickle it down
Again to Slow Trickle
Press for Sparkles
Press to Slow Sparkles
Press to Stop Sparkling
Press for Random Colors
Press to Change Them
Again to Slow Changes
Press to Return
to Color Organ
TECHNICAL DETAILS
The LED Strings are Chinese made holiday strings based on the WS2811 digital RGB LED. Each
“bulb” contains three LEDs, for Red, Green, and Blue, and a digital chip. A 12 volt DC poer passes
down the string along with a digital signal from an Arduino DUE controller to address the chip in each
bulb to set the brightness of its three LEDs. In color organ mode, all LEDs are addressed with the same
data and follow music or speech on an audio input; in special effects modes, the LEDs are individually
addressed to produce rainbow and random effects.
The Color-Selection Method for the special effects is a color “space” called Hue, Saturation,
Brightness, or HSB. This is an option in many graphics programs and is used internally in the color
television system. Hue is one of the “pure” colors around the edge of the color space diagram on the
top of the remote.. it corresponds to the angular position around that circle, with read at the 12:00
position; blue at 8:00, and green at 4:00. White appears at the center of the space and Saturation is the
radial distance from white, so halfway out towards blue is “light blue,” etc. Brightness is the overall
brightness of the display. In the old color TV system, Hue, Saturation, and Brightness were “Tint,”
“Color,” and Brightness respectively.
The LEDs in the strings cannot produce all discernable colors, just as printer inks cannot. The range of
colors in either case is called the “gamut.”
The Color Organ function animates music following the method patented to Frederic L. Way as US
3,018,683 and US 3,181,015 in 1962 and 1965. Way’s first patent used filters and a motorized switch
to control a resistive lamp dimmer; his later patent used a Silicon Controlled Rectifier, the predecessor
to today’s “Triac” wall dimmers, which was first commercialized in 1957. Way’s patents were assigned
to Mobilcolor, Inc, which leased the equipment to radio stations in Omaha and Indianapolis where it
was used for holiday “Carol Tree” displays.
This digital implementation adds a fast Automatic Gain Control, digital filtering, full wave peak
detection, time constants to approximate a Volume Unit (VU) meter response, and mapping of the
signals to the LED intensity over a desirable dynamic range. Cascaded first order filters are used
instead of Way’s second order filters to make 10KHz sampling feasible on DUE. The filter crossovers
are at 100Hz and 1000Hz instead of Way’s 540Hz and 1800Hz, but these and all other “analog”
parameters are named constants in the sketch so as to be easily tweaked.
WHAT YOU HEAR vs WHAT YOU SEE:
The following graphic compares the pitch range of the human voice and a number of musical
instruments with the frequencies of Middle-C and its octaves and the frequency response of the color
organ’s three filters.
The chart doesn’t necessarily imply that a given musical instrument will be seen entirely in one color.
Most musical instruments produce not only a “fundamental” or musical pitch, but a series of multiples
or near-multiples of that pitch called “harmonics” or “partials.” The distribution of partials determines
the difference between sounds, for example, a flute’s sound, is mostly a single fundamental with
relatively few partials, while the sound of a trumpet is mostly partials. For that reason, trumpets and
other brass instruments will appear in the red, often bright red, even though the note they are playing is
technically in the green range.
For a single-frequency tone from an electronic generator or a nearly musical pitch nearly free of higher
frequency “harmonics” or “partials,” such as a pipe organ Tibia flute, additive color blending of red,
green, and blue will produce secondary cyan and yellow only in the transitions where a single
frequency partially clears two of the three filters. There is no intersection between red and blue, so
magenta cannot be produced with a single tone. Magentas can certainly be generated by music, for
example, where a bass line underlies a high pitched melody.
The ratio of the strongest to the weakest thing you can hear or see is called the dynamic range, and that
of non-broadcast music is usually in excess of what WS2811 LEDs can display. This requires the
color organ function to do some internal compression to make the device less “fussy” about levels.
Broadcast stations do this to try to sound “louder” than competing stations and to make the entire
progam audible over noise like that in a car. Compression has its limits, however, so if the input signal
is too low, the colors will not reach full brightness. If too high, loud passages will turn on all colors at
once, producing largely pastels.
The Controller is a variant of the Arduino, popular prototyping platform originally developed for
students at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Italy to create devices that interact with their
environment using sensors and actuators. Common examples of such devices include simple robots,
thermostats, and motion detectors. The “DUE” variant used here contains a relatively fast Atmel
10 100 1000 10000
-45.00
-40.00
-35.00
-30.00
-25.00
-20.00
-15.00
-10.00
-5.00
0.00
5.00
Frequency in Hz
R e la t iv e F ilte r R e s p o n s d ( d B )
4 1 8 6 . 0 0
3 9 5 1 . 1 0
3 5 2 0 . 0 0
3 1 3 6 . 0 0
2 7 9 3 . 8 0
2 6 3 7 . 0 0
2 3 4 9 . 3 0
2 0 9 3 . 0 0
1 9 7 5 . 5 0
1 7 6 0 . 0 0
1 5 6 8 . 0 0
1 3 9 6 . 9 0
1 3 1 8 . 5 0
1 1 7 4 . 7 0
1 0 4 6 . 5 0
9 8 7 .7 7
8 8 0 .0 0
7 8 3 .9 9
6 9 8 .4 6
6 5 9 .2 6
5 8 7 .3 3
5 2 3 .2 5
4 9 3 .8 8
4 4 0 .0 0
3 9 2 .0 0
3 4 9 .2 3
3 2 9 .6 3
2 9 3 .6 6
2 6 1 .6 3
2 4 6 .9 4
2 2 0 .0 0
1 9 6 .0 0
1 7 4 .6 1
1 6 4 .8 1
1 4 6 .8 3
1 3 0 .8 1
1 2 3 .4 7
1 1 0 .0 0
9 8 .0 0
8 7 .3 1
8 2 .4 1
7 3 .4 2
6 5 .4 1
6 1 .7 4
5 5 .0 0
4 9 .0 0
4 3 .6 5
4 1 .2 0
3 6 .7 1
3 2 .7 0
3 0 . 8 7
2 7 .5 0
C + 4
B + 3
A + 3
G + 3
F + 3
E + 3
D + 3
C + 3
B + 2
A + 2
G + 2
F + 2
E + 2
D + 2
C + 2
B + 1
A + 1
G + 1
F + 1
E + 1
D + 1
C + 1
B
A
G
F
E
D
C
B -1
A- 1
G -1
F -1
E -1
D -1
C -1
B -1
A- 2
G -2
F -2
E -2
D -2
C -2
B -3
A- 3
G -3
F -3
E -3
D -3
C -3
B -4
A-4
BASS VIOL
BASSOON
CELLO
TROMBONE
TYMPANI
HUMAN VOICES
FRENCH HORN
VIOLA
TRUMPET
CLARINET
VIOLIN
OBOE
FLUTE
PICCOLO
PARTIALS
LEDs ON
LEDs OFF
SAM3X8E processor capable of performing the digital filter algorithms in real time. The program,
called a “sketch,” reflecting its art-school origins, is coded in a dialect of ‘C. Two libraries of code are
used for receiving and decoding the IR signals from the remote control and formatting the digital
commands to the WS2811 strings; the digital filter and color calculations are unique.
