Before I ask about my request I just have to say this is awesome! I would really love to include one in my home audio setup. My big question is would there be any way to use this to visualize music? Obviously the Tidbyt wouldn’t need to broadcast music or have a 3.5mm jack. But having a little built in mic like my plasma ball would be a nice way to do it. Anyways thank you for your time! I can’t wait to get my hands on one in the near future!
Hey @Sean_Jilek. Apologies for the delayed response here!
I don’t see Tidbyt having any audio equipment, we’ve specifically decided not to have a microphone of any kind for privacy reasons. One workaround would be to have your audio go to something like a Raspberry Pi or Arduino that does have a microphone, and that could generate the visualizations and push them to a Tidbyt.
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Vintage audio guy here… a mic wouldn’t be necessary. 2 3.5mm jacks that are an audio in and out would suffice. or 2 sets of rca jacks. However it might be a lot of extra hardware when few people would likely use it. It would be SUPER cool though lol.
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I could totally see this as something that gets hacked together as a DIY add-on type thing. It can communicate with Tidbyt wirelessly so it doesn’t actually have to be part of the main device. Would be a pretty fun project actually…
Plus 1 for this idea
You wouldn’t necessarily need a mic or input for this to work. Without adding more hardware to the finished product, you could have the tidbyt monitor the levels of the sound and rather than the relative actual sound volume level. If you’re streaming through Spotify, Tidal or others you could have a plugin made to connect your music account to display the levels and or gain of the specific track you’re playing as well as the name of the particular track/artist.
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I totally agree with this except for the fact that it wouldn’t work with my record player and reel to reel. The main reason I said a mic in my original post was because that’s how my plasma ball works.
Jakebot is right though I could just use a tape out on the back of my receiver and output it to a pi or aurduino. It actually doesn’t sound like a bad project for me to do. The only thing is affording a tidbyt on a college student budget.lol
Sean, Owning a reel to reel in college means you know how to budget better than most lol. Unfortunately most don’t appreciate the quality of analog tape as much as you and I do. That being said I strongly recommend getting TIDAL if you can, it sure is a lot cheeper than buying tapes and it’s better sounding than most standard speed tapes. It’s a different deal if we’re talking 7 1/2 ips. 15ips 2 track master tapes are a whole different ballgame though 
I love the idea but I fear that it won’t work in practice. Since the Tidbyt has no onboard microphone or other means to monitor an audio signal directly, a solution would need to be hacked together that somehow does this remotely and sends to the sign. Latency (the sign visualization lagging the timing of the original sound) would likely spoil the effect.
Honestly I’d just like cool visualizations, like a background DJ screen. Party mode basically. Doesn’t actually have to be in time with the music.
Agree on general visualizer - be sure to enter a vote for the “Party Mode” suggestion topic!
I think audio visualization is a must have, a retro display without music visualizations would be sad!
If privacy concerns feel too much, then make it just a mic-in jack and let the user take responsibility.
I guess it could also be some sort of complicated streaming workaround, but I can’t visualize it…
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