Akai LPD8 hack - Flatulometer @_syphus
Akai LPD8 hack - Flatulometer  @_syphus
Uploaded May 2012 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
I wasted half an hour writing a wee bit of code that takes audio from a mic and represents its volume using the LPD8's pads as a sort of ghetto VU meter. I'm sure somebody's done this before, but never for so base and puerile a purpose. Crappy AKG C1000s is mounted just over the controller. Most farts are (very obviously) artificial; some are appallingly not.

To anyone who's arrived here because they're interested in the Akau LPD8: it's pretty good and it's pretty cheap, so grab one. Out of the box, the pads will soon give you a headache and a finger-ache as they're very insensitive...so crack it open, cut ~1cm wide strips of electrical tape and build up the bottom of the pads. You'll need to give it a few tries until you find the sensitivty you want, but mine have three layers of tape on either side of the bottom of each pad and the sensitivity is now feather-light.

If you're interested in the code, it's really simple Processing stuff using TheMidiBus MIDI library and the minim audio library. Audio comes in, amplitude is mapped to MIDI notes 48 to 55 (the LPD8's default pad notes, I think) and the MIDI lib sends NoteOn/NoteOff commands to the LPD8 USB-MIDI output accordingly.
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Akai LPD8 hack - Flatulometer

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