Color Organs

What, you may moan in despair, is the curmudgeon on about now?  Well, dear readers, I, too, was youthful once, and had my moments.  One was to design and build what was being referred to in the music world as a color organ.

A bit of history will no doubt help here - it was 1969, Jimi Hendrix was actually alive, and the Filmore East was using lame colored oils on a vu-graph machine to keep the acid heads entertained visually while Jerry Garcia was off on another riff.

A color organ was a better device to make music come alive visually.  Remember - 1969 - no MTV, no cable TV, Bonanza was the #3 show only because Gunsmoke was ahead of it.  The term "visual vacuum" barely covers.  Anyway, in a color organ, different colored lights in the unit would blink in time to music with the colors depicting different frequencies.

But the decisions - how high are the high notes you want to see in blue, which bass notes deserve red alone, letting yellow and orange handle voice?  Plus discrete circuit design gets into which resistors are needed, how big a power transformer, how to get the gated transistors to fire right.  But I persevered!  My mission was compelling (good sex this year at college) and my college room senior year was going to be the bomb - control panel for music, lights, alarm clock, even electric blanket control integrated into the top of the color organ, manly brown burlap on the walls, a built-in fridge.  Heck, the stereo would come on as I unlocked the door.  

My reward?  Fantastic sex, no?  No, a young woman screeching "a room full of toys!!" about sums it up.

Ahh, but the color organ never disappointed - good design.  Poor design intent.