Review on 🌈 Unlock Limitless Creative Possibilities with Sparkfun Spectrum Shield by Esera Warren

Nice and easy way to get spectral audio content in Arduino. It uses a pair of ASICs that look at the spectrum of a line-level audio source (such as a headphone jack) and sample the audio spectrum on the stereo channels. This is combined into 7 frequency slots per channel. When the ASIC hits the clock pin with a digital line pulse, it sends an analog signal proportional to the amplitude of the audio content in that band to the Arduino's audio input - since it's stereo, it uses two audio inputs. The following hours pass through 7 spectral bins. Two small issues with this board: First, it's only compatible with 5-VE/A. It turns out that ASICs can actually run at up to 3.3V. See the image below. The second issue is that it doesn't come with connectors or solder pins. This is the only sign I've ever bought that didn't come with "something". It's nice that they provided a small workspace for prototyping other things.