ARK Meter Stereo

Under the guidance of NonLinearAudio, Abby designed the custom stereo smart-LED meter for DFA’s bespoke ARK mixing console.

The spec from DFA Studio was to build an LED loudness meter that moved in a pleasing way for the center section of the ARK console.  The LED meters would sit in between two traditional VU meters.  For this project, Abby used a microcontroller with an ADC in order to fine tune the behavior in software.  Software engineering assistance was provided from collaborator Matt Gattis.  This challenge lined up very well with her experience working with MCU’s and smart LED’s on the ODA project.  Various variables were carefully considered – from the number of segments, how the segments colors were determined and what decibel values they represented, to the rise and fall timing of the LED’s.