If you like to listen to music here is a way to jazz up the experience. We have all seen the boring analog VU meters on either old or high end audio equipment. Simon Inns from Waiting of Friday has rigged up a cool RGB LED VU Meter circuit that uses 3 TLC5940 LED driver chips that are bring controlled by a PIC18F2550 microcontroller.
“This project creates a RGB LED VU Meter which is controlled via USB by a Windows 7 or Vista host machine. The demonstration board consists of a 5V regulator (switching), a PIC18F2550 with the required USB components, 3xTLC5940 16 channel serial LED drivers with PWM and 16 high intensity RGB LEDs.”