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For my buddy Sam Slater I built a laser microphone. The mic has been used to record samples for the Soundtrack of Battlefield 2024.

This laser microphone consists of a red laser diode, a small exciter and a photo diode. The small exciter has a patch of sticky aluminium foil on it. The laser diode is shining onto the exciter where the red light is reflected onto the photo diode.

Now the magic starts happening once some sounds are played through the exciter. It starts vibrating and deflecting the light of the laser. The laser diode picks this shaking up as a difference in brightness. The signal from the photo diode is then turned into a usable audio signal again and sent out of the device.

It sounds like a really cool and distorted filter.