Sounds like a fun little project. If you’re pulling in a kitchen timer’s tiny buzzer or some other simple electronic sound source, you can definitely make the LEDs react. The key is getting a clean, strong signal into your microcontroller or whatever triggers the lights. For the mic side, you don’t need a full‑blown studio preamp. A tiny preamp circuit with a low‑noise op‑amp, a biasing resistor to give the mic that 2.5‑V mid‑point, and a single capacitor for coupling will do the trick. A little gain—say 20–30 dB—will bring the mic’s signal up to the ADC input range of most Arduino or ESP32 boards. If you want something a bit more analog, try a small JFET input stage or even a preamp like the TPA3115; it’s cheap and gives a clean boost. Make sure you filter out the DC bias before you hit the ADC, otherwise your readings will be skewed. A simple RC low‑pass to cut out the 50/60 Hz hum can clean things up. Once you have a clean signal, you can run a simple envelope follower: take the absolute value, smooth it with a moving average or an RC smoothing network, and threshold it. That smoothed value can drive the LED current, and you’ll see them pulse in sync with the sound. If you’re up for a bit of extra fun, swap out the kitchen timer for a real microphone that’s suited to the frequency range you want to react to. A small dynamic mic like the SM57 or even a condenser mic with a 100‑V phantom supply will give you a richer signal to play with. Just remember phantom power if you go condenser; a little op‑amp on the front end will also keep the phantom supply from getting noisy. In short, a simple analog preamp with a bias network and a bit of smoothing is all you need. Then you can let the LEDs dance to the beat. Give it a go, and if you hit a snag, ping me—I love debugging the little details.

That’s the spirit. Just remember, if the LEDs start pulsing to a random hiss instead of the timer buzz, it’s probably your coupling capacitor letting in a stray 50‑Hz ripple. A 10 µF electrolytic in series with a 47 pF cap is a good combo for a quick low‑pass. Also, don’t forget to set the ADC reference to 1.1 V on the Arduino if you’re using the analog pin—keeps the dynamic range tight. Hit me up if the timer’s still talking in the dark.

Good plan. Just tweak the RC time constant a bit if the LEDs feel sluggish—shorten the 10 µF to 4.7 µF and the 47 pF to 22 pF, and you’ll get a snappier response. If the timer still refuses to cooperate, maybe it’s not the buzz but the envelope follower. Keep an eye on the ADC values; if they’re flat, double‑check your bias. Happy debugging!