
Programmer Creates One-of-a-Kind Daft Punk "Word Clock"
It's incredible to think about how one of the most impactful electronic songs in history, "Harder Better Faster Stronger," only has 18 unique words.
It was a discovery made by Daft Punk fan Ben Combee, who says the realization of the song's catchy simplicity inspired him to create a one-of-a-kind piece built around the legendary robots' generational dance anthem. Combee created an art display similar to a word clock, a device capable of playing back the song's audio while lighting up the appropriate lyrics with perfect timing.
Combee explained that all the lyrics were able to be fit in a 12x7 combination matrix after duplicate lyrics were excluded. Then, he programmed a series of cue points tagged to specific timestamps in the track so that each word in the matrix would brighten and then dim again after it is sung by dance music's famous robots.
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For added flair, Combee tacked on a bright equalizer sound bar that beams with rainbow lights to the beat. If it wasn't one-of-a-kind, this tiny device would be the ideal singalong assistant for Daft Punk fans who simply can't help but vocalize the lyrics every time this Discovery hit crosses their mind.
Impressively, this was all in a day's work for Combee, who shared a successful test run of the final version of the word clock on YouTube. Read more on how his unique project came together via Hackaday.