These directions are written under the assumption that you will be following along with the original documentation - I purposefully leave out large chucks as they are already documented here:

https://github.com/scottlawsonbc/audio-reactive-led-strip under the heading "Installation for Raspberry Pi"

Install Raspbian on a SD card - I used Jesse Lite, which came with the 4.4 kernel.

On the first boot:

 sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

network={
    ssid="MyWirelessAP"
    psk="MyWirelessPassword"
}

sudo raspi-config

SSHd hangs after authenticating until updating its config: https://expresshosting.net/ssh-hanging-authentication/

sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config

IPQoS 0x00

After a reboot, You should be able to SSH in and remotely perform the rest of the configuration

The Fe-Pi drivers are now included in the 4.9 kernel.

From https://github.com/PiSupply/PaPiRus/issues/82, to upgrade to 4.9:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rpi-update
sudo rpi-update

After rebooting, disable the built-in sound chip and enable the Fe-Pi by editing /boot/config.txt

(http://fe-pi.com/p/building-a-new-kernel?_ga=2.186172393.1565192209.1496548161-1555104412.1496548161)

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

dtparam=audio=on

to

dtparam=audio=off

Enable the Fe-Pi by adding these values to the bottom:

dtoverlay=fe-pi-audio
dtoverlay=i2s-mmap

Restart again and then proceed to the next step

Install the Audio Reactive pre-requisite software as described at Scott Lawson's github site: https://github.com/scottlawsonbc/audio-reactive-led-strip

Skip the apt-get update if you updated in the prior step - no need to cause unneeded load on the Raspbian servers.

sudo apt-get install python-numpy python-scipy python-pyaudio

Install ws281x library:

sudo apt-get install build-essential python-dev git scons swig
git clone https://github.com/jgarff/rpi_ws281x.git
cd rpi_ws281x
scons
cd python
sudo python setup.py install

The values given for the newly created /etc/asound.conf and edits to the /etc/asla.conf are from a system with two sound devices. In a prior step, the built-in sound was disabled, so the Fe-Pi is the only sound device that should be enabled, meaning that it should be device zero.

In this case, the /etc/asound.conf should look like this:

pcm.!default {
    type hw
    card 0
}
ctl.!default {
    type hw
    card 0
}

defaults.ctl.card 0
defaults.pcm.card 0

While you are editing the alsa.conf, also update the following from:

pcm.front cards.pcm.front
pcm.rear cards.pcm.rear
pcm.center_lfe cards.pcm.center_lfe
pcm.side cards.pcm.side
pcm.surround21 cards.pcm.surround21
pcm.surround40 cards.pcm.surround40
pcm.surround41 cards.pcm.surround41
pcm.surround50 cards.pcm.surround50
pcm.surround51 cards.pcm.surround51
pcm.surround71 cards.pcm.surround71
pcm.iec958 cards.pcm.iec958
pcm.hdmi cards.pcm.hdmi
pcm.modem cards.pcm.modem
pcm.phoneline cards.pcm.phoneline

pcm.front cards.pcm.default
pcm.rear cards.pcm.default
pcm.center_lfe cards.pcm.default
pcm.side cards.pcm.default
pcm.surround21 cards.pcm.default
pcm.surround40 cards.pcm.default
pcm.surround41 cards.pcm.default
pcm.surround50 cards.pcm.default
pcm.surround51 cards.pcm.default
pcm.surround71 cards.pcm.default
pcm.iec958 cards.pcm.default
pcm.hdmi cards.pcm.default
pcm.modem cards.pcm.default
pcm.phoneline cards.pcm.default

Test the strip:

Because the Fe-Pi is hardwired to use GPIO18, I am using GPIO12 to talk to the LED strip. The two figuration updates I made were to the LED_PIN and LED_COUNT.

Edit the ~/rpi_ws281x/python/examples/strandtest.py file

LED_COUNT      = 102     
LED_PIN        = 12  

try running the test:

cd ~/rpi_ws281x/python/examples
sudo python strandtest.py

Verify sound, and adjust microphone levels.

Use alsamixer to make adjustments. I used this simple python script to adjust the microphone settings http://www.swharden.com/wp/2016-07-19-realtime-audio-visualization-in-python/

Create a new file called vuMeter.py

cd
nano vuMeter.py

Paste the following into the file, save and exit.

import pyaudio
import numpy as np

CHUNK = 2**11
RATE = 44100

p=pyaudio.PyAudio()
stream=p.open(format=pyaudio.paInt16,channels=1,rate=RATE,input=True,
              frames_per_buffer=CHUNK)

for i in range(int(10*44100/1024)): #go for a few seconds
    data = np.fromstring(stream.read(CHUNK),dtype=np.int16)
    peak=np.average(np.abs(data))*2
    bars="#"*int(50*peak/2**16)
    print("%04d %05d %s"%(i,peak,bars))

stream.stop_stream()
stream.close()
p.terminate()

The Fe-Pi has a black 1/8" TRRS port, while the microphone I have has a TRS connector, so I got a breakout cable for a cell phone that breaks the TRRS connector into two individual sound and microphone plugs.

The way I made adjustments was by opening two SSH sessions, one running the vuMeter script, while the other one had alsamixer running.

For my setup, all I had to do was increase the Mic level in the mixer

Download the code:

cd 
git clone https://github.com/scottlawsonbc/audio-reactive-led-strip.git
cd audio-reactive-led-strip/python/
nano config.py

And make the following updates:

DEVICE = 'pi'

LED_PIN = 12

USE_GUI = False

Turn off the FPS display

DISPLAY_FPS = False

Set strand length

N_PIZELS = 102

Drop the FPS to prevent audio buffering issues

FPS = 9

Try starting the script

cd ~/audio-reactive-led-strip/python/
sudo python visualization.py