[Julien Bayle] has posted this great breakdown of building an RGB monome clone. He is a musical performer using Ableton Live. He wanted to do away with the need for a computer screen and found that the monome would have been perfect had it been RGB. So he decided to build his own.

The parts list for the entire project is as follows:

• 1x Arduino board
• 4x Sparkfun breakout PCB
• 4x Sparkfun buttons pads (like our door lock)
• 4x Sparkfun buttons bezel
• 64x RGB LEDs common cathode
• 64x Diodes Small Signal (1N4148)
• 1x MAX7221 (LED Driver)
• 1x 74HC164 (8-Bit Serial-In, Parallel-Out Shift Register)
• 1x 74HC165 (8-Bit Parallel-In, Serial-Out Shift Register)

He also has files for the schematics and source code as well as information on how to assemble and test it.

The RGB aspect is still under development. He is using the LEDMatrix-Serial Interface-RGB from Sparkfun Electronics to run it. It is expensive, but is exactly what he was looking for.

There aren’t very many pictures of the project, and none of the working RGB unit. He makes up for it in sheer information. Many parts have links to manufacturers or support forums. Hopefully he’ll post some pictures and video of the final product soon.