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Looper's Delight
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"Gareth Whittock" <gareth@whiteoakstudios.freeserve.co.uk> opined: > Hi Guys, > I managed to cadge a projector which I used in a gig last night running > cthuga, (an oscilloscope on acid) - now while cthuga is an excellent >prog, > it's very old so I was wondering if antone here is aware of a modern > equivalent - pereferably one that responds to music. > ps > the visuals went down a storm with the, (miniscule) audience! I started out with the good old Psychedelic Screen Saver - and marvelled at the graphics however primitive at the time (1998?) - later seeing a performance by Blur at the MTTV (as in "Empty TV") Music Awards where one could see it obviously running on the displays surrounding the stage. I all-too-briefly adopted the use of it in several performances before leaving (snif! pout) the LA area in 2000, but decided that at some stage I'd need a laptop instead of lugging my entire &#$ system around each time (it's just a matter of time before your monitor gets fragged, eh?). I also decided that I needed a good projector to pull this off, but at $3000 a pop for a good one, well, it's tempting to just hope wherever you're playing has one instead. THEY'VE usually got that kind of lettuce to spend. After coming to the UK, of course, the sound-reactive screen effects program biz seems to have expanded a bit. (whine) much like the looping/ambient music scene where I used to live. First the Hypnogenic version of the Psychedelic Screen Saver started popping up on OEM PCs in some stores. This one was much better, with TRAILS, man. :) After Winamp started producing their AVS plugins, it upped the stakes I think. The graphics were very much like the Hypnogenic SS, flowing and very sound-reactive. Within months both Windows Media Player and Real's Player were sporting "graphic displays" that were optionally sound-reactive. Winamp and the Synthesoft (Psych, Hypno) products had something on both the big boys though. You could have your line in used for the source signal, instead of whatever media file/CD you were playing. I wouldn't touch Real's product with a twenty-meter cattle prod, nor the Win Media Player in its current revision (it doesn't loop, but instead repeat with an awful gap! ugh!). To their detriment, Winamp's current installation places a whole load of AOL spam links on your machine. One can remove them, though. To their credit, the graphics are quite advanced, though I'm not too sure they've gotten the bugs out of the sound-reactive "beat detection" module. I also get the impression that Winamp is joining in the turf war for your desktop with the WM and Real players, which IMNSHO lowers my opinion of the product. I still use it to play CDs and some media files though, and some of the included plugin graphics are superb in version 3. On Synthesoft's side - and I think theirs is still the only one to do this - one can easily program sound reactivity with respect to specific areas of the audio spectrum, in a huge variety of ways. Also, you don't have to bring on all this overhead just to have the graphics running in sound-reactive mode. http://www.synthesoft.com is where this one is. I don't think I need to tell you where Winamp and the rest are, do I? :) I'll always champion the individual developer in this regard. Tell 'em I sentcha! (By the way, as a self-plug, I've just about finished my first CD cover work for a pal of mine, who operates under the name El Queso Allstars. Warning! It's material designed to "enturbulate" certain members of a nazi mind-control cult, and also contains uh, explicit lyrics. But I like the opportunity to strut my stuff graphically, and when I have permission to do so I'll post a URL where you can see it.) S.P. Goodman EarthLight Productions * http://www.earthlight.net/Gallery - Cartoons and Illustrations! http://www.earthlight.net/HiddenTrack - Cartoons via Medialine!