The manuals for all laser / LED devices have been located and this is a big win as there is no chance of programming these things without them. If you hate MIDI programming, you will hate DMX programming even more. It was pointless to try anything yesterday as that would just have been button-pushing to see what happens.
The RayBans remain in France and that's unfortunate as they were the great defense against the All-Powerful Blue Laser. That one is 300 mW and you think the sun is bright ... until you get a flash in the face from that baby.
Programming is moving along and there are green and blue lasers all over the walls just now. I was toying with giving myself a birthday party as it's on Saturday and the plan was to do a live video stream with the lasers but there's no way to do that in the dark for Euros. They are an hour earlier just now because America and Europe still aren't (cough) clever enough to sync the switch on Daylight Savings Time but that still wouldn't make the difference as it's a six-hour offset to Germany. It's really not dark at six here and that would be midnight in Germany, the party would already be over before it ever started in Texas. And really to be dark enough for lasers and smoke, it's got to be nine or later. I haven't got the smoke stuff yet but it's cheap and there's a CVS a mile from here.
The purpose in anarchic visuals is as a representation of the extraordinary level of cognitive dissonance in things supposedly stable and ostensibly real. It's an image that's become Americana with a bunch of people in a McDonald's, families at tables eating, kids playing on that goofy park equipment, and, in its way, it's beautiful ... until some nutjob screams SAVE THE REDWOODS, pulls a gun out of his pocket, and starts firing. This can't happen here but, wtf, it just did.
The illusion of safety and reality in a great many things is what drives me to create something that's nothing but illusion but is absolutely real. You saw from "All But My Life" that I'm not hiding anything and visual anarchy isn't a disguise but a point. There is no safety with people walking around with guns in their pockets, it's an obvious illusion as guns still only do one thing. Therefore I do not believe what is ostensibly visual truth is any truth at all and my portrayal will necessarily be something else.
The music has to be consistent with the anarchy so that's where it gets interesting. If you really want musical anarchy, you'll be going out into twelve tones (i.e. play any key you like, just make it work). There is truth in that experimentalism but it's not what I seek and that's what makes it a good trick to come up with whatever will work with what will definitely be visual anarchy. I figure, what the hell, attach a laser to the head of the guitar as well, the battery box is light.
The timing is important as it's not an unlimited shot because I'll run out of gas and this video isn't allowed to be a heartbreaker. I didn't pace myself well enough for the last one and it's not a heartbreaker doing that again, that's just being stupid.
Some notes about "All But My Life" -
It may look like I'm all tragic in playing but that isn't what I feel. What actually is happening is total focus on the music and Cat listening to it.
The look at the end when I really did stop is all tragic but the reason is I felt I had failed with the last part. I was setting out looking for another groove but as I started into it I knew I wouldn't make it and had to bail out. It came down very quickly as stop, you are done.
The trick is pacing and I played again yesterday but there was no medical aspect to stopping and it worked out well. I didn't find a progression that particularly did it for me but it's good nevertheless. It's like Edison said, well, that wasn't a failure but rather a discovery that this solution is not the way to make lightbulbs.
As a closer, try visualizing this one: the laser / light controller understands MIDI and the way it's implemented it only responds to notes. What that means is each different note you play on the keyboard will trigger a patch change in the light controller. For example, maybe the LEDs advance through the RGB spectrum as you go up the keyboard. Similarly, the activity of the lasers could be controlled the same way as there are different patches for each class of devices (i.e. all the green lasers are one class, the blue one has its own, etc). Combine all of these and the result is an orderly progression of laser / light effect based entirely on what is being played.
The above is going to get some serious attention as the practicality of implementing it in such a way is still to be discovered (i.e. it could really be a bitch). It's worth the attention as it's been a dream since I was a kid to be able to see music and this might well be the closest way I can put together to do it.
The RayBans remain in France and that's unfortunate as they were the great defense against the All-Powerful Blue Laser. That one is 300 mW and you think the sun is bright ... until you get a flash in the face from that baby.
Programming is moving along and there are green and blue lasers all over the walls just now. I was toying with giving myself a birthday party as it's on Saturday and the plan was to do a live video stream with the lasers but there's no way to do that in the dark for Euros. They are an hour earlier just now because America and Europe still aren't (cough) clever enough to sync the switch on Daylight Savings Time but that still wouldn't make the difference as it's a six-hour offset to Germany. It's really not dark at six here and that would be midnight in Germany, the party would already be over before it ever started in Texas. And really to be dark enough for lasers and smoke, it's got to be nine or later. I haven't got the smoke stuff yet but it's cheap and there's a CVS a mile from here.
The purpose in anarchic visuals is as a representation of the extraordinary level of cognitive dissonance in things supposedly stable and ostensibly real. It's an image that's become Americana with a bunch of people in a McDonald's, families at tables eating, kids playing on that goofy park equipment, and, in its way, it's beautiful ... until some nutjob screams SAVE THE REDWOODS, pulls a gun out of his pocket, and starts firing. This can't happen here but, wtf, it just did.
The illusion of safety and reality in a great many things is what drives me to create something that's nothing but illusion but is absolutely real. You saw from "All But My Life" that I'm not hiding anything and visual anarchy isn't a disguise but a point. There is no safety with people walking around with guns in their pockets, it's an obvious illusion as guns still only do one thing. Therefore I do not believe what is ostensibly visual truth is any truth at all and my portrayal will necessarily be something else.
The music has to be consistent with the anarchy so that's where it gets interesting. If you really want musical anarchy, you'll be going out into twelve tones (i.e. play any key you like, just make it work). There is truth in that experimentalism but it's not what I seek and that's what makes it a good trick to come up with whatever will work with what will definitely be visual anarchy. I figure, what the hell, attach a laser to the head of the guitar as well, the battery box is light.
The timing is important as it's not an unlimited shot because I'll run out of gas and this video isn't allowed to be a heartbreaker. I didn't pace myself well enough for the last one and it's not a heartbreaker doing that again, that's just being stupid.
Some notes about "All But My Life" -
It may look like I'm all tragic in playing but that isn't what I feel. What actually is happening is total focus on the music and Cat listening to it.
The look at the end when I really did stop is all tragic but the reason is I felt I had failed with the last part. I was setting out looking for another groove but as I started into it I knew I wouldn't make it and had to bail out. It came down very quickly as stop, you are done.
The trick is pacing and I played again yesterday but there was no medical aspect to stopping and it worked out well. I didn't find a progression that particularly did it for me but it's good nevertheless. It's like Edison said, well, that wasn't a failure but rather a discovery that this solution is not the way to make lightbulbs.
As a closer, try visualizing this one: the laser / light controller understands MIDI and the way it's implemented it only responds to notes. What that means is each different note you play on the keyboard will trigger a patch change in the light controller. For example, maybe the LEDs advance through the RGB spectrum as you go up the keyboard. Similarly, the activity of the lasers could be controlled the same way as there are different patches for each class of devices (i.e. all the green lasers are one class, the blue one has its own, etc). Combine all of these and the result is an orderly progression of laser / light effect based entirely on what is being played.
The above is going to get some serious attention as the practicality of implementing it in such a way is still to be discovered (i.e. it could really be a bitch). It's worth the attention as it's been a dream since I was a kid to be able to see music and this might well be the closest way I can put together to do it.
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