CYGN-B

[Greg]

In section 7 (p.11) of the patent Steve posted, is stated: "A voltage controlled spiral generator 146 may be controlled, in a well known fashion, from the output of the data acquisition system 140..." I wonder what was meant by "in a well known fashion". Was that something the teenagers were atwitter about in the 1970s?

The photos here show the compressed audio signal together with the audio control voltage derived from it. The trim pot in this part of the circuit appears to be a DC offset adjust to the output. Not sure why it is called "feedthrough" on the schematic.

[laserist]

I believe "well known fashion" refers to "voltage controlled"... Perhaps the lawyer was paid by the word. Actually Ivan once told me that when their original lawyer died the new lawyer said he hoped they never had to defend this patent because he had no idea how to do it. Another interesting bit of laser trivia, somebody patented laser lumia prior to Laserium, but fortunately specifically called out doing it on a rear projection screen.

[mixedgas]

I would not try to do a modern planetarium show without a data track. Z-5 with the color box is awesome, but you'd need something to record and edit on. Radiator requires immense practice and memorization to be effective outside of a Rave.
. To really do something with it I'd be using the"Save to Ilda" immensely and editing elsewhere.

There is a reason why I own a Wave-Dsp. Editing and creating a baseline is why.

I have a really old console that was designed in such a way that you really have to work hard to create a lame, dis-jointed, unviewable, unenjoyable image. With just five sliders, a few potentiometers per oscillator bank, and a joystick. It has two nearly identical oscillator sections and one post processing session. You can go between section A and section B with a slider. This way you can play aith A in real time and spring back to B for a chorus.

I have another unit that is the XYZ rotator and orbit.

The key here is voltage controlled, not being stuck with 8 bit control of anything.

Before some one chimes in that I cannot "experience" a Z-5
Or a Radiator because I do not own them, I have around 24 hours on Z5 and the Radiator is 30 minutes away.

Control layout and oscillator/multiplier internal patches readily do matter. That and the ability to do extremely smooth transitions from one image to the next while matching measures in the music.

Steve

[lasermaster1977]

In section 7 (p.11) of the patent Steve posted, is stated: "A voltage controlled spiral generator 146 may be controlled, in a well known fashion, from the output of the data acquisition system 140..." I wonder what was meant by "in a well known fashion". Was that something the teenagers were atwitter about in the 1970s?

The photos here show the compressed audio signal together with the audio control voltage derived from it. The trim pot in this part of the circuit appears to be a DC offset adjust to the output. Not sure why it is called "feedthrough" on the schematic.

"...in a well known fashion" or "Such recording techniques are well known" is legalese for "this part ain't patentable, ain't part of our patent application, tis in the domain of common knowledge".

Thanks for posting the patent, Steve!

[mixedgas]

Or the lovable "Known to those in the Industry"
Which means, we know, our competitors know, but we dare not tell anyone else.

Steve

[lasermaster1977]

Or the lovable "Known to those in the Industry"
Which means, we know, our competitors know, but we dare not tell anyone else.

Steve

Yessiree ;-).

Interesting about the lumia patent. I just cannot bring myself to imagine how on earth that patent could even be defended from the "front or back", to wit, sunlight bouncing on rippling water or snowflakes = well known.

[ronhip]

Steve,

I completely agree. If I had to control the entire Laserium show manually, I would have melted down into a shallow puddle by the time the show was over. The basic choreography produced in our studios was essential. As laserists, we could always override what was sent us, but rarely did. It was great having those extra 4 hands helping out with the show!

Just a note that Radiator can be controlled with a MIDI track, so there is some pre-programmable capability built-in. I believe that Swami-dog has recently posted a couple videos demonstrating this interesting feature. Plus, one can also save settings as presets which is a big selling point. It's much more than a naked synthesizer. Unfortunately, its "Save to ILDA" feature is limited to only 20 seconds which renders that feature almost useless. We should be able to save ILDA format files only limited to whatever external storage is attached. Right now the internal storage is the limitation. Maybe they'll work on that?

Ron

I would not try to do a modern planetarium show without a data track. Z-5 with the color box is awesome, but you'd need something to record and edit on. Radiator requires immense practice and memorization to be effective outside of a Rave.
. To really do something with it I'd be using the"Save to Ilda" immensely and editing elsewhere.

There is a reason why I own a Wave-Dsp. Editing and creating a baseline is why.

I have a really old console that was designed in such a way that you really have to work hard to create a lame, dis-jointed, unviewable, unenjoyable image. With just five sliders, a few potentiometers per oscillator bank, and a joystick. It has two nearly identical oscillator sections and one post processing session. You can go between section A and section B with a slider. This way you can play aith A in real time and spring back to B for a chorus.

I have another unit that is the XYZ rotator and orbit.

The key here is voltage controlled, not being stuck with 8 bit control of anything.

Before some one chimes in that I cannot "experience" a Z-5
Or a Radiator because I do not own them, I have around 24 hours on Z5 and the Radiator is 30 minutes away.

Control layout and oscillator/multiplier internal patches readily do matter. That and the ability to do extremely smooth transitions from one image to the next while matching measures in the music.

Steve

[TheHermit]

One of the best live show laser desks that I've ever used, back in the days of live laser shows, was the Aries, by Laserpoint, UK. It was a 3 scan head, full color Krypton/Argon projector, with a desk of preset images and sequences that could be routed out to any of the scanners by pressing the appropriate 4 buttons (one for color). But, it takes a lot of finesse to keep away from a look at that! look at that! look at that! kind of a disco show. Smooth crossfades between generators for morphing 'characters' is far more interesting and less abusive to watch. IMO, a good show carefully allures the audience in with curiosity of what's going to happen next, like telling a story, one doesn't start with the punch line, does one?
Yes, automation is key for tight timing, especially with multiple projectors. I'm going the MIDI route with Cakewalk's DAW, as well. LSX is great, but my license is limited to 2 projectors, plus I'd need another $200 ILDA DAC. So, the inevitable time has come for me to build my own long dreamed of laser controller. Been out of the biz for 35 years, but it's never been out of my mind.
The Teensy's 10 QOSCs are working fine with only Arduino code and every projector will have it's own bank of waveform generators, mixers, multipliers, DACs, and James' ILDA correction amps.
Within my living room, those Teensy image generators, located inside the 3 projectors will communicate over usbMIDI with Cakewalk's DAW, which can record and playback all of the MIDI signals from the custom laser MIDI controller (instead of the current Akai MIDI controller), which I'm currently laying out the controls for and waiting for the parts to arrive.
I'm using LCD touchscreens for paging through banks of control configurations, depending which variables I want to tweak with RGB rotary encoders and/or touchscreen sliders. For example, I could 'zoom' the controls' configurations in or out from individual X & Y controls, to quadrature pairs, to image groups, to master image gains, and routing to projectors.
Sorry to be drooling all over the place, but I'm getting pretty pumped as the components are arriving, TBH.
Just thought I'd share my 2 cents worth, if anyone's interested.

Steve,

I completely agree. If I had to control the entire Laserium show manually, I would have melted down into a shallow puddle by the time the show was over. The basic choreography produced in our studios was essential. As laserists, we could always override what was sent us, but rarely did. It was great having those extra 4 hands helping out with the show!

Just a note that Radiator can be controlled with a MIDI track, so there is some pre-programmable capability built-in. I believe that Swami-dog has recently posted a couple videos demonstrating this interesting feature. Plus, one can also save settings as presets which is a big selling point. It's much more than a naked synthesizer. Unfortunately, its "Save to ILDA" feature is limited to only 20 seconds which renders that feature almost useless. We should be able to save ILDA format files only limited to whatever external storage is attached. Right now the internal storage is the limitation. Maybe they'll work on that?

Ron

[mixedgas]

If Swami doesn't deliver the "other" Blue Danube to my house first for the above post, I'm sure he might be persuaded to consider 40-60 seconds?

The other Blue Danube Blue Danube (nuclear weapon) - Wikipedide That thing just has that ACME, Inc. Wile E. Coyote set of proportions.

Blue Danube is about seven minutes long with a three minute coda in 3/4 time. That is a huge number of cues to score and adjust.

Sometimes it is amazing what Google suggests when you google something like "Blue Danube" length. Oh, and that model is all analog, too.

I'm in the middle of adding a "911" button to the system, based on Behringer 911 ADSR (envelope generator) for AM/FM / Size exactly these reasons. That and it was cheaper then building one in an evening.

I could easily "burn" 40 seconds of record time just using the new toy and a trigger.



I too started on a big red UK console of the zillion buttons and images stored in EPROM type. They are quite lovely. I really wish I knew where that unit is now, but corporate disposed of it. . Did yours have the XY scope preview option? Red scan head and blue/green scan head, too.

Steve

[Greg]

I don't know who this is, but this Facebook page has loads of rare Laserium photos and knowledgeable comments:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/Laserock...oncerts/posts/

Perhaps the individual involved would be interested in what we do in this thread.