Old fart's comments, experiences and insights

[lasermaster1977]

Okay, so I'm struck by the AI videos much differently than most.

Given that PF's music is astounding in and of itself, and given that it conjures and coaxes one's imagination to go in unexpected and complicated, and at times soothing mental streams of awareness...the AI video DEFINITELY overplays the visual orchestrations and for the most part has little to do with temporally complimenting the music or the lyrics. Okay, 10-15% of the time there was lyric correlations to the video, but you had to really look hard on occasions.

It in fact is the "same thing different tune" as @TheHermit alluded of what goes around comes around in Jim Hendrix's acid-psychedelic music videos of the 60's and 70's only on serious steroids.

There were HUGE missed opportunities on an enormous number of important music cues that just was either non-existent or flat and mundane.

To me it was like "let me show you how to draw a simple circle, but first do you mind if I draw it in a 2 mile diameter, 10 foot deep pile of ocean beach sand"?

That said, consider this. - !(@*(%#@*^5463#(*@#)- Inspiring isn't it? And, there is hidden meaning! (I actually don't know what I mean by that, but hey, I'm an ol' fart, gimme a break.)

[Greg]

I'm considering auditory vs visual: which suggests the other? With AI videos, obviously the music came first. Laserium, when done right, looks the more fundamental, and the sound, even pf, literally appears to be the wake generated by the light. That is quite a big difference, and obviously the ability of lasers to represent motion at low audio frequencies is superior to the fixed frame rate of video.

Should soon have another offering of Echoes based on the tips so far provided.

Oh yeah, I did see Welcome To The Machine on a dome, but it wasn't by Laser Images. That stupid off sync piston graphic. That stupid wine glass. Ugh.

[laserist]

Snip

That said, consider this. - !(@*(%#@*^5463#(*@#)- Inspiring isn't it? And, there is hidden meaning! (I actually don't know what I mean by that, but hey, I'm an ol' fart, gimme a break.)

...if you seek inspiration or hidden significance, you may find them, but if you want explanations and explicit meanings, they will not be there.
From the introduction to Laserium by Ivan Dryer

[HankLloydRight]

The Wizard of Pink Floyd

Just a side note. I've heard and seen this many times, but never called that before.
I've always known it to be called "Dark side of the Rainbow" , which I think is a way better name for it.

Carry on.

[lasermaster1977]

.. my wayward so~on! Classic Kansas!

Thanks, Hank. I needed that blast from the past.

SPOILER ALERT: My previous link's soundtrack cut off in the middle and the last song wasn't from Dark Side of the Moon, but a later album.

Love that "wayward" song. That and What's On My Mind are my favs.
What's On My Mind was they second song in my Laser Fusion show.

[Greg]

Personally, I find The Limeliters - Tonight: In Person is a better fit to wizard of oz than dark side of the moon.

[Greg]

Not sure if this is what was meant by "loops". Anyway, here is an Echoes excerpt with joystick and a different cycloid. Please tell me if this is warmer or colder. I may set echoes aside for now and continue exploring the catalog. I do have a working burn effect I'll post for review soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thk8Fg-sdPE

[laserist]

Your radar "pulses" were a bit late, and I couldn't tell if the CM2 was pulsing them. (In a dome you can play flat out with intensity - more or less - in video the image overexposes when it's small and underexposes when it's large) By loops I meant two high speed oscillators at near the same frequency - if frozen the image is a line - but don't freeze them. The loops make interesting forms via persistence of vision as the joystick moves them around. So move them around! As you've noted, Laserium's CYGN-A wasn't good at producing stable images. (When in doubt, play your strengths...) The solution was to play the fine frequency of one of the oscillators to make the image move with the music, not to try harder to stop its motion. It was a cycloid development number. That means the image(s) evolved over the course of the number.

[Greg]

Interesting and helpful feedback. Thank you Brian. Thank you Roj. The observations are correct regarding the sonar pings. That was not CM2, that was saturation = 0. And the pings were inappropriately enveloped and delayed. The data provides a beam enable cue only for the first ping. The channel from then on remains on. So... did you hit the beam enable Lever-Lite on cue to the pings manually? I could if I could count it, but it's not obvious to me how to count that part of echoes.

I'm thinking of the number Odyssey in Starship, the first number I learned to perform. There was joystick action, and humor in how the phase invert button was used. That number used what I thought of as "flying fans", but it would make more sense to call the effect "loops" if, indeed, the two are the same thing. It's funny, I'm expecting echoes to be this ponderous, slow moving thing, but actually the tune is quite lively. As the mind knows it rather than as the ear hears it.

Speaking of Odyssey, if interested, here is where I put as much as I could remember of it into a presentation using one projector, cyc, and Lasershowgen. This was done prior to my joining PL. Please ignore the false claims in the video description. It is not the original images or choreography. It is my memory of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX7wSLa1Vl4

That's good wisdom regarding the unforgiveable-ness of a tweak to stabilize frequency in a live performance.

[lasermaster1977]

As some forgotten comedian used to say, "That's the way to do it!" 🤗

Mark Knopfler wasn't a comedian...

Greg, nice rendition of the Laser Rock Starship number!