Lissajou Art

[Spogg]

I find it very hard to believe the video is showing the sounds from the music. My ears are telling me that I'm not hearing pure trianlge waves when I'm seeing them on the screen. Plus, when the filter opens, the wave period displayed gets longer.
I'm going to be a bit nasty now. I think this maybe a con; a clever video created to mislead folk to donate cash to get what looks like an unbelievably clever software. I mean, how could any sound produce, via any algorithm, a cyclist passing over the screen?
It's possible, just about, that the plugin can identify a range of sonic motifs and then trigger preset sequences. However it's very unlikely that such a process could fit to a beat so accurately without manual intervention.
I so hope I'm wrong...
Cheers
Spogg

[Perfect Human Interface]

And thank you for the link. I already read it, but it doesn't explicitly answer the questions in my head (for example, with what time window does an oscilloscope work, how often is the display updated per second, etc.).

Apparently they can be on the order of a million updates per second.
http://www.newelectronics.co.uk/electro ... tes/51874/

[Perfect Human Interface]

I find it very hard to believe the video is showing the sounds from the music. My ears are telling me that I'm not hearing pure trianlge waves when I'm seeing them on the screen. Plus, when the filter opens, the wave period displayed gets longer.
I'm going to be a bit nasty now. I think this maybe a con; a clever video created to mislead folk to donate cash to get what looks like an unbelievably clever software. I mean, how could any sound produce, via any algorithm, a cyclist passing over the screen?
It's possible, just about, that the plugin can identify a range of sonic motifs and then trigger preset sequences. However it's very unlikely that such a process could fit to a beat so accurately without manual intervention.
I so hope I'm wrong...
Cheers
Spogg

Well you can download this FL project and try it yourself (or maybe just extract the audio file and try it with your own osc if you don't have FL).
http://www.image-line.com/support/FLHel ... opeArt.zip

By the way, this looks much nicer on the actual (analog) oscilloscope recording on the top of the kickstarter page. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/12 ... cope-music

[Spogg]

OK, so I ripped the audio from the video as a wav file, made my current version of BobF's Lissajou into a basic effect plugin (with audio bypass to hear the track) and set it up in Reaper. I get some of the effects shown in the video but very inferior. That may be down to plugin issues so I will have to investigate further.
Based on the author's comments below it would seem that the idea is to generate sound sequences dedicated to the display, rather than use any old music. Whilst that may well be impressive it's also restrictive naturally. The YouTube video led me to believe you could use any music.

From the developer:

When mixing music you usually have several tracks, on which you use effects like filters or reverbs. However if you want the music to create a stable image on the oscilloscope, you can't play two sounds at the same time, and even the slightest application of effects would lead to unwanted artifacts. Therefore the whole approach of making music is different here. All aspects from composition and arrangement to mixing have to be considered at once, and for both audio and video at the same time.


If I am able to accurately reproduce the online video then I may have to consume a piece of head apparel. So we shall see...

Cheers

Spogg

[Spogg]

OK dammit it's hat-eating time!

I tried the audio track from the .ogg file (192kHz) from PHI's link
http://www.image-line.com/support/FLHel ... opeArt.zip
This is needed since the audio rip from YouTube isn't good enough quality I guess.
This works exactly as per the YouTube video, bleedin' cyclist and all! In fact it's amazing
Also, a great way for me/us to play with the Lissajou module.
Next step is to take apart the sections of the music and see WTF is going on!

The module is below, just patch it in as an effect in an audio track in your DAW and drop in the ogg file.

This hat is a bit dry.

Cheers

Spogg

[tulamide]

I'm expecting a whole lot of micromanagement. That's why I asked for details on the inner workings. For example, most oscilloscopes add noise to the y-signal (I still have no idea why). The best oscilloscope show something like 1 million waveform per second. Now what does that mean? I miss an answer to the length of a waveform. They are certainly not showing 1 million waveform per second, when a waveform is one second long!

However, the thing is, we humans prefer conformity. We detect patterns, and tend to ignore what doesn't fit to the pattern. Like the famous man in the ape costume being on video for several seconds, while you watch the video and count how many times the people there throw a ball between them.

That means, we can hide information. For example, a movement is assumed, if ~25 images are shown per second. Our brain just adds the missing information to let it be a movement - to us known as cinema ("movies" = moving pictures).

When we insert 1 image per second that doesn't belong to the movement, we don't notice it. The same is true for audio. We are able to differentiate between signals at about 10 to 20 ms. Very short signals, placed inbetween this window frame, let's say once per waveform cycle, won't be noticed by us. But they are noticed from the oscilloscope. Over time, a new additional picture is created, that we can't hear.

I bet this is the trick used here. Which also means, it is a hell of a lot of work to just get seconds right - not to mention minutes, or a whole album!

[Perfect Human Interface]

This hat is a bit dry.

There's something that extra little bit cooler about the fact that this works just as well in Flowstone.

I took things a step further and took a whack at prettifying this. This might take a little more CPU. Actually, for curiosity sake let me know how the redraw rate looks for you since my machine is pretty fast.
Enjoy!

PS: Who originally made the display module here? I'm thinking about sharing this on the IL forums and just wanted to ask permission.

[Perfect Human Interface]

When we insert 1 image per second that doesn't belong to the movement, we don't notice it. The same is true for audio. We are able to differentiate between signals at about 10 to 20 ms. Very short signals, placed inbetween this window frame, let's say once per waveform cycle, won't be noticed by us. But they are noticed from the oscilloscope. Over time, a new additional picture is created, that we can't hear.

Actually, I believe analog oscilloscope (vector) displays work under the principle that you do see every infinitesimal movement. Very basically, a single beam of light quickly "draws" across the screen, and everywhere it hits glows for a brief moment before fading out (simulated in the fancy pants display I posted above, thanks be to Trog ). So a solid line, for example a sine wave (though note that "waveforms" wouldn't be drawn in "X-Y mode"), would actually be a single, fast, continuous sweep of this beam, and to maintain the image it's simply drawn over and over very quickly. Since audio of course happens very fast, and we want an accurate representation of that, I believe it's within the nature of oscilloscopes in particular that they work to show everything that's input indiscriminately.

If you look carefully you can discern that everything we're seeing in the scope is being drawn with one continuous line. Since the X-Y mode display simply takes two voltage values as coordinates, we can understand that any continuous lines or shapes can be drawn by simply sending a pair of signals as X-Y values to trace them out. Relatively simple in concept, but how you get music out of this process is another thing entirely! I suspect simply varying the "frequency" or rate at which the lines are drawn has a lot to do with it for melodic aspects. Actually we could even define a full, beginning-to-end "draw" of whatever figure on the display as a single cycle of the two waveforms. "Animating" this shape would lead to various morphing/envelope like effects. Fascinating stuff!

More along the lines of what you were thinking though tulamide, it may be the case that certain inaudible frequencies are used in some cases.

[tulamide]

Since audio of course happens very fast, and we want an accurate representation of that, I believe it's within the nature of oscilloscopes in particular that they work to show everything that's input indiscriminately.

Well, two things. First, I didn't say it wouldn't. I said that while it gets every information of the signal, the human ear doesn't. Why do you think, for example the voice that talks while a mouth is formed, sounds so distorted. We sense it as noise, but it's actually the visual information interleaved with the voice, which in result forms the talking mouth.

Second, now in Flowstone the screen is drawn 25 times per second, and it is drawn from 256 audio bits. That's just 256 Hz of information from 192 kHz. Still it works. Why? Because there's more information than needed to sense music/language etc. This more is the visual design.

I already said, that it is a hell of a lot of work to get it in the right shape, so we agree again.

I like the new look of the display! Indeed gives it that analog look.

[BobF]

Hello gang,
well darn it I am out of town again till Monday. Just checked in on my cell phone. This all seems very interesting, wish I was home on my computer. Like I have said before this thing can be taken to some real extremes. There is so much that can be done. I believe we have only touched the surface. Still learning Flowstone myself and some ideas I have, I have NOT been able to figure out yet. A real good one I think would be to have the capability to overlay images in the display! Anyone up to the challenge? Ok then, talk again Monday, Have a great weekend gang. Later, BobF.....

P.S., I just read Jerobeam Fendersons whole web sight. Either he is in my head or I am in his. I am working on some of the very things he is. I guess he is in my head as it looks like he did his first,