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Thread: Lasershow software for music-based shows?

  1. #1
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    Post Lasershow software for music-based shows?

    I've always been a fan of scanner shows synced to music, like this one:



    What software could I use to make shows with this level of synchronization? I've messed with quickshow & beyond a bit, and I'm wondering if there's any programs out there better suited to the task.

  2. #2
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    Really, that's what you want to do? A two dimensional image (okay it's a beam show so $ort of 3D) with one dimensional choreography - good luck with all that.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

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    Actually, that was pretty impressive.

    It captured not just simple beats per minute, but individual elements of the music as it moved.
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  4. #4
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    To be honest, scanner shows exactly like this one are what got me interested in the world of lasers in the first place- I’ve wanted to create stuff like this for years

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    Seriously we're not 30 years ago - impressive isn't a stationary target - impressive needs to evolve beyond what's already been done - over and over again. I want to do this thing that I saw somebody else do... Oh, hell yes - that's the motivation for - oh screw it - have fun doing whatever it is you're trying to do.

    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Actually, that was pretty
    impressive.
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  6. #6
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    Nuance. It's all about that.
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  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by james View Post
    Either do or do not do.
    .
    or f-it just re do it again and again and again
    "There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who, with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun." Pablo Picasso

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by laserist View Post
    Seriously we're not 30 years ago - impressive isn't a stationary target - impressive needs to evolve beyond what's already been done - over and over again. I want to do this thing that I saw somebody else do... Oh, hell yes - that's the motivation for - oh screw it - have fun doing whatever it is you're trying to do.
    If anything, the standard of “impressive” has gone downhill. Modern laser shows, as seen in concerts are little more than random patterns that happen to sync to the music’s BPM. I want to go far beyond that, and create more shows that are truly designed and thought out for every millisecond of synchronization. I want to create something *better* than the flashy BS that’s often flailed around.

    Even disregarding that, **all I did was ask for software recommendations**. Your reply was to call my objectives unimpressive. This is both purposefully unhelpful, and off-topic for the thread.

  9. #9
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    Synesthesia.

    Look it up.

    It would be really something to be able to write the equivalent of sheet music for laser projection.

    Jerry Garcia played guitar according to the colors he saw coming from the rest of the band.
    Last edited by james; 03-24-2019 at 19:43.
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  10. #10
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    The show that I and a partner won our Third Place Brewster Award for had 736 timeline events in the first two minutes, using LD2000. We had to wake up Bill Benner late on night to find out how to merge another timeline in as we used all the available cues getting enough layers, and we were new users of the Pangolin System... It can be done with LD2000, Beyond, and LSX, and probably others like Lasergraph DSP or LOBO's LACON.. Or if you really wanted to suffer, with WAV files.

    Working in shifts, that show took about three and a half days, He and I working back to back on one PC.. When your a 20 something, sleep was optional. Now I have custom beam show tools to make it easer, that modify the colors of the points in a frame and spin off a new frame, making up to 250 unique frames which get ran as an animation.. This way I don't burn as many cue events on the timeline...

    For that show, almost all the frames were a single frame turned into an animation using the built in effects, , and then layers applied. That made it look far more different then most effects in the competition. Which was something our peers noted as they selected the winners. No three judge panel at LFX, the whole audience of conference attendees and their loved ones voted, while watching the shows live in laser. . Thus a true juried award. Which is why I value that award far more then the modern chunks of ILDA glass.

    It can be done with Beyond or LSX easily enough, but probably not with Quickshow.. Parts of our show got close to
    Synesthesia for a few seconds at a time back in the late 90s..

    The downside is by the time your done, you really hate the song your working on, as you have listened to 10-15 second song fragments hundreds of times while adjusting the time line... If you want to put that kind of effort in, well, I hope your paid well... I cringe whenever I hear that song to this day.

    Steve
    Last edited by mixedgas; 03-24-2019 at 21:28.
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