CYGN-B

[Greg]

The theater put up this clip of the pre-show screen test:

https://www.instagram.com/foxtheatre/reel/DFyFAr-IviS/

laserist sent me the MC3340P electronic attenuators seen here producing the audiomod cycloid effect.

[Greg]

Here is a link to the video of the ninth number in the presentation of Classic Laser Shows Of The 1970s, 80s, and 90s, which was exhibited at the Fox Theatre in Toronto Canada this past February 7th, 2025.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StSdhhB2G4w


This is a Rush number. This is number nine of thirteen in the show. It is probably the best example from the show of the classic 6B signals being moved into a computed 3D space.


Audience feedback is included prior to and following the number. The traditional shows had the laserist speak to the audience in the planetarium as the show began. At one point, it would be said something to the effect of the show is performed live, and if you see something you like you can let the performer know by clapping, cheering, and dancing in the aisles. This message was not delivered to this audience. Therefore, their responses may be considered spontaneous.


I consider the show to have been a success for the following reasons:


I made enough money on that show to be worth doing again.


There was no ridiculous scramble to accommodate some unforeseen problem. Everything went as planned regarding the show transport logistics, setup, and delivery. Given, the technology is much easier to wrangle these days, and there was no beam bounce setup.


Following the show, as the audience exited the theater, and several members stayed back to speak with me, I sensed something of the show walkouts circa 1982. There is a specific kind of exhilaration one can detect in a departing audience following a successful laser show that delivered the "I didn't know my mind could do that" experience.


The Elders here will encourage me toward abandoning the past and moving forward with an expanding vision into uncharted territory. And I'm getting to that. I find it easy to remember though, that my goal from the outset was to retrieve the potency of the historic and precedent setting work of John Tilp and Scott Anderson. No one has ever synched music and visuals and made laser shows like these people did, and Classic Laser Shows Of The 1970s, 80s, and 90s openly, if unspokenly, declares itself as one hundred percent tribute to them, and the others they worked with at the time.


About the Rush number: The conical pyramid thing is the product of a PC based 3D cycloid generator I wrote in 1998 called cyc. The output of this software is input as a file to the multabela system and appears as an image source. Much more could be done with that image source.


I've started working on a PCB design for duplicates of the 6B image synthesizer circuits I currently have hand wired on Vector boards, which should include the CYGN-B, my factored out spiral board with resettable / holdable ramp, the audio mod board, the KQO, and some utilities like external signal inputs, mixers, a couple of general purpose colormod2 circuits, and laserist's analog multiplier based image rotation circuit. My idea is to have these signals available on a sort of EMS SYNTHI style patch grid of signal sources and inputs, so, for example, individual CYGN-B oscillator signals could be fed to Z a axis input for 3D cycloids. This approach would also enable exploration of more advanced colormod techniques involving signals from image oscillators that my current rebuild doesn't have breakouts for. The impetus for all that is mostly just that I have all these rare components for another couple of 6B rebuilds, and it would be a shame to let that collection go to waste.

[lasermaster1977]

Thanks for sharing the video, your experiences and insights for how the show went. Your incentives, drive and determination has broad affects, not just with the audience you entertained and en-lightened, but to me and others on PLF.

[Greg]

Here's the tenth number in the show: In The Flesh and Run Like Hell. The Wall is an interesting show that has sophisticated graphics working superbly with 352 based choreography, as seen here. All I did was shift the hue parameter during the intro to In The Flesh.

Direct your attention, if you will, to the first verse of Run Like Hell which comes from a much older show, Laserock2. Here may be seen my hands on an original 6B panel performing with the "analog oscillators" (CYGN-A). A few seconds were lost due to the recording phone reaching it's maximum file size.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q6tsQqmGBk

Anyone who might consider using bela for building a system, I can provide an immediately runnable cpp file that contains my system's event loop with all the file opening, reading, recording, and closing, data buffering, and analog and digital IO enabling made available, but without all the 6B emulation stuff.

[Greg]

All I did was shift the hue parameter during the intro to In The Flesh.

Oh, That's not all I did. There is some 3D 6B tilting plane stuff in part of In The Flesh.

[Greg]

There seems to be a misunderstanding. Bela is a great way to input, record, synthesize, and output signals of any kind up to 22050 fps while minimizing and simplifying need of custom external circuitry. The code I mentioned has 0 percent anything to do with Laserium, and is simply a shell which leverages the platform's strengths while saving the beginner the headache of setting up the framework to manage the buffers of data that make possible real time IO.

[Greg]

"Bela uses the AD5668 serial 3-wire interface (SPI) DACs. All bits are written in to their respective DAC 16-bit latches and then clocked to put the 16-bit words onto their respective "L" resistive ladders."

Thank you to member(s) within the PL community for that information.

[Greg]

So the forty thousand plus views here versus tenish views of the video means... there are around ten real people here?

[laserist]

I don't think I (for one) meant "abandon the past". Just to recognize the 352 data channel was intended more as rhythm track to the laserist's lead guitar. Though I can't argue with "elder". ;-)

[dchammonds]

This tape will self destruct in 5 seconds.... Gotta love those disappearing posts.