CYGN-B

[TheHermit]

Actually, the Aries only had 2 rows of preset buttons in 4 banks, plus UDLR control buttons and the 4 output assignment buttons. But without knobs, it was far from perfect.
Was that English desk a flat panel, about 2 ft square? That probably would have been the Laser Systems' desk, from Wales.
Yes, that K/Ar system had separate lasers, one CoRad and the other SpectraPhysics 165; not mixed gas.
Blue Danube was pretty much fully preprogrammed on tape and beautifully done, I might add. Now, there's a challenge, indeed.
One nice thing about recording live to Cakewalk is that I can layer MIDI CVs on top of each other, recording within my own physical capabilities. my greatest challenge was always trying to produce the vision, without struggling to keep up with the music.

Sooo... you want your envelope to automatically dial 911? In case it starts clipping?

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

[TheHermit]

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.

Of course, the tall gentleman on the left is Ivan, but much older than I remember. The Laser Rock reference makes me assume that the photo must be at the launch of the show, which would have been late 1970's. We started running LaserRock in London ~1979, but Ivan looked ten years younger then.
TBH, after talking to a dozen people after each of the 1000's of Laserium shows, everyone looks familiar, including some of those in the photo.

[laserist]

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.

Unless I'm mistaken Scott Anderson is the guy behind that account. In the photo from the 25th anniversary he's the guy seated to the Right of Glenn Thomas.

[TheHermit]

Unless I'm mistaken Scott Anderson is the guy behind that account. In the photo from the 25th anniversary he's the guy seated to the Right of Glenn Thomas.

Well. Du~uH. I should have read the caption above the photo. Since I don't have a facebook account, half of the page was blocked by a sign-up popup nd I was focused upon the photo.
So, Ivan and these laserists are actually pictured 20 years older than when I knew them. Now, I recognize Scott and Ed Bruzycki, who appears to have gained a lot of weight. I was wondering whether he was an over-weight Ron Dahl. Is that John Tilp, with the short hair, next to Ivan or the one in the foreground with the round glasses?
Thanks for sharing.

[swamidog]

Hey Ron!

Thanks for invoking me

Pretty much every control on the Radiator can be operated via external midi commands. This includes toggling presets. One of the things I've been doing lately is sequencing Radiator shows by using LSX timelines to send midi data to Radiators.

Here are a couple examples:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IJJvz7g4e0 (this is a three projector show. two projectors are dedicated to radiators and one projector is showing lsx native content. the majority of the content is radiator)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfdUGvOUcdc (this show is 100% radiator generated content)

of course, the control surface on the radiator is still live while it's being driven from midi commands. this allows you to sequence outlines of shows, but the operator can still interpret and perform... sound familiar?

in the latest radiator firmware update we've added ilda input. in ilda mode, the radiator samples an ilda signal through the cv in ports via an adapter cable. to the radiator, the ilda signal is just another source from either shape A or shape B and any radiator functions can be applied and then it can be projected back out in laser or in hdmi video... that's right. the radiator can also operate as an ilda->hdmi convertor for video projection and safe crowd scanning.

one trick that i'm incorporating in some current shows in development is you can send midi to the radiator and toggle it from internal mode to ilda mode and back. that way on a lsx / beyond / whatever timeline you can seamlessly switch back and forth between radiator and your laser show package.

the ilda save duration is currently limited by the amount of ram in the radiator. we have discussed writing directly to a thumb drive. i would like to add that in the future.

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

[Greg]

The whatdoyoucallit has been found right where Brian said it would be. It's KQO with audio mod on Y and triangle wave about 5 Hz on X. Now I can play laser guitar. I don't suppose anyone has a show tape with the Rocky Mountain Way data?

The scope photos show:
audio mod of a CYGN-A oscillator
audio mod of direct audio mod signal
audio mod of KQO on Y, triangle on X
KQO no audio mod on Y, triangle on X

I wonder why the IC pin numbering is so messed up in the schematic, and if there was a switch somewhere that chose between audio mod X and the on board triangle wave.

[laserist]

The original drawing package just had schematic, bill of material, layout, and pinouts. By the time they were scanned stuff got added. Maybe it was because the sold a number of consoles.

Triangle Audio Mod was selected at the multiplier/multiplexer board.

[laserist]

Laserium consoles were designed using 44 pin Vector prototype boards. That decision colored the amount of complexity that could easily be accomplished. Ten pins were devoted to +/-15, +5, Agnd, and Dgnd. That left 34 for signals. The multiplier/multiplexer had two sets of four x/y inputs, two x/y outputs, 2 gains, and 4 switching bits for a total of 26 signals. It's not a tightly packed board. There was plenty of space to give it two sets of 8 x/y input channels, but not enough pins. When Laserium II premiered they replaced the entire machine, but they had all that time and effort in the Vector boards they kept them. Not the worst mistake in the history of the company, but... Still there's a part of me that realizes it's really easy to create a show that fails due to too much complexity.

[ekeefe]

Hello,


I believe the AD533 pinout is off due to the referenced diagram expecting a TO-100 (round metal can) packaged device, and not a TO-116 DIP package.


ED

[laserist]

Hello,


I believe the AD533 pinout is off due to the referenced diagram expecting a TO-100 (round metal can) packaged device, and not a TO-116 DIP package.


ED

Actually they used the AD533 round metal can package on the audio mod board. I replaced them with AD532s on my machine.