Reviews of restored numbers

[Greg]

Whether anyone else sees it or not, the greatest joy is the wonder of creating, not being judged by others. Isn't that true while playing your guitar?

That's a big question to come down on one side or the other of. I practice classical pieces and it gives depth to the rock and roll. But when a show settles, and I'm creating segues between callbacks because the audience is dancing, and I can stall and dig, and then prolong with false endings, and finally cap it and the house comes down, that experience, to me, is a good part of what it's all really for.

Anyone here seen the number Kashmir from Moonrock? I expect that show is one of a few that the current owner would prefer to keep exclusive to the brand. I saw it for the first time a couple of days ago on the 6b jukebox. Kashmir is a song that has been held in high esteem by many fans for many years. What visual could possible reflect that magnitude of grandeur? Perhaps even saying this is too much, but that number uses negative space in a way that is unlike any other laser show number I've seen. It surprised me and made me shout Yes! That's it! The song! They got it! What I'm trying to say is that I think Scott Anderson, Darryl Davis, John Tilp, and others who directed these shows are artistic heroes, and being able to build and play the same instrument David Gilmour plays isn't a particularly big deal.

Thinking about the sage device that did the impressive 3d in the later shows. My best guess is that it was something like my ganglion of belas, not in the way it worked, but in that it was foremost a bunch of analog inputs and outputs, and an audio synced processor in the middle deciding what's what. One of the innovations I would pursue, were I to try to go beyond something sage like, is to make something in the way of a physics engine available to the image generation algorithms. Perhaps this has already been done.

[Greg]

Roj: I get the sentiment you are invoking with Ramble on. I love that song. I don't mean to suggest your offerings are meager. I am impressed with the descriptions of your midi based system, and I expect you are correct in suggesting my system could benefit from following a similar development path.

Thing is, when I think of my next major development effort, I'm thinking of those 5 lonely TTL show steps signals and the complete set of the custom machined parts and the solenoid driver schematic necessary to rebuild the scan glass system. That will be a big project though. I don't know anything about machining, sourcing steel rods, working with brass tubes, finding the right screws, 3D printing a chassis, etc. I have word on one complete scan glass system in existence, but the owner didn't follow through with sending any photos, so I can't count on that.

[laserist]

Roj: I get the sentiment you are invoking with Ramble on. I love that song. I don't mean to suggest your offerings are meager. I am impressed with the descriptions of your midi based system, and I expect you are correct in suggesting my system could benefit from following a similar development path.

Thing is, when I think of my next major development effort, I'm thinking of those 5 lonely TTL show steps signals and the complete set of the custom machined parts and the solenoid driver schematic necessary to rebuild the scan glass system. That will be a big project though. I don't know anything about machining, sourcing steel rods, working with brass tubes, finding the right screws, 3D printing a chassis, etc. I have word on one complete scan glass system in existence, but the owner didn't follow through with sending any photos, so I can't count on that.

From an old post:

[Greg]

I was a tool & die maker/machinist/tool & grinder man working in the aircraft industry for 7 years.

I'm excited to hear that. Welcome to the official unofficial Laserium restoration team, Roj! I'm just reading through todays posts and messages now. Here's some photos reposted from the last time the topic of the scan glass system came up, and Brian helped me identify the parts and understand how they went together.

[Greg]

Roj: email sent

[Greg]

IMO, these are parts designed by an engineer on an unlimited budget, working for a company that's willing to pay whatever the costs, to an outsourced precision machine shop, which charges an arm and leg for a special one off production job.

I think the point of what Brian preserved, and eventually gave to me, is that the part that requires what you described is already done. What is left is to get the steel rods, the missing screws, the appropriately gauged and cut tubes, and contrive a frame to hold it all.

Those photos show the very clever quick change system for glasses between shows, which isn't necessary for the build, though again, the difficult parts are already included.

[laserist]

Sorry Greg, somewhere I'm pretty sure I'm got the brass and steel. It's common stuff, but the projector I rebuilt - someone didn't understand that part of the design involved the brass tubes holding the scan glass mounts in position relative to the solenoids. I can help you with that if you want...

[Greg]

[QUOTE=TheHermit;363729]

That ain't gonna happen inside a Clubmax projector, no way, no how.

True. As mentioned in my email, my intention is to have any and all effects added externally to the projectors, so that the projectors may be easily upgraded when needed. It seems to me that having a system on or below the projector that gets the scan glasses in front of the window may be impractical. What seems an easy fix to me is simply turning the system shown in Brian's photos around so the actuators are in front of the projector and sitting on the same surface as the projector. This would result in some of the dispersed light being occluded by the actuators, but that might not be a problem, as a baffle might be needed anyway to keep the lumia out of the audience, especially if the presentation is in a theatre.

True, solenoid actuators make noise. I don't remember that being a problem in a number such as, say, Rock And Roll, which does a lot of effects switching during the number. Probably because the music was played quite loud. Although I don't, audiences seem to like excessive volume level. I was glad I brought earplugs to the recent showing of Dark Side of Oz. No one sitting more than a few seats away from the projectors would have heard solenoids at that event.

Brian: Of course. Your help and contributions are what has made any and all of my work possible.

Roj: I do like your idea that you described in your email, as long as it can go outside the projectors. It sounds like an improvement regarding noise at least. There is nothing wrong with exploring options. As I mentioned, the choreography relies on the scan glasses rotating according to a certain envelope of speed in order for the effects to appear as intended, but perhaps a linear translation wouldn't detract significantly.

Also, to clear up any misunderstanding regarding how simple my system is, everything on the tapes now exists in folders of .wav files, so there is no ADAT involved at this point. The belas currently have a total of 32 unused digital outputs that operate at a logic on level of around 3V, which I could use to keep the the diode logic on the software side.

[Greg]

Time has been spent writing some utility modules and generating default image source files for all the 8 and 4 track shows. This has been a time consuming but necessary step toward bringing up the entire catalog for viewing without further fussing.

Last few days have been back to more exciting tasks. A quick focus on the beatles show included running an XYI cataloging module against the 8 track show, which reveals some useful content that doesn't appear in the data driven show playback. Same thing with the wall. This is useful because I think the next thing is to completely restore the wall and the doors shows. Both shows I find mind blowingly good, and both contain ample numbers and passages for the drop in of live performances using the 6b image generators rebuild that everyone here is still waiting to really see in action. Perhaps the judges here will approve of the accuracy of the beam torque effect in combination with the threshold colormod. I don't remembering that being shown in the videos yet. There's much to try: showing off the expanded dogloid capabilities. routing oscillator bank signals to the colormod...

I reviewed a few of the older 4 track shows again. Crystal Odyssey has entire numbers of audiomod cycloid, which I figure is where the audiomod rotator came in. I haven't found exactly what this effect is, but that's of lesser importance at this point. I produced a transcript of the voice track for the first half of the beatles show, in which Scott makes frequent reference to audio mod rotator settings.

Ron: thanks for the comment in the other thread. I agree. There's probably non-coincidences all along the line regarding that photo on that book. It's neat though, that the chain of non-coincidences is complete enough that the book ended up with the only surviving specimen of a 6b panel available for historical study, like it is the instruction manual, which in a way it is.

[Greg]

A shipment of belas arrived for the first non prototype clone of the multabela system: the portabela, as promised. This version should have just the 4 belas, the four ILDA projectors, one hopefully pre-populated order in PCB, PSs and laptop, 8 buttons, and available pins for 8 analog ins, not needed for show playback.


System software and catalog development continues. The shows are playing with scripted data modification control, and full signal drop in and replace between markers capabilities, including spiral ramp and PDM. Export a segment to 5 track XYRGB wav is a feature. I can now explore, restore, and / or develop any number in any existing show, and export that number to XYRGB + audio, and then throw that onto the gigging juke system.