LZX VISIONARY VIDEO SYNTHESIZER

very exiting stuff happening in the modular video synth market with two product ranges set to grace more experimental racks everywhere with modules to create and manipulate video signals 


the LZX Industries project seems to be going full steam and is very exiting check http://vimeo.com/7970725 and http://vimeo.com/lzxindustries for more info. I think its really good to build up customer support by posting these kind of dev/demo videos interesting stuff!


Lars Larsen one of the guys behind the project corrected my earlier conjecture about the The Jones Video Synth being the same project as the Visionary


"Hi Chris! Thanks for mentioning the Visionary. This isn't the same project, but ours will similarly be a EuroRack format modular video synthesizer/processing system. There is a splash page up at http://www.lzxindustries.com and we'll be releasing module details very soon. Please stay in touch with us!"

I hope the two projects make a new video synth renaissance a viable prospect 

Jones Modular Video Synth Coming Soon

The Jones Video Synth will be in Euro format and should
come out sometime soon holding page here.  Dave Jones is 
a long time video synth expert and he worked at the 
Experimental Television Center 

LZX Visionary modular video synthesizer has 
been mentioned on VJ forums could this be the same project
or a rival ? info here and here

Atari 2600 Video Bending

Big round up of Atari 2600 bent for video 

POETRY IN CODE by 5yearcoma

Slavlee Experiment by  slavleeexperiment

Atari 2600 clone by failotron

Smash the system! by nordloef 

Atari 2600 Noise & Visuals Machine by castlegayskull

live 8bit chiptune and visuals by heavyw8bit

astroblast 02 by e1mer0

Scanimate Letter H

From the youtbe description by NantoVision


"1977, a neat little segment about the letter H, narrated by Luis (Emilio Delgado) and a little girl named Heather. With no new episodes of The Electric Company being made that year, I guess CTW had to think of something else to do with their trusty Scanimate machine. Personally, I wish they had used it more."





more on the scanimate here and here 

S-Video to Composite Converter

so I got an adapter today in a junk shop it had square 5 s-video sockets on there and at 43p each from rapid I think that was 65p well spent 

here is my attempt at a neat little test jig for finding good bends on the s-video to composite circuit found here see Karl Klomps very nice version here. I can swap in different caps and pots to give me some interesting effects. video coming soon...

Electrocraft Colouriser

I just got this colouriser (or more commonly known colourizer or even colorizer ) for 99p. It gives some pretty dramatic effects but the image is giving me and un-synced scrolling effect. It also puts out some cool patterns on its own. I need to work out all the ins and outs because it requires a reference signal (possibly pure sync as I tried outputs from my mixer) the insides are very neatly wired and all the pots are on a separate board perfect for bending! It is however mains powered so Im going to have to be careful. Cool piece but because of the difficulty of use I wouldn't pay over £10 if you see one.

THE BIG BENT NES POST

so there are quite a few NES/famicoms out there that have been bent for audio reactivity here in decending order are Pixel Form, Kaseo, Casper Electronics and Collapsicon
more to come

Parallax chip video synth by Wil Lindsay

video from Wil Lindsay and his video synth based on Parallax chips see him at blip festival in NYC soon!

New Video by Bildheinzer

here is the latest of his RGB audio reactive effect units 

Elite Video Processor

Elite Video Processors often pop up on ebay US 
and they also have the unusual "flesh tone" control

Subvertigo demotape 1993

Here is an amazing video of some VJs working in 1993

Taken from TomEllard's description on youtube

This isn't a Sevs clip. Subvertigo was an Australian VJ team busy in the early to mid 90's at raves and warehouse parties. They used modified video hardware (e.g. the Panasonic MX10), VHS and cameras to make the live mix. The effects here are the kind that inspired current VJ software. This is part of a longer demo VHS that was used to get gigs, which I have archived. I asked permission of a member to share this with you.

Circuit Bent Video Self Portrait

Here is an nice video from youtuber Psychenaturadatura check out more through the link

EMS Spectron/Spectre

famous British video synthesizer sold around 1974 more info here



Sans Soleil or Sunless by Chris Marker (of La Jetée fame) is an amazing film and also uses a spectron for some effects and here is a video made with a Fairlight CVI and a EMS Spectre by youtuber WarrenABurt
imagine running one with a VCS3!

JVC JX-C7 video correction unit

The JVC JX-C7 is another pretty standard video correction unit
more details here

Video Feedback

here is a shot from some of my video feedback experiments

Little 1-bit Video Synth

Little 1-bit Video Synth via Flickr by Tristan Perich more info here

Vintage Archer Analog Video Processors

Super chilled out video from a man named Kevin demoing some analogue video correctors that can get a little glitchy and interesting at the far end of the potentiometers

Sansui AV-77

The Sansui AV-77 is a fairly common AV unit that has a few video effects and some useful video features. picked up a unit in perfect condition the other day and had to look to see what I could find on the net www.audioinfo.net has some useful info and some screen shots of the device in action

while this unit has some cool retro colorizing effects I would not advise it as your first or only effects unit purchase. I also would not advise buying one with a view to circuit bending due to the fact it runs off an internal transformer so there are mains voltages running inside YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Where this unit comes in to its own is as a source switch (that also contains a few effects). I plan to use mine with a few of my other old bits of video gear (before going to one channel of my mixer).

Atari Video Music

One of the most readily available (if still relatively rare) video synthesizers is the simple but effective Atari Video Music. It has appeared in many music videos and on many blogs. It is poplar with VJs, synthesists and hifi buffs.

It is however as far as I know only available in NTSC not PAL and only rarely do they turn up in Europe. Even if one did you would need a converter. Of course the UK has its own vintage music visualizer the Chromasope.

However both of these are expensive and hard to find. Help is at hand if your in the mood for some DIY with The Pixelmusic 3000 designed and built by Tarikh Korula based on the Parallax Propeller and detailed in Make issue 14! The code is for NTSC but I think it can be altered for PAL. Also see gadgetgangster for a kit based of the Pixelmusic project.

I may give it a go!

Crayola My First Electronic Coloring Book

So this is the Crayola My First Electronic Coloring Book 

It outputs composite video and if you can find one

it will only set you back a few dollars 

(I think its only available state side)

good start for video circuit bending

heres a video of Madnoodler's bent Crayola

BATSOCKS TellyMate

Batsocks is a super cool little company making an arduino shield called the TellyMate


the TellyMate puts out black and white PAL or NTSC Composite Video and has an inbuilt character set or can be used for simple graphics 

I was thinking If you took one of these £15 and an arduino £10 you would have an interesting "Video Oscillator" as the basis for a simple video synth for £25 not bad


all you need to do is write an interesting program maybe even make it audio reactive by attaching a sensor to the arduino 


bildheinzer (scroll down his page) has already accomplished some audio reactive arduino action by using the arduino pong code by Alastair Parker found here  whitch I think inspired the idea for generating composite video from arduino found here 


and heres an interesting video by Batsocks

Video Inverter

Inverting a videos colour is an interesting and dramatic effect. Many programs have been able to do this for ages but without a nice midi controller and a laptop you can't play a VJ gig with them or put them in a feed back loop :)

further more you cant hack the effect for audio reactivity 
without using something like Jitter

here is a website that details a project that was adapted from 
July 1995 Electronics Now magazine using an LM359 IC and here is the circuit diagram from another site 

many mixers and video effects units also have this effect and can be hacked so look for them on ebay and at junk shops (more to follow)

Introduction

I hope this blog will promote and encourage discourse amongst artists using hands on video techniques

I hope this blog will cover a wide range of related subjects including video art, video synthesis , audio reactive video, video circuit building, drawn sound, visual music, video feedback, VJing, experimental film, video effects and more.