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Visualization Plugins & G-Force, Oh My!
Feedmag is running a story about Andy O'Meara, the guy behind G-Force, as well as some other aspects of the visualization for plugins for *Amp, XMMS etc. Playing around with the visualizations is a huge amount of fun, and it's interesting to see what types of music produce different visuals. And unlike psydelics, it's legal.
/me checks his list of XMMS plugins... Well I'll be damned, there it is.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Let me share a Nasty Thought I've had concerning the current intellectual "property" environment and music visualizers.
The media conglomerates are advancing the position -- unfortunately with a lot of success -- that any use of "their" music not explicitly authorized by them is prima facie unauthorized and therefore illegal.
If we were to regard this view as legitimate, then when you purchase a CD, you have received a license from the media conglomerate to listen to it, and nothing else. You have not been authorized to perform it publicly (such as at a party), you have not been authorized to extract snippets for critical commentary or to incorporate into your newest rap parody, and you have not been authorized to use it as the data source for a visual transformation engine. Ergo, using a visualizer is a copyright violation.
Further -- if we, again, are to regard the media companies' view as legitimate -- the images resulting from a particular CD played through a visualizer constitute a derivative work, since they are derived directly from the original copyrighted musical work. As such, the specific visual presentation also falls under the media conglomerate's copyright. When you bought the CD, you only obtained a license to listen to it; therefore, the resulting derivative images covered by the same copyright require a separate license which you don't have. Ergo, watching the visualizer is a copyright violation.
Reductio Ad Absurdum? I'd desperately like to think so. However, recent court cases concerning intellectual "property" make me very, very worried that we are perilously close to such absurdity.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Tripex   For the goatse.cx weary, its http://www.tripex.co.uk
A great plugin, I love it.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
My favorite vis plugin is AcidSpunk (WinAmp and Sonique versions exist). In my experience, it's shown significantly less repitition in visual patterns, and it's -much- better than WhiteCap, Geiss, or any other vis plugins I've tried at fitting appropriate images to music - it really does explode at the climax of a song, and so on.
Just my $(2x10**-2)
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
http://www.feedmag.com/templates/default.php3?a_id =1690
left out a trailing zero...
Hmmm... Wasn't Jeff Minter the first guy to really really really do this stuff on home computers? Yet there's no mention of ColorSpace, Trip-a-Tron, Virtual Light Machine, or any of the other things he's done.
Mind you he wasn't the first person to do this kind o' thing - Walt Disney gets that credit for Fantasia.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Well, Hemos saw fit to mention XMMS in the blurb, leading me to believe that GForce is actually available for XMMS or that even XMMS is mentioned in the article.
Nope, not even a mention of XMMS (or Linux, or UNIX) in the article or on his site.
Thanks for getting my hopes up!
I have one those as well - I picked mine up at a "fill this bag for a dollar" yard sale - managed to get both it and an 80's cd player in the bag. The cd player didn't work - but the Video Music did. One of the knobs was cracked on the part that grabs the shaft of one of the potentiometers, but that was easily fixed with superglue.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
This is wildly off-topic, but the poll says no such thing. The poll says that 8% of voters think that Lieberman's religion made him a worse candidate, and of those 8%, 72% voted for Bush.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
The correct URL for the story is: http://www.feedmag.com/templates/default.php3?a_id =1690
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
I'm surprised that article didn't mention O'Meara's recent deal with Apple. G-Force is the default (and, currently, the only) viz plugin for iTunes (which is especially weird since there were many viz plugins for SoundJam, from which iTunes is derived). Anyways, O'Meara must be doing well from this deal - at least, I hope he is.
:)
On a side note, something that I think would be interesting (though I don't know how possible) would be a visualizer that used some of the algorithms that have been developed for musical comparison (the same sort of algorithms that are being used to identify mp3s of copyrighted songs, for example). Looking at the structure of the music, rather than just a spectrum analysis, might allow some really cool visualizers
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Some legal phsycedelics Nutmeg Peyote (in some cases) Mushrooms ummm...maybe mroe I don't know.
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I knew a guy that used to have some box that (if I remember correctly) output it's own weird sound sequence for headphones and had blacked-out glasses with LEDs mounted in them that flashed in all sorts of patterns. I think it was supposed to be a relaxation device.
Now if someone would build blinking LED sunglasses into a portable MP3 player (or as an addon), we'd be set.
First, the term psychedelic doesn't really mean anything, and it is pretty hard to define what exactly a psychedelic is.
That being said, there are plenty of legal 'psychedelics' although that doesn't mean that they are exactly safe or to everyone's taste.
There are about several million different species of plants, most crawling with various alkaloids, glycosides, aromatic oils, etc. Somewhere in some of them are psychedelic compounds. You just have to know where to look.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Even if that poll result is accurate, it doesn't have to mean that it's an anti-Semetism thing. Lieberman is a very devout man, and there are a lot of people who don't want a "holy roller" of ANY type in office. I wouldn't vote for Lieberman or anyone else with religious convictions as strong as his, no matter what the specific religion was. Moderation in all things...
experimenting with neurofeedback devices that measure brain waves themselves, and translate them into computer-generated images and sounds
From what I have heard, feedback loops using brainwaves to create patterns (audio or visual) can cause an epileptic fit..
Staring at Geforce for long periods of time if photoepiliptic, can be a bad idea, although to know if you are susceptible to such things, it is good to find out when sitting down, not when e.g. driving down tree-lined avenue on sunny day - another common photoepileptic trigger).
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
For the naive among you, this isn't better than acid. However, it certainly is better on acid.
If you love God, burn a church!
Ewige Blumenkraft!
And unlike psydelics, it's legal.
I don't think we should joke about illegal narcotics. Sure, we all did acid back in the sixties, everybody was doing it. However, in the current age of zero tolerance, I don't want my child using drugs or staring at a computer screen full of crazy swirling colors!
"If the Lord had meant for us to fly, He'd have given us wings with which to soar...." William, 14:35