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Welcome to the second installment of the BPMC Do-It-Yourself Series. Think of these posts as starting points rather than definitive mod guides. I only took these projects as far as I saw fit for my own purposes. It is up to you to pick up where I left off and make these machines your own. Some of what I’d like to explore with this series is the more off the beaten path stuff. In the first post we highlighted the damned-near-extinct JVC JX titler and while I think it is helpful to see how people approach modifying machines I would like to actually see people getting their hands dirty on this shit.
Which brings us to today’s machine, the not-altogether-impossible-to-find NEC Turbografx 16. I’m not sure I would say it is my favorite 16 bit piece of hardware considering what developers got up to with the Genesis in it’s final years but it is a really unique machine. It has an awesome lineup of games, a number of cool peripherals/accessories (cd-rom ooo la-la) & a spicy sleek physique. While a little price-y compared to it’s peers deals can still be found especially if you don’t mind a little cosmetic damage. This was a mod of mine from the early twenty-tens and I did up a small batch of three. Kept one for myself and am dusting it off for the occasion.
If you’ve prodded around a Genesis or a SNES you know what to expect here. The TGFX16 shreds like any other 16-bit system and serves up a colorful glitch salad of block-y crunch-y color chunkies. The video starts off with some mangled clock timings in Legendary Axe, followed by a broken-beyond-repair round of Space Harrier. Sticking with Space Harrier I run through a number of the audio driven effects utilizing the music from the title screen. From there I’ve included a bunch of corrupted gameplay worth highlighting.
Inside the TGFX16 lies an 8-bit CPU and a dual 16-bit GPU. There are many points of entry to launch your righteous crocodile clip bite on this thing however I chose to focus on the Hudson Soft HuC6270 VDC as it houses a satisfying number of bends. Feeding the upper GPU points into one another creates a rich library of stack-able corruptions. They also respond well to being hit individually with an incoming audio signal. If you are looking to play it safe this should provide you with all the corrupt graphical entertainment you need. If you are interested in probing further cautiously take a look around the 270’s side pins for more graphical corruptions, clock-speed control (one of my favorite features) & minor audio corruption (although peep the 280A Hud chip for sound generation). Bending with a 70 ohm resistor or something in that neighborhood is a good look on the buffer tip. Before you dig in on your 270, MAP OUT THE GROUND! The ground lurks. It lurks! Follow the traces and make sure none of them connect up to any questionable large green spaces.
Modifying the T16 requires a steady hand and fine wire as you’ll be wiring directly to the chippy to create your corruptions. If you are comfortable working on wiring up a Genesis then you should be in good shape. Make sure to use a fine soldering tip and forgo using regular ol’ hookup wire. If at a loss for tracking down some high-gauge wire just tear apart some SCSI or serial cables as that is what I usually do. Make sure you give yourself enough length to reach the booster. If you are afraid of hitting the 270 with too much heat you can trace back the points to the other chips or to the tiny thru-hole terminals and wire them up from there. If this is the case however you will need to track down some really fine wire, in the 30-36 AWG range, to fit them’ holes. Make sure to hit those little jammies with some Flux paste. It can be a challenge to get them to stick.
I did a couple of goofy things for my mod. I permanently affixed the Turbo Booster to the TGFX16 that way I could wire out my GPU points to the empty spaces in the Booster. Otherwise if you were to try to house your mods directly in the TGFX16’s housing you’ve only got a sliver of space to utilize. On the TGFX16 itself there is enough room on the side for some switches however pots might be a stretch. Having to utilize the Turbobooster is a blessing in disguise. While they are expensive they really clean up your output audio & video. The RF out is puppy puke in comparison. Edge feedback or sync corruption anyone?? With the booster’s guts exposed implementing video amp mods of any sorts are right there waiting for ya. I’ve wired my points out to a little patchbay and then added a set of patchable knobs of varying resistance values on the other side. You’ll notice there is a 1/4 jack for audio visualizations. The white jacks are a little breakout section for the audio signal so that you can either patch the audio directly into the glitch jacks or into the knobs to vary audio feed amounts.
Brief, I know, but there it is.. enough to get started. I hope you enjoyed the second edition of the BPMC DIY series. What’s next? Interested in turning a DVD player into an audio/video synthesizer? Or how about my Atari Video Music mod? Have a piece of gear in mind? Let me know via the contact link below. I hope you enjoyed. Until then….
This is the premier edition of “Two Channels.” Time to put down the soldering iron, chug some jolt cola & plug in a bunch of freshly-modified electronics for a little impromptu low-pressure summer visual collabo session of sorts (damn right i refuse to say jam). Just dusting off the cobwebs and seeing what can be conjured forth from the video ether. Regardless of what materializes, summer fun is top priority.
On channel one we have Jason Grlicky, of Paracosm, creating complex shape/color generation with the amazing software video synthesizer, Lumen. A webcam is also piped into Lumen as an occasional processable source. On channel two we have Big Pauper on an assortment of BPMC glitch video fx processors. The bulk of the post Lumen processing highlighted in the video is from the Basic Cable & the Fluxus. Also in the mix were the Fritz Decontroller & the Touch CV.
This was a great way to bid a fond farewell to the ol’ BPMC HQ in the Cully (Portland, OR). Already missing that place. This was also an awesome chance to see how Lumen performed in conjunction with analog glitch video processing (which creates an overwhelming amount of possibilities might I add).
Stay tuned on the BPMC Vimeo Channel for an extra 5 minutes of content from this session.
I take great pleasure in seeing what people do with the mutant machines and how they choose to incorporate them into their realm of self expression. For the first volume of user content I’ve got a lot of recent rad videos works from a diverse group of talented folks the globe over. Attic Video comes correct with some nice light Fluxus (the master of subtle degradation) de-enhancement. Barn Owl’s Evan Caminiti gets puréed and tossed into a nice dream soup by Sabrina Ratté for “Arc” on Thrill Jockey. Jason Akira Somma offers up some excellent footage of the live component to an Armory residency in NYC. Lofi Freq gets downright foul nasty good on the pyramid tip for a brief 2xCH demonstration. Rob Feulner artfully destroys a Lifetime drama with the power of the Basic Cable. Michael Brown freaks a small series of trailers for the Eaux Claires Festival. Robin White demonstrates the possibilities of computer generated shapes and analog blood sex magik.
Oh and hey, BPMC users, don’t forget to send me your stills & video for future balls. Users, if you’d like your links to head elsewhere please contact me.
Volage – Loner by Attic Video (Utilizing the Fluxus).
Evan Caminiti – “Arc” by Sabrina Ratté (Utilizing the Touch 2xCH).
“Under Construction Series” by Jason Akira Somma (Utilizing the Touch 2xCH).
Illuminati Feedback by Lofi Freq (Utilizing the Touch 2xCH)
Event Cloak – False Positive by Rob Feulner (Utilizing the Basic Cable)
Eaux Claires Festival Trailer by Michael Brown Design (Utilizing Touch 2xCH & Fritz Decontroller)
Robin White. (Utilizing Pure Data & BPMC Basic Cable).
Jason Grlicky is the founder of Portland, OR based software company, Paracosm. Paracosm is slated to release Lumen, a standalone video synthesis app for the Mac OS, a little later this summer and I know a lot of people are stoked to get their hands on it. I recently had a chance to sit down and spend some time with the beta and I’ve got to say, Jason cooked up something real tasty for the occasion. It boasts a straightforward layout, an incredible snapshot feature (which reminds me a lot of audiomulch) & visuals that are indeed bananananananas. Prior to my beta experience Jason and I caught up at the Albina Press here in NE Portland to chat about Lumen over some seriously tasty crack cocaine coffee.
Thank you for your time Jason, I’m dying to know more about Lumen. In short, what is Lumen? What can people expect?
Of course, it’s always a pleasure! Lumen is the world’s first analog-style semi-modular video synthesis app. It can process external video or generate images all on its own, just like an traditional hardware video synthesizer, but with all the convenience and flexibility of software.
I’m really excited — visual artists and VJs who have always wanted to use an analog video synthesizer but haven’t been able to are going to be very very pleased! Electronic musicians who would like to add visuals to their live shows are going to love it.
What was the inspiration behind Lumen?
Firstly, I probably wouldn’t even know what video synthesis is if it wasn’t for the wonderful work thatLiz Larson has done with LZX! That said, what ultimately kicked off my path to building Lumen was reading about Dan Sandin’s Image Processor, one of the first video synthesizers from the early 70s. Regarding its origins, he said he was basically aiming to do a video version of the Moog modular synthesizer.
Thinking along those lines, I thought: audio soft synths are fantastically useful, so why don’t we have the same thing, but with video? I could have sworn that someone would have already made a video soft-synth in a packaged, high-quality way, but I looked around and was shocked to find absolutely nothing.So immediately I started working as hard as I could to make it happen.
Were you seeking to accurately emulate analog video synthesis or is Lumen more a nod to the analog realm?
One thing that makes video synthesis such a powerful medium is that it’s a vastly different mode of thinking than that provided by any VJ or visualization software that’s out there right now. Just likemodular audio synthesis, it’s very spontaneous, improvisational, and difficult to predict where it will take you.Each time I boot up Lumen, I create something that’s never been seen before.That magic of the the video synthesis process is what I was aiming to accurately reproduce.
As far as the way that oscillators or anything low-level works, I’ve taken liberties to make things as easy to use as possible, without losing the flavor of the video synthesis process.I can’t wait to release it, because I think you’ll agree – Lumen feels like a hardware video synth, but easier to use.
Was Lumen inspired by any video synthesizers in particular?
Yes! I was very inspired by the design of the LZX modular system, especially the oscillators. We’re amazingly lucky to have Liz from LZX as a consultant on the synth design of Lumen as well.
The overall architecture was also partially inspired by the3TrinsRGB from Bleep Labs. The idea of having 3 cross-modulating oscillators, each of which can operate on a channel of incoming video – I think that’s an easy-to-understand framework for getting started with video synthesis.There’s still going to be a learning curve, of course, as the concept of creating video from oscillators is foreign to most artists, but my goal was to soften that curve as much as possible.
That said, I also wanted to make sure that Lumen is powerful enough to create a really wide variety of video effects and patterns. To this end, I added an effects section, more patch points on the oscillators, built-in colorizers and keyers, and a separate signal processing section. I’m still discovering new territory just patching it myself, so I’m counting that as a success.
What am I looking at on the main page? It looks like I have a couple of oscillators, input options, an alternate patch interface…..
Yep, exactly! The high-level signal flow of the synth is that you have three oscillator blocks. Their output get mixed together and processed by an effects section. The best part is that this simple signal flow can be totally customized when you flip to the patch panel on the “back” of the synth, which allows you to drag virtual cables to connect any submodule to any other submodule. We’ve really worked hard to pack a lot of flexibility into the architecture that’s hidden if you don’t want it to get in your way.
Going over the default routing in detail, at the very top, you have camera input going into an RGB splitter, so you get three channels of video, where each one of those gets fed into an oscillator block. For each oscillator block, you get to choose between either the oscillator’s waveform output or the incoming video signal. Each block also has a built-in keyer, waveshaper, and colorizer. This is already a very powerful setup, especially when you start doing feedback loops with phase modulation.
From there, through the mixer, the output is then routed to an effects submodule, which is composed of three parts. There’s Transform, which can offset, rotate, or scale incoming video. From there it goes to Kaleidoscope, which is a single-knob kaleidoscope effect that has rotation build into it, so you can transition as smoothly as possible between different numbers of divisions. After that is the Trails effect, which uses a video feedback trick to make the brightest parts of the image fade out slower than the darkest. It’s really amazing how you can use it to calm down chaotic patches or do light painting with it.
Next comes the secret sauce of the whole default routing — the main output, which is taken from the output of the Trails effect, is also fed back into the modulation input of the first oscillator. This means that without patching anything you’ve got the potential for very complex, organic, and downright fractal results.
To top it all off, you’ve got the snapshot pad, which lets you save four sets of knob positions on the synth and crossfade smoothly between them.
I’m excited about that snapshot option!
Me too, it’s totally mind-blowing to see it in action! Once I used it for myself for the first time, I knew Lumen was going to be very special to a lot of people. I had always imagined that artists could use snapshot pad to save different variations on a patch, so that when you’re creating live visuals for music, for example, you could smoothly fade between different visual moods for different parts of a song. But it also ends up being a great way to discover interesting knob settings as well, since the places in between the saved states are usually something you’d never come up with on your own.
Each parameters that is represented as a knob on the interface has been designed to work smoothly with the snapshot pad, even down to the frequency knob – you’ve got a seven-turn fine control knob in front, and behind that is a range knob that allows you to sweep through the entire frequency range without any jumps, dead zones, or jarring transitions in the middle. Even the transitions between the various oscillator sync states have been tuned to be as smooth as possible when crossfading.
How is Lumen controllable?
Currently just by mouse. The vision is to have each knob and switch controllable by MIDI, just as you would use an audio soft synth in a DAW. That would be amazing, right? Unfortunately, MIDI control is one of the features that might get postponed until after launch, just to make sure we can start getting Lumen in the hands of artists as soon as possible. Fingers crossed, though!
Does Lumen have any audio visualization aspects?
For the initial release we’re focusing on making it a cohesive standalone visual instrument first and foremost. I’m not sure we’ll get audio or MIDI input in there for version 1.0, but we’ve got big plans. The potential synergy between audio and video is one of the main draws to video synthesis for me personally, so we won’t be overlooking that in later updates.
How long has your company, Paracosm, been around and what are it’s previous releases?
We’ve been around for about a year and half now! I can’t believe it’s gone by so quickly. We launched our first app, Polymer last summer. It’s Mac software for electronic musicians that allows you control multiple synthesizers as if they’re a single polyphonic instrument.It’s been very well received, and it’s really encouraging to hear about the different ways people are using it in their projects.
Polymer is all about abstracting control so that you feel like you’re playing your entire studio as one instrument.Going forwards I’d like to push that even further and to make it a tool that will be useful to every synthesist, not just ones with walls and walls of synthesizers in their studio.I’ve still got so much I want to add to it, but naturally we’re focusing on Lumen until it’s launched.
When can people expect to get their hands on Lumen?
Very soon! We’re holding ourselves to our deadline of releasing this summer, even if it means we have to cut features from the first version and add them in via free updates later.
On a side note, Portland sure is lovely in the Spring, eh? Get out to enjoy any of it or have you just been indoors slaving over machines?
I have actually managed to get out quite a bit this year!Over the weekend I was just tossing a frisbee around in the Willamette with friends, getting way way way too much sun. Sometimes I even manage to slave over machines on patios, which is one thing I really love about living here. Of course Lumen is amazing partly because it’s a video synth that fits in your backpack and you can take it anywhere – some of my favorite patches were created up on the benches in Washington Park!
Any word on future releases? Are you seeking to do more video releases or are you back and forth between audio and video?
We’re really interested to see what people do with Lumen before deciding where to go next. It would be amazing to spend some time creating educational materials about video synthesis and organizing events to bring video artists together. Lumen’s got the potential to take video synthesis to a much wider audience, and that opportunity is just too good to pass up. I’d also love to see our audio and video releases converge and cross-pollinate more in the future – that’s what art is all about, right?
The BPMC Touch CV has an amazing knack for venturing outside of the realm of conventional video fx processing into a unique mode of pure visual synthesis loosely based on your source input’s color information. These stills were extracted from a larger video capture I’ll toss up on the Glitch Art Dot Com Vimeo shortly. They were achieved by patching a modular function generator into the CV input section of the Touch and honing in on an interesting combination of glitch grid sizing. The source input was the vibrant high-saturation video for Tame Impala’s “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards.” Man, great album! Lonerisms was easily my favorite album of the last five years. The Touch CV/AVE3 reminds me in spirit of the Folktek Time Machine. The Time Machine is an incredible chaos-audio loop-quantization device with powerful instant remix capabilities. You almost feel guilty working with these machines because it is so easy to create jaw-dropping results.
In the lead up to Sisters, a collaborative multimedia album from Odd Nosdam & Big Pauper, we are posting production stills from each track. First up we have “Ten Echoes.” The video production heavily relies on the Fritz Decontroller, the Fluxus glitch video FX processor & found footage.
I’m just a couple of days away from pulling the trigger on the pre-order uzi & I thought I’d do a little Fluxus preamble.
Where are we thus far? What the fuck-us is this Fluxus?
I wanted to make a tiny little analog video processor that is simple on the surface yet deep n’ soulful the further you dig. A creative tool with a lot of different options for a lot of different users. Options in application & aesthetics. A device that could coat everything with a gossamer layer of tranquil unicorn soot or blow it all to fucking smithereens. The Fluxus is all this and more. Most importantly it is a lot of fun.
The Fluxus can produce a diverse set of analog glitch video FX through the utilization of 6 knobs, 2 modes, 6 CV control inputs & an audio visualization feature. The six knobs work with one another under two modes; feedback & powered. Feedback mode produces an assortment of… well, what else? Internal feedback effects! Varying degrees of lysergic edge feedback, shimmering rainbow feedback & rich globules of hovering artifact feedback (as seen above). But it does not stop there. There are a couple of corruption sweet spots, a subtle blur effect & various color skews.
In powered mode you have the ability to really obliterate your signal. At times there are some aesthetic similarities between the two modes, however Powered mode tends to get much nastier. This is where rich destabilization & horizontal tearing looks are crafted. The trick is to utilize the top knob of the pyramid; the power starve. After you hone in on an interesting look starve the voltage a little to see said look wither and die…. giving birth to something tasty and new. It’s not all de Sade in Powered mode however. Knobs 2 & 3 combine together to create varying degrees of black fill edge feedback. The blur knob, when used in combination with various looks, often unlocks a soft & blobby stable horizontal tearing effect.
What I like about the Fluxus is that it takes time to unravel. Really wild looks are lurking but you have to find them first. You have to spend some time wrapping your head around the relationships between knobs before you can really dive in. But I like that. I’m still amazed how absorbed I can find myself in 6 knobs.
…and don’t even get me started on the audio visualization & CV features, that’s some whole other shit, best reserved for their own posts. In due time.
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Big Pauper Modified Circuitry
BPMC (est. 2009) creates quality custom psychotronic modified glitch video art devices for creative types. A collaborative capitalist enterprise forged between man (Big Pauper) & machine. BPMC is based out of Portland, OR in the United Snakes.