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Visualizers

DwayneHoover

DwayneHoover

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Joined
Jun 29, 2007
Messages
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Cincinnati OH metro region
Most Psychedelic Visualizers

Why there's not a thread on "The most psychedelic music visualizers" here in PD is beyond me! There's a million of them, and it seems like a GREAT topic to share about! On to my nomination:

IMO most astonishingly cool visualizer I've seen is the default visualizer for iTunes 8 and above (available for Windows too of course). Originally called "Magnetosphere". It is so fucking psychedelic it is beyond belief. The guy who originally wrote it is clearly a total genius.

Mindblowing smooth organic 3-d motion and lovely glowing orbs, mixed with some dark orbs, some reflective, all spewing and gravitationally attracting these bursts of particles that leave various kinds of trails with their own complex behaviors. There's a bunch of keyboard mods you can make to add or subtract particles, their sensitivity... "M" changes the preset, which changes on its own with each new song, there's a bunch of other controls too.

Its SO hypnotic, I can just watch it for hours, very responsive to changes in music and almost intelligent seeming. It is truly a great great work of art. Get iTunes and check it out!

Here's a YouTube video of it in action... though this is WAY jerkier and more lo-res than the actual thing running on your computer... switch it to HD mode then let it buffer all the way and show full screen, you'll get the general,though degraded quality, idea. Actually leaving it as a little box not full screen it looks nicer, but you dont get the proper WOW effect of full screen. ALSO it only shows one of the MANY built-in modes, alot of which are just incredible to watch. Actually this is really a beautiful and captivating video... I really like the song, just great! and what the visualizer does with it all in real time is pretty damned amazing

Massive Attack - Paradise Circus (Gui Boratto Remix ) with iTunes visualizer HD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFTCr9CIZ0o&feature=related

You also search YouTube for "itunes visualizer" for alot more examples, but they all see to play lousy due to YouTube's suckiness... in Itunes its all gorgeous and smooth as butter.

Here's a page with some stills and a few of the available keyboard shortcuts... I have a longer list if anyone wants one.
http://www.everythingitunes.com/os/windows/2008-01-01/magnetosphere-visualiser/

PLUS: Seems Apple did their own Borg-ification of Magnetosphere, and alot of people prefer the original, which you can still find to download and install into iTunes for Windows here http://www.box.net/shared/i20juya1wc

I'm sure there are also versions for MAC if thats what you have.

I just discovered this, and actually I might like it better... more about MANY sparkles (looking at times like an immense tripped-out swarm of alien fireflies), less about several big planets...and also it switches up more often and seems MUCH MUCH more delicately responsive to the music. Actually they both have quite a different "feel" and are both immensely cool and amazing.

Here's the bigger versions of the stills from the above page to give you a really quick idea, but you really gotta see this marvel in action. Best way to do that is just get the free download of iTunes.

NOTE - this is only a VERY small sample of only a few of the modes in the DEFAULT version of the visualizer in iTunes (NOT the original Magnetosphere I mention above)

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"looks trippy omg"

ahaha just joking. this looks like an interesting one of those little visual stimulus guys im going to look into it for my imac because i like installing colorful trinkets.

ps is it free software?
 
DO watch the video, but also DO set it to 720p, then let it sit and buffer for several minutes... when the dimmer pinkish red fills the progress bar.

YES! iTunes is totally free for both Windows and MAC and is actually an extremely powerful and useful thing to have... its my preferred way to view and play all my music.

(After trying the default version inside iTunes, you will probably also want to download the original Magnetosphere plug-in, which I link to in my post... it auto-installs into iTunes and shows up in the menu of available visualizers. As I saw above its quite a different feel, more delicate and responsive... both are stunning).
 
I haven't tried the itunes one, but milkdrop 2 never disappoints me.

Going to download this now. Can you still listen to "radio stations" on itunes for free?

All i have for that is pandora, but i can't sync a visualizer to that. Usually mute winamp and just put on milkdrop for pandora, still looks like its going with the music but its not really :/
 
itunes is quite cool, but these big blank white balls kept taking up too much space kind of annoyed me. very cool fireworks show though. Temporarily got rid of those by pressing M though. Lots of cool stuff.

But I still like milkdrop best; maybe i'm just sentimental and i've tripped with it so many times that its become my friend (seems like after all the years of having it something new still pops up)

Next trip though I'll definitely give this one a shot ;) thanks cool thread, glad i finally got around to installing itunes, it has been sitting on my desktop idle.
 
Cloudy said:
Screw itunes, download winamp. Their visualizer, milkdrop, doesn't disappoint.
Click to expand...

Yea I saw in S&T about Milkdrop and I intend on getting it too. But dude, if you never saw Magnetosphere in action, even though the quality even at 720p is still sub-par from the actual thing (I think the guy's video capture was sucky)... DO watch the video I posted a link to. If nothing else for the cool and trippy song!

iTunes is worth getting for this alone, even if you ignore everything else in it, just to see what it does with your music... its a very incredible thing. Of course if you're an Apple-hater and refuse to allow anything of theirs to come near your computer, thats another matter entirely (I'm not criticizing you if you are, that's perfectly OK, I have friends who are, I have a Dell notebook that I adore... lets not turn this into an apple vs windows topic :) )
 
I use projectM on my linux-"media-center". I don't know milkdrop but it's said to be pretty much the same. and it's BOMB. especially if you have a video projector. %)
some of the visuals(sic) look pretty much like 25-30mg of DMT. hehe.
 
~_Hiss_~ said:
itunes is quite cool, but these big blank white balls kept taking up too much space kind of annoyed me. very cool fireworks show though. Temporarily got rid of those by pressing M though. Lots of cool stuff.

But I still like milkdrop best; maybe i'm just sentimental and i've tripped with it so many times that its become my friend (seems like after all the years of having it something new still pops up)

Next trip though I'll definitely give this one a shot ;) thanks cool thread, glad i finally got around to installing itunes, it has been sitting on my desktop idle.
Click to expand...

Cool! Get the original version of Magnetosphere... its alot more delicate and reactive and is WITHOUT those giant white and black orbs that Apple added... like I said it reminds me of a swarm of alien music-loving fireflies, haha.

I'm sure it was set up by the original author of the program who is clearly an artistically inspired genius, and his setup shows. Apple's version, while cool and sort of more "epic" looking in a way, just SOOO seems like something that Jobs and his megalomaniacal engineers came up with just so they could stick THEIR ideas about what is "best" as much in your face as possible, with no way to turn them off.
 
Here's how to mess with the iTunes Vis... some are not documented. In mine I have pressed
A a bunch of times to add a shitload of extra particles (kind of like all the added verbiage in my posts... I am just an Overload kind of guy, haha) and also pressed + a bunch of times to make them way more sensitive.

Pressing ‘M’ while in the visualizer will change the mode how the particles are displayed.


Upon each song change the visualizer is set to change modes. To prevent automatic mode cycling, press ‘C’ after you activate the visualizer.

The standard iTunes Visualizer menu allows you to lock the camera in place by pressing ‘L’
and freeze the particles in place with ‘F’.

All of these actions, and a few more, can be accessed by pressing the ‘?’ key inside the visualizer.

There are four hidden commands that aren’t shown in the menu. Pressing ‘+’ or ‘-‘ on your numerical keypad will increase/decrease the sensitivity of the particles.

The ‘A’ and ‘S’ keys allow you to add or subtract particles from the visualizer.
 
Well, I was up all night since yesterday I just got in a fresh gram of Methylone that Ive not have for a couple months, and there was this HUGE list of new free porn I've been downloading a few a day on my drive that was calling to me and one thing led to another, etc etc haha! So I started that at 2am and thus was still awake at 11 when huge storm w/tornado warnings came thru, so at 12 I just decided to take a MiniThin 25/50 EF (Caffeine+Synephrine+Rhodiola+Ginseng... GREAT product... 1.19 for a pouch of 6 and 1 keeps me going nice and smoooooth for the whole day even when sleep deprived) plus 3g tyrosine etc etc so I may well be a bit delirious at the moment. Though I'm sure anyone who has read any of my other posts, I do come across as being in a constant state of delirium, so most probably did not notice anything different today, heh.

"Enthusiasm", yes, lets call it "Enthusiasm"!

You know that gives me an idea... I am still on unemployment for a long time now... I think I need to look for jobs where "Enthusiasm" and an urge to communicate and inform are the primary qualities... things they do not look for on a resume but in the person... I am sure I would blow them away! Thanks for the great idea johannes <3
 
winamp + R4 + HDTV = holy fucking shit - http://r4.rabidhamster.org/R4/main.php

REAL 3D visuals the likes you will never see on anything else.

MilkDrop 2 is still my favorite. I used to stare at Geiss for HOURS when I was a kid... totally sober, way before drugs... guess psychedelics were always in me. My grandmother and her friend used to sit and drink their coffee and watch Geiss and MilkDrop with me and talk about how interesting and entertaining the visuals were.

That iTunes visualizer... is boring. Not enough presets, doesn't transition with peaks in the music like MilkDrop can, not enough customization, etc.
 
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