Lighting Analogy To Guitar Effects Pedals?

[GARY25302]

Are there analogies in lighting which do to light what effect pedals do to sound? It seems that this would be a rich area for discussion and innovation. By looking at what each effect is doing to sound frequencies and applying that same type of circuit idea to visiable light frequencies perhaps some new and interesting lighting effects might come about. Frequency modulation would just be the begining of the possibilities. Anyone have ideas on this? I am new to lighting in general, so does this already exist?

[Darkstorm]

No reasonable anology can be made imo. Most common guitar effects are prob compression/sustainer, overdrive or distortion and reverb. Often times guitar players will combine several effects for the desired end sound. The 3 mentioned with the addition of one or more of the following: chorus, phaser, string effect, detune, pitchshifter, echo or delay as one example. For the most part none of these can be conveyed by lighting effects except by ample at the moment imaginaton. O I suppose I could throw a rolling ocean aerial laser effect in combination with brokenbeam (dashline style) to accompany a guitar solo part useing tremelo & echo. But overall lighting effects are not meant to be done to one instrument. They in one way or another go with the whole of the music rather then individual ones. Along with useing various lighting effects for mood setting.

 

Imo youd be further ahead by something like exploring how different colors have a psychological effect. Or how clockwise or counterclockwise rotations of geometric lighting effects such as gabos or geoetric lasers might suggest something or other. Of course in diff cultures you might find totally diff common person correspondences given for this or that color or pattern.

 

A variety of lighting effects have tried to do sound to shape or color correspondence to pitch. In the former for example, laservibe attempts to do sound to shape tranlastion of the audio signal fed to the laser. The build qaulity of the laservibes I tried was terrible and failure rate of the lasers absurdly high. The designers where not even smart enough to vent and properly fan their green lasers. Consequently they overheat and burn out quickly. And indulgent use of a synth to force various shapes out of the laser simply causes circuit board tear up do to shoddy build qaulity. Even so when they worked, the units did less then I did 20 yrs ago by bouncing helium neon laser beams off small mirrors mounted on thin cloth stretched tight over Pa speaker ports. Either way the main results are just nonsense scribble really with occasional rotating ovals, circles and figure 8s for some individual notes. One can create a sense of a mental picture with sound. But trying to create a mental equivelent of sounds with colors or patterns isnt really gonna happen. People just dont say or think: "That pattern or color combo etc reminds me of this or that sound" Exception would be lightning which might make people sometimes imagine thunder or anticipate thunder. This has nothing to do with lightning emulating thunder of course. Its simple a expected accompanyment this natural weather event has with it.

 

Lets concider the number one guitar effect: overdrive or distortion. Are you gonna fuzz up your lighting effect thereby robbing it of difinition? Making it just all blurry and unappealing to the eyes? No ones gonna think: "O he's emulating overdrive or distortion guitar effect now".

 

 

Again youd be better off imo, thinkng in terms of what colors will best suggest a mood or wether to use static (washes) or animate lighting (gobos, waterfall, lasers, etc) or some combo of them to create a visual acompanyment conducive to either dance atmosphere, or band highlighting. A light show that includes picture or movie projectors could be used to help tell a story the music is about too.

 

 

Phase shifter or flanger? O you could do color shifting. But no one is gonna watch it and say "O its a phaser or flanger effect". Their simply gonna either like, dislike,or be neutral about the color shifting back and forth.

 

 

One might as well try to make a corespndence between colors and scents or tastes. Though that would be easier in simple terms like warmth/spicy, cold/mellow, sweet fruity etc.

 

Your idea is a valid & somewhat natural curiosity as far as sound to shape ideas or some colors for bass, some for mids and some for treble. As done in color organs. But there never has been nor can there be a good analogy between some given sound effect and some color combo or animate light effect. Except to the extent that color or colors chosen and animate type effects are chosen that work well with the music and mood desired. This has nothing to with an audible sound effect such as distortion, flangers, reverb, chorus, etc etc though. Waving a light back and forth in time to a whammy bar effect can create a imagined contrived correspondence. But same waving a light back and forth in time to the tempo of music or echoes would do the same thing.

 

 

Think in terms of complimenting the audio. The audio might be thought of as icecream in some cases. Choco sauce rather the spagetti sauce goes better on icecream for most people. Contrast though can be useful at times too For example pounding angry sounding music wit a mellow slow waterfall effect or picture visual for example can work for short term aplication sometimes. But not as a constant all the time.

 

Lighting comes in two basic catagories: static such as washes, and animate such as gobos, lasers, waterfall etc. A wash can take on a somewhat animate affect via color shifting. Some lighting effects suggest hippie era or otherworldy effects and such. Some lighting effects say "look here" such as spotlights.

 

If I throw a spinning laser tunnal around you or pop a laser dolphin shape by you via controlled use of smoke it dont matter what the musics doing. If you like the sounds your hearing and the visuals you might well experience a brief rush. Same if I do rolling ocean or various sky effects esp if some random smoke is included to create unpredicted visual effects of beams and planer laser effects nteracting thru the random smoke. Similairly but in diff way, various other types of animate lighting effects can do this to further the enjoymnt and total experience of the participants at the party. Dots of colored light rotating around a room via mirror ball or such wont suggest a guitar pedal effect. But they will provide a visual useful for some types of music. As long as the speed of the rotation works with the music.

 

Suggests you visit a website like planetdj.com or djdepot.com to see the wide variety of lighting effects available. Is prob more then your aware of & would likely make you abandon idea of guitar pedaleffect to lght effect idea in favor of the much richer and more visualy appealing variety of lighting effects out there.

 

There is a psychology to colors and visual effects to an extent. But this is totally unrelated to sound which has its own psychology. Granted, I can a startle you with a sudden light by you in a dark place the same a by making sudden unexpected loud sharp or disturbing noise near you. And I can acurately predict what direction most people will move as a result of that surprise sensorary occurance. Same if I suddenly and unexpectantly let off a strong very foul oder near you. Lol. In other circumstances and applied in diff way those same occurances could predictably cause most people to smile or laugh.

 

Any given lighting effect can go with allmost any sound effect if applied well. >Blows smoke to create a brief floating laser dolphin while makig dolphin sounds wit synth.

[GARY25302]

I suggest guitar effects pedals which emit smells or light and do what effect pedals do to sound will exist someday. The more senses you could effect through music the better. Just because an area has yet to be explored does not mean it is out of reach or beyond conception. Bridging the senses or using the psychology of sound, light color, taste, feeling and smell interacting together would be new and innovative for music to control. The common view that nerves transmit impulses through electricity is wrong and they really transmit sound, according to a team of Danish scientists. The Copenhagen University researchers argue that biology and medical textbooks that say nerves relay electrical impulses from the brain to the rest of the body are incorrect. "For us as physicists, this cannot be the explanation," said Thomas Heimburg, an associate professor at the university's Niels Bohr Institute. "The physical laws of thermodynamics tell us that electrical impulses must produce heat as they travel along the nerve, but experiments find that no such heat is produced." Heimburg, an expert in biophysics who received his PhD from the Max Planck Institute in Goettingen, Germany