You’re an incurable font geek and you love sound. Can’t choose? Combine them. The MeekFM synth is both a visual synthesizer for typography, and a synthesizer — it actually sonifies the letterforms you generate. This is synesthesia on such a high geeky level that my mind is blown wrapping my head around it. But I love the approach — and while I can’t search even my deepest serif fetish to work out how anyone would come up with this, perhaps there’s a parallel for other generative visuals. Think synth.

meekfm.org [Official Project Page]

via: The Meek FM Typographic Synthesizer [Synthtopia]

Previously:

Illuminating Lettering as Digital Process, in Elegant, Open-Source Mac NodeBox

Free, Open Source, Remixable Fonts, and Embedding Fonts in Flash 9 / AS3

Handmade instruments aren’t so unusual in the audio and music world, but in the trickier land of videoism, they’re a relatively rare breed. These are some recent works from Derraindrop:

The Rocky Top video synths (the “splattered” model is shown above) are available for sale at US$280, in beautiful handmade boxes. I’m honestly often disappointed by very basic video effects, but these are really gorgeous and simple, made all the more irresistible by the great sounds they create. It’s all the nicer that the case reflects the visuals inside. One thing I’ve discussed with the folks at Etsy is a desire for people making stuff that’s rare or ephemeral (as in the case of video and music) into something physical, and particularly for independent makers to be able to sell their wares. Derraindrop is doing just that.

Other works from Derraindrop made their appearance at the recent NIME conference, a gathering devoted to new instruments and interfaces for music, for those of you not in the know. On tap was this fantastic video organ, hearkening back to some of the earliest instruments for synesthesia (long before electronics), along with video intercoms — basically synths with an intercom interface and handset for “private” experiences, TV boxes with tiny screens and big knobs, and, in the totally non-digital realm, big kinetic color wheel sculptures. I really enjoy the mix of electronics and craft here.

The electronics behind these and a growing number of other works is the Critter board, a simple DIY electronics platform perfectly suited to simple sound and visual synthesis. Great stuff, and this clearly shows a lot of it is in the presentation and design. We covered the Critter previously, and it’s on my long list of gear/kits to acquire:

Video Critter: Custom, DIY Video Synthesis

Keep up with the latest at:

Critter and Guitari

The Video Critter hardware video synth kit seen here last year has been incarnated as a Cellular Automata kit from the good folks of MAKE Magazine. MAKE has been nice enough to do the scary bits for you: the board is assembled and programmed, so all you have to do is make a nifty case.

Cellular automata video synthesizer kit [MAKE:blog]

And if that’s not enough motivation, maybe free prizes will be. Our friend Wiley of Video Thing writes in to let us know he’s got a contest in the works:

MAKE: Cellular automata video synthesizer kit & Videothing CONTEST! [Video Thing]

Finish up a project using the synth by July 1, and you could win some nice hardware: an MP4 recorder or EyeTV.

This is indeed a great idea, but I’m still interested in what else the Video Critter can do — or what other analog hardware projects might be possible. Somewhere out there there’s someone building an open source video mixer; I can feel it. Or not. But I can imagine there might be.

Clearly, we also need to work with MAKE to follow up the music event we had in Brooklyn last month. They have some other themes and the Maker Faire in May, so maybe this summer. New Yorkers, get in touch and let us know your DIY projects and we’ll start to plan.

And just as we’re agnostic about mixing analog with digital on Create Digital Music, I hope to see more analog-digital hybrids here on Motion, too. This particular project isn’t quite tearing me away from my ongoing OpenGL lust yet, but I can see mixing in some hardware.

I wrote today about the Critter Board DIY synth/controller board for CDMusic, but I’m even more excited about the Video Critter:

Video Critter DIY, open-source audio/visual electronics platform

US$74.95 buys you a fully customizable, programmable DIY board with video out. (There’s also a $45 “mini” board that looks equally tantalizing.) The video routines are already programmed into the board, so you can write really easy, higher-level video code to put stuff on the screen. Just as with the Critter Board, you can use C programming from any Linux/Mac/Windows computer.

Of course, it’d be great to go even further, and have a totally open-source video mixer / effects unit. It’d be pricey, I’d imagine, but imagine an Edirol V-4 you could program yourself. (Uh, Edirol — ever fancied getting into open source yourselves? After all, no one could compete with your sales and manufacturing volume. Yeah, I know — snowball’s chance of this happening — but I can dream.)

In the meantime, this is a brilliant way of creating some quick, retro-looking custom video effects, and it’ll be ideal for installation work. I have too many other toys to play with to pick one up for at least a couple of months, but if you get one, dear readers, send photos and video.

Sure, Edirol's fascinating new CG-8 video synthesizer,
due in July, costs a whopping US$5295 — enough to make most of you
(and us) to lose interest until we find a higher paying job (see our story and follow-up and more follow-up with sticker shock).

That doesn't mean that:

1. this gear isn't really cool to dream about, and, more importantly that
2. being sad about the price should keep us from having fun watching engineers dance.

"What you say?" says you? Why, it's Edirol's promised video footage
of the CG-8 launch party at Frankfurt's Cocoon Club. Aside from visuals
that are just tantalizing enough to intrigue while not nearly clear
enough to have any idea what the CG-8 actually does, one of the VJs is CG-8 lead engineer Kazuki Yoshimura. If the few seconds of him doing some strange punching dance
and "I've got soul!" air waving gets you as excited as it does me,
you'll be first in line to sign up for the free DVD Edirol is
promising. (I think SOME of the hand waving involves the infrared
sensors . . . I think.)

Wave your hands in front of the DVD and pretend you can buy this. Don't mind me, I'm writing some grant applications.

Edirol reports the CG-8 video synth
will be available in July and will cost (you may want to sit down)
US$5295. So, yes, those of you who aren't living off an enormous trust
fund or VJing in your spare time while you pull in six figures at your
day job might want to go the software route. On the other hand, I
expect VJ hardware prices will come down over time, and great gear like
Edirol's V4 mixer are under a grand.