A bank of faders, a touchpad, and then … it just does anything you want. Even today, the idea of a fully-integrated visual instrument is a pretty profound concept. Ableton’s creators thought about the design of the Synclavier digital synth (the rival of the CVI’s music sibling, the CMI) when designing their software. At least a couple of you have some strong ideas about the future of "visual instruments" and live visualism in general. Certainly, I’ll be thinking about the CVI as I look at the setup of my live visual rig. The effects themselves on the CVI don’t all date well, especially after the CVI itself popularized their use (and overuse) in the 80s. But the elegance of the design as interface can still inspire.

Co-creator Peter Vogel has kept satisfying our appetite for gems from his VHS library. Thanks, Peter, for saving these from permanent deterioration. Top: watch a BBC host get a kick out of turning herself into a video star. Bottom: the original demo video, which gives a good overview of the effects capabilities. (Especially interesting, as students and artists learn to recreate some of the same effects from scratch in tools like Max/MSP/Jitter and Processing.) Tomorrow’s world, indeed.

No matter how committed you are to some of the alternatives, Google’s YouTube will remain part of your online life. So we continue our look at how to make it more livable.

Readers wrote in with some tips and impressions of YouTube’s new "higher-quality video" mode:

Make Your YouTube More Livable: I Have a Fast Connection Setting

Richard Lainhart, a regular on Create Digital Music (attention, Buchla modular fans!), had some specific tips on which upload settings to use and how to force high-quality playback:

Deepvisual has posted a second Vixid demo video to VJForums, showing off the layer arrangement functions, preview selection, and blend mode layering:

There is currently a VJX16-4 with my name on the box, en-route between France and Australia. It should be arriving in the next couple of days - just in time for a run of shows at Sydney’s The Basement - so expect plenty of Vixid news, reviews and tips to come.

Previously: Blend Modes, Keying and More: Vixid Function Demo Video from Deepvisual.

We really prefer Vimeo.com around here, but that doesn’t stop people from uploading video to YouTube — meaning you have to live with the results.

You can make YouTube slightly less painful, however. Old news — the setting popped up a few weeks ago — but if you’re like me and haven’t changed your settings yet, now’s the time. Here’s how:

You’ll need to be logged in. Go to Account > Account (the header on your My Account Page) > Video Playback Quality and choose “I have a fast connection.” You don’t need a terribly fast connection, because the upshot of all of this is that you bump up to 480×360. (Yeah, I know — be still my beating heart. Vimeo, Blip, and others already have HD, and YouTube has 480×360.)

Oh, and it gets worse: not all videos have been converted to the new format.

And worse still: the content uploader apparently has no control over this whatsoever.

Did I mention how much I hate YouTube? Still, it’s worth the 30 seconds it takes to change the setting.

For more discussion:

Watch Higher Quality YouTube Videos [Wired.com How-to Wiki]

Videohelp Forum Thread

Anyone with uploading tips for taking advantage of this, or how we can lobby Google to give us something that doesn’t suck — just let us know.

We’ve seen visual vinyl, via the video stylings of Serato’s VIDEO-SL plug-in. But here’s a more literal approach: stick the camera on the turntable. Via a multi-camera setup, Cut Chemist and DJ Shadow are doing that with their honest-to-goodness, scratching turntablist sets. I especially like the camera up close on the turntable itself — something instrumentalists might try, too. (Well, maybe you want to stop somewhere … no endoscopies during your performance, please, unless you’re an avant-garde performance artist or something.)

More on this sort of thing soon, but there’s something to get the thought process going. Thanks, Jaymis!

Jeff Mission writes to say he’s been working on a new project that couples the Wii remote with generative visuals — all built in free software. Like it, but think it could go further? It’s free, so have a go (soon, at least). Jeff writes:

Chris Korda, developer of the open-source VJ softwares Whorld and FFRend, and I have been working on a project to control real-time, generative geometric visuals with the ever-popular Nintendo Wiimote. We dubbed the project WiiWhorld.

I am pleased to announce that the first proper WiiWhorld demo video is now available online:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bw1bHVPHk_g

Swirly colors, techno, dancing, and lots of smiling faces! Anyway, I think it does a decent job of capturing people having fun playing with our little digital toy.

The video was cobbled together from about 90 minutes of party footage shot a couple months ago. We set up our rig and invited people to play around, with a minimum of instruction. It was great fun to watch people play around, figure it out, and then teach new techniques to one another.

As for the project itself, it requires a Wiimote and a bluetooth-enabled computer. All the software involved (GlovePIE, Whorld, and FFRend) is 100% free, making this (we hope) a project that others can adopt and expand in the future, at minimal cost. We hope to publish more detailed information soon, so that others can try WiiWhorld for themselves.

Please give it a look, leave comments and ratings, and pass it on!

The project is apparently brand new — and Jeff says more web content and videos and documentation and such are all coming soon.

And yes, GlovePIE, Whorld, and FFRend are all free and open-source Windows apps. (And you thought Linux had all the fun.) beatfix (aka Jeff) suggested them and got our Windows free apps round-up going:

VisualJockey Goes Freeware; Free Windows and Cross-Platform VJ - Visualist Round-Up

Anyone who wants to get us rolling on a similar Mac or Linux list, drop us a line.

The Digital Worlds blog, an Open University blog, has an excellent look back at the artistry of early video tubes entitled “Oscilloscopy.”

There’s John Whitney’s “showreel” from 1961, which shows off the ground-breaking (1961, folks!) possibilities of his “mechanical analog computer,” as appropriated from an antiaircraft gun director. Wait … say that again? Yep, Whitney actually used a mechanical contrivance to rotate layers of graphics. When that technique met up with the power of  It’s an idea that’s just waiting for today’s DIYers to tackle, perhaps mixing modern digital techniques with mechanical ones.

Next, also from the above blog post, witness the gorgeous oscilloscope graphics and mechanical control pads of Tennis for Two, an early (thought to be the second-ever, though you never know with these things) video game made by William Higinbotham at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. Again, DIY project? Mechanical controllers, but this time coupled with 3D graphics? It is the 50th anniversary year of the title. (People under 35, remember that the next time your parents start talking about “back in their day” before video games. Tell them it’s not your fault they never dropped by the Brookhaven National Laboratory.)

Heck, I wish even oscilloscopes looked that pretty now.

There’s something really inspiring and elemental about these works — amplified by mechanical elements used in their creation and control. It’s something I think is possible in code; maybe it’s just challenging in a different way. (And maybe when you have that feeling of magic, you know you’re in the right place.)

This certainly gives me a different source of inspiration as I work with generative techniques in Java/Processing and the like. If this inspires any of your work, send us photos / video links — we’d love to see it! And motion graphics history buffs, happy to know more about these — and other — pioneers.

We’re big fans of NIN’s new album, Ghosts. Now, visualists will get to freely interpret the album in an open YouTube “festival”…

I’ve come out of my self-imposed solitary confinement only due to my man love for Trent Reznor. (Don’t ask.) Following up on the huge success of the Ghosts I-IV release (grossing a cool $1.6 mil during the first week), Trent is announcing a partnership with YouTube to present a user-submitted film festival for works inspired by Ghosts. From NIN.com:

First of all, a sincere THANK YOU for the response to Ghosts. We are all amazed at the reaction for what we assumed would be a quiet curiosity in the NIN catalog. My faith in all of you has been restored - let’s all go have coffee somewhere (my treat)!

Today we announce the expansion of the Ghosts project into the visual world. This record began as an experiment with us using sound as a means to describe visuals. Early in the project we thought it would be interesting to see what the community could create / collaborate on as a reaction to the music we were making. We wanted to keep the canvas as blank as possible for you, hence the lack of descriptive song titles and the primarily textural artwork and packaging.

So here’s the plan: we’ve teamed up with YouTube to host a “film festival” around Ghosts. The concept is for you to take whatever tracks you feel inspired by from Ghosts and create what you feel should accompany them visually. You will be able to see all of the submissions, and a team of us (including me) will be sorting through them and setting aside ones we feel are exceptional. Eventually (within a couple of months?) we will present a virtual “film festival” with me and some special guests presenting selections of your work.

This isn’t a contest and you don’t win elaborate prizes - it’s meant to be an experiment in collaboration and a chance for us to interact beyond the typical one-way artist-to-fan relationship. We’ve discussed some interesting ways this could go, including multiple installments of the online “film festivals,” to broadcast TV specials, to a one-time live performance of the entire Ghosts record with your visuals involved. It really depends on how this progresses and develops.

We are all very much looking forward to what you come up with, and hope you enjoy the experience. Visit our YouTube channel for information on how to participate.

NIN’s music has been and continues to be some of the most visually inspiring and cinematic music I listen to; now here’s a chance for myself — and everyone else — to freely be share their work and use NIN’s music without repercussion. If only there were more time!

Deepvisual have posted a 3 minute look at some of the VJX16-4’s functions on VJForums.

More tutorials on a variety of gear can be found on their website.

If you’re in Austin for South by Southwest Interactive, you’ll want to duck out of the parade of open bars Web companies are offering and check out some of the live music and visualism happening. Saturday night, I’m judging a laptop battle as CDMotion contributor Dan Winckler is the evening’s VJ. Monday, as proem, Lila’s Medicine, and I play music, we’ll have a live visual lineup courtesy Jay Smith of Livid Instruments.

AMODA Showcase + Laptop Battle [AMODA] = $4-7, or free with SxSWi badge

CDM Music + Motion Party [Upcoming.org; also on Facebook] = Free, no badge needed

SxSW @ CDM [Create Digital Music]

I unfortunately have to fly back to New York before SxSW Music begins, meaning I’m missing a pretty great lineup. Addictive TV is on the opening party Tuesday, right before Moby. (aka the closing party for Film) Anyone know of other good VJ lineups for the Music fest? If you’re going, would love show reports.

Not in Austin? View Some Viditar!

Speaking of Jay Smith and Livid, here’s Jay showing off the Viditar video instrument on some vintage TV — the now-dead Screensavers program. After all, it’s only fair to have something for the 99.5% of you not in Austin. Think of it as a vintage virtual Viditar vignette: