Saturday, 13 November 2010

Lumia


Two years ago I had just bought my first  laser ( green 30-40mw) for which I was over the moon about, because ever since i was knee high I had only dreamed about owning something like this. It was great combined with a smoke machine it produced all the tunnels and waves and shapes I had seen before and loved to watch. Those of you who have experienced this no that there is something beautiful about  stepping inside a laser tunnel as the light waves scan over and cocoons you, you  do get a sense of joy from what is purely just a source of light.

I was talking to my two friends about the laser one day and being keen sound and light enthusiasts they asked if I would bring the laser round to there flat one evening.  They told me they used to have a red laser but the diode fizzed out ages ago but where keen to to try a green laser through what they called a distortion wheel.  Sitting in front of my green laser was a Optikinetics rotator i had seen these before with various Opti lights with different coloured patterns on them but this Opti wheel had no shapes or colours on it, it was like a piece of glass you would find on a shower door or window to obscure vision. Intrigued by what they was about to show me i was handed a beer and i sat back in the lazy boy chair and looked up towards the ceiling, a few puffs of smoke from the smoke machine was introduced in to the air and my friend turned on the laser. 
The whole of the ceiling in there living room was turned in to a wash of green haze with pattern like structure that flowed from one to the other like it was dancing . If x-rays and gamma rays could be seen by the human eye I hope they would look like this. As I was watching I noticed that the light patterns also had 3-Dimensional feel to them, maybe this was an elusion but as I looked closer because of the different distortion angles created by the glass and the rotation the light seemed to move to create what would look like a coned shape vortex, like  as if everything was being  drawn in to it's center then it would disappear and re-appear somewhere else.

Over the last two years I have tried experimenting with different lasers and much to my surprise they all respond differently with the distortion wheel obviously due to their bandwidth they output i.e. a red 120mw laser creates a much slower effect than that say of a green 30mw laser which is far brighter. I have tried a 405nm blue laser diode but you have to have the whole room in darkness with no other light source in the room to see it, almost have to let your eyes adjust to see the hazey purple light, it reacts like as if cobwebs were being spun across the ceiling, but when you add a red laser to it it creates a wonderful 3-Dimensional effect.
Most nights I don't put on the new full HD flat screen we have just bought, I just sit back with a herbal tea some of my favourite ambient music and my Lumia laser and watch my home made aurora borealis wash over me.

4Dx

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

Mini Discs

As of recent i had been going through all my old mini discs completely forgetting that back in the day before I could record on to a computer alot of us musicians / Dj's ,only had tape decks until the mini disc recorder turned up on the scene.  Not long after being released  the MP3 player was hot on the heels and eventually put the mini disc in the back ground.
But I still love these bad boys and it has been great to re-discover old mixes from my mates as well as hearing old recordings of my music . The other thing that surprised me when listening to these old recordings wether they be mixes, recordings down from records or music i have recorded of my own, the quality of the sound is amazing compared to that from what plays from your computer or ipod due to the amount of compression that is involved with mp3's. Re-hash ya MD's :-)