[HN Gopher] Black goo is the new oscilloscope: Love Hulten's fer...
___________________________________________________________________
Black goo is the new oscilloscope: Love Hulten's ferrofluid synths
Author : glitcher
Score : 187 points
Date : 2023-11-13 15:01 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (cdm.link)
(TXT) w3m dump (cdm.link)
| mr_sturd wrote:
| Don't ferrofluids break down in to the surrounding liquid over
| time? Or is that mitigated by treating the glass as was mentioned
| in the bluetooth speaker video from the article?
| opencl wrote:
| Ferrofluid has been used in certain high end speakers for quite
| a while, it can break down or dry out eventually but generally
| lasts well over a decade in that application.
|
| The glass treatment is just to prevent the ferrofluid from
| sticking.
| mr_sturd wrote:
| Thank you. I remember seeing someone had made a clock face
| using ferrofluids, and wanted to give something like that a
| go myself, but was put off hearing the information I was
| questioning.
| zamalek wrote:
| The smaller detail that really clinches it here is
| suspending the ferrofluid in another fluid. I have seen at
| least one of the clocks, and the ferrofluid doesn't behave
| nearly as nicely in air.
| _def wrote:
| While I love Love Hultens creations I think the article (and
| headline) does not emphasize enough the origin of these
| ferrofluid visualizers: https://www.burnslap.me/26
| permanent wrote:
| We should also name the artist, DAKD JUNG. He also sells audio
| visualizers based on this concept
| Arrath wrote:
| Well now I want one, thanks a lot.
| jcims wrote:
| This specific format maybe but it's been around for a while
| hasn't it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBr5fcHILLM
| peteforde wrote:
| In fairness, the author does explicitly mention DAKD Jung as
| the inspiration in the fourth paragraph - it's the third video
| down.
|
| It's clear to me that the reason this article exists is the
| opinion that the sum of Love's craftmanship and ferrofluid
| visualization is greater than its parts.
| devin wrote:
| Agreed. I am curious how good Hultens' visualizers are. IIRC
| there was a good deal of engineering that went into Dakd Jung's
| to make it stand the test of time and plenty of experiments on
| audio response across genres. Specifically, I recall Dakd Jung
| saying that they spent a lot of time on a glass coating for the
| inside of the bottle because eventually the particles begin to
| stick to the glass.
| djleni wrote:
| I would really love to make a ferrofluid visualizer but instead
| of being part of the signal path, it's a desk knick-knack with a
| microphone and wall power... Hmm
| merelysounds wrote:
| If you'd like to see more regular patterns, I've built a browser
| app for creating and visualizing waveforms:
| https://merely.xyz/waves
|
| It lets you explore the relations between shapes and ratios, less
| ferro and more Fourier.
| flir wrote:
| FYI, Forcepoint puts you in "Elevated Exposure: Sites that
| camouflage their true nature or identity, or that include
| elements suggesting latent malign intent."
|
| I'm sure it's a false positive, just thought you'd like to
| know. If you ever write a book, you've got a great cover quote
| right there. "latent malign intent" - Forcepoint
| merelysounds wrote:
| Thanks for the info. Can you check some other website on the
| .xyz domain, e.g. https://abc.xyz , or https://www.tusmo.xyz
| ?
| heystefan wrote:
| That's amazing, went down a spiral of other projects too. Crazy
| stuff.
|
| Also reminded me of this ferrofluid clock my buddy built back in
| the day: http://www.hellorhei.com
| croes wrote:
| Doesn't ferrofluid have a limited stability?
| krisoft wrote:
| "Ferrofluids synthesized about 30 years previously are still
| stable."
|
| Ferrofluids: Applications K. Raj, in Encyclopedia of Materials:
| Science and Technology, 2001
| kortex wrote:
| I think like all things, it depends on the quality of the
| product. There are definitely cheap ferrofluids with mediocre
| surfactants that break down over time. But I also suspect
| (never looked, just inferring from the myriad of surfactants
| out there) that some formulations exist with way longer
| lifespans.
| citruscomputing wrote:
| I absolutely cannot get into synths, it's such an an interesting
| way to make music, but can get so expensive.
| chabes wrote:
| There's plenty of free synth software. If you really want to
| get into it, but not be restricted by costs, check out
| something like VCV Rack
| chrisshroba wrote:
| Or Vital synth (free) with GarageBand (free) or Reaper (long
| free trial then $60)!
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| You can get a used midi keyboard for 20$ or an ok one for 100$
| new. All the software is free. No better time than right now.
| eweise wrote:
| for hardware, check out Behringer. They have made cheap clones
| of classic synths along with a couple of their own creations.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| It definitely can, depending on what you are looking at.
| Something like a fully analog, polyphonic Jupiter-8 that still
| works 40 years after launch? Easily $20k+. A simple monophonic
| "learner" synth usually has one knob per function so it's
| easier to learn how synthesis works at a fundamental level, so
| a lot of people start there.
|
| These are usually also priced for beginners, more or less,
| where a used Arturia Microbrute is about $200 and a used Korg
| Monologue is about $250. Then you can start getting into a lot
| of different design philosophies for everything in the middle.
| There are also a lot of digital hardware synths which tend to
| use frequency modulation so they can make some pretty crazy
| digital sounds.
|
| If you go completely mad with the power, people love building
| eurorack modular synths one module at a time. It can end up
| being a really custom rig you can kind of "play" but of course,
| this is on the expensive end as well.
| rob74 wrote:
| Cool! The "ferrofluid drum synth" video is actually more
| impressive than the "ferrofluid synth" one, that one just seems
| to produce the well-known "ferrofluid hedgehog" pattern
| (https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-
| qimg-e6aeab4f37492b0cfec44...), while the drum synth can produce
| more interesting patterns - same as the Bluetooth speaker
| (however I wonder how that would handle heavy metal :) ). Now I
| want one of those!
| leptons wrote:
| It's kind of boring. It makes the same ring-of-fluid shape, or
| just random little blobs. It's not as representative of the
| sounds being played as it is just forming around magnetic lines
| of flux that don't really display the sound. The device
| construction is what is pretty neat here, but the ferrofluid
| display is a bit lacking in coolness unless you've never seen
| ferrofluids reacting to electromagnets before (and maybe I'm
| jaded because I've seen it plenty of times, and it's practically
| always the same effect).
| xattt wrote:
| Other than looking neat, is there any meaningful information that
| can be gleaned from an FF display?
|
| You can do the obvious with an oscilloscope, but ferrofluid
| appears as random blobs floating in space. The artist seems to
| have acknowledged that, as there is a smaller scope in the bottom
| right of one of their machines.
| I_Am_Nous wrote:
| Without playing with one myself it would be hard to answer
| objectively, but I can imagine this being on the end of my
| MicroBrute+pedals chain to give me spatial feedback on how big
| a sound is. I use the brute for all kinds of stuff but it would
| be cool to see bass lines and how different knobs affect the
| sound.
|
| It could be a really cool Winamp visualizer for a track though
| and if nothing else it's cool for that!
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| It adds to the mystic. The Synthesizer is the Beast from Planet
| 9
| 3x35r22m4u wrote:
| I was truly expecting a reenactment of Gary vs David Synth Wars!
| Bummer.
| cassac wrote:
| I think at Disney Worlds Animal Kingdom in the Avatar ride queue
| they have some pretty cool examples of this. I always wondered
| how they did it and now I know.
| 3seashells wrote:
| Now use it with a reflective surface additive and magnetic fields
| as add hoc camera lense shaped by neural nets.
| ganzuul wrote:
| Glitter and coded aperture.
| amelius wrote:
| I guess you could simulate this on a regular screen, with the
| advantage that you can show a lot of other things too.
| peteforde wrote:
| We've been using "regular" screens on instruments for a long
| while. The whole point of Love's work is to combine elements
| and create beauty.
|
| To point out that you could save on your ferrofluid budget by
| just simulating it in software is to realize that you could
| save a lot of trouble by just eating potatoes.
| amelius wrote:
| > ... you could save a lot of trouble by just eating
| potatoes.
|
| You can simulate visual effects. You can't simulate
| nutrition. So the analogy seems broken.
| qwertox wrote:
| The Winamp visualization we always wished we'd had.
| nullc wrote:
| How are they keeping the ferrofluid from sticking to the glass?
| devin wrote:
| They're using a coating on the inside of the glass. DAKD Jung
| has posted about this. I'd be curious to know how similar
| Hulten and DAKD Jung's formulations are. It was made to sound
| rather involved when I read DAKD Jung's description of it.
| krunck wrote:
| It's the white gloves that really make that video shine.
| Flatcircle wrote:
| so sick
| bsder wrote:
| Why are these just blobs?
|
| Ferrofluid should be able to visualize all kinds of field lines,
| no? Why aren't these showing Lissajous-like patterns?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-11-13 23:00 UTC)