I'm wondering if there is a longer version of the video with audio or just audio that is used in the second example. It is certainly a beauty opioid for me!
I have to admit they don't do anything for me personally (sorry!) - but I do admire the novel way your compositions essentially confess to the internet-at-large that you're experienced in taking psychedelics..
Music criticism isn't my forté (er.. nor my piano..) but for what it's worth I think the reason audioreactive visuals haven't really been explored to their fullest extent is that the visuals always seem - to the casual observer - to mostly just track the beat (as yours do; I intend this constructively/exploratively and hope it doesn't come across as too critical) rather than tracking more complex/thematic musical structures:
If the piece starts off with murky, bassy rumblings and then there's an uplifting break-in-the-clouds moment, the visuals could start off murky and cloudy, and then bright clear visuals should pierce through.
If the piece has a simple melody that's later repeated 'in earnest' with a key change, more complex harmonics, more layers of instruments/effects, etc. the visuals could establish a pattern that's simple and maybe even a bit washed-out, then that pattern could be repeated with more richness and complexity and colour.
(Of course, I understand this stuff isn't really possible with a five-second clip!)
Essentially, I suppose I'm suggesting that audioreactive visuals could work the way a film score does, except backwards - rather than starting with the visual ideas you want to convey and then composing a score to suit those visuals, you could start with the musical ideas you want to convey and then compose a visual track that aligns with that intention.
Thanks for taking the time to write these observations Pjohn! You have good points that I agree with. I indeed think that most music visuals track fairly elementary rhythmic aspects of, simply for the reason that this is the straighforward thing to do at present. Reactivity to overall dynamics is also straightforward, but usually underwhelming due to the way a lot of modern music is mixed for maximally loudness. Now, generating reactivity to more more complex themes and patterns cannot really easily be done with an automatized computational pipeline (although I think might be just around the corner with current AI tech), so doing it more or less takes you back to ordinary video direction. But I do agree 100% - I think audio-reactivity would be much more interesting when you do that part as well! Perhaps having them serve as ornaments to a larger whole, rather than being the whole itself. For my full length music videos (as opposed to artististic-junk-food-equivalent snippets for social media), I am trying to do exactly that. I've only made one so far, but have another one in the works.
No worries about not enjoying it - I've always known my tastes are particular! Particularly excellent, of course, but that goes without saying :) Anyway, over the coming months I'll be uploading some of this stuff, so I'll get some data on whether psytrance fans likes this stuff.
I'm wondering if there is a longer version of the video with audio or just audio that is used in the second example. It is certainly a beauty opioid for me!
Happy to hear that Jack! Indeed there a full length piece of music plus video:
https://youtu.be/XOvvEHv6gjc?si=aH2WOuBuGVhFfS7l
Hope it falls to taste!
Thank you! I didn't realize from reading a few posts here that you had a whole youtube channel and soundcloud. Almost too good to be true
I haven't actually mentioned it much around here! I probably should.
I have to admit they don't do anything for me personally (sorry!) - but I do admire the novel way your compositions essentially confess to the internet-at-large that you're experienced in taking psychedelics..
Music criticism isn't my forté (er.. nor my piano..) but for what it's worth I think the reason audioreactive visuals haven't really been explored to their fullest extent is that the visuals always seem - to the casual observer - to mostly just track the beat (as yours do; I intend this constructively/exploratively and hope it doesn't come across as too critical) rather than tracking more complex/thematic musical structures:
If the piece starts off with murky, bassy rumblings and then there's an uplifting break-in-the-clouds moment, the visuals could start off murky and cloudy, and then bright clear visuals should pierce through.
If the piece has a simple melody that's later repeated 'in earnest' with a key change, more complex harmonics, more layers of instruments/effects, etc. the visuals could establish a pattern that's simple and maybe even a bit washed-out, then that pattern could be repeated with more richness and complexity and colour.
(Of course, I understand this stuff isn't really possible with a five-second clip!)
Essentially, I suppose I'm suggesting that audioreactive visuals could work the way a film score does, except backwards - rather than starting with the visual ideas you want to convey and then composing a score to suit those visuals, you could start with the musical ideas you want to convey and then compose a visual track that aligns with that intention.
Thanks for taking the time to write these observations Pjohn! You have good points that I agree with. I indeed think that most music visuals track fairly elementary rhythmic aspects of, simply for the reason that this is the straighforward thing to do at present. Reactivity to overall dynamics is also straightforward, but usually underwhelming due to the way a lot of modern music is mixed for maximally loudness. Now, generating reactivity to more more complex themes and patterns cannot really easily be done with an automatized computational pipeline (although I think might be just around the corner with current AI tech), so doing it more or less takes you back to ordinary video direction. But I do agree 100% - I think audio-reactivity would be much more interesting when you do that part as well! Perhaps having them serve as ornaments to a larger whole, rather than being the whole itself. For my full length music videos (as opposed to artististic-junk-food-equivalent snippets for social media), I am trying to do exactly that. I've only made one so far, but have another one in the works.
No worries about not enjoying it - I've always known my tastes are particular! Particularly excellent, of course, but that goes without saying :) Anyway, over the coming months I'll be uploading some of this stuff, so I'll get some data on whether psytrance fans likes this stuff.