The best thing ever to do with a laser :o)

[Heidi]

I love this video. I was lucky enough to see it live.  

I'm surprised nobody on here has tried to build one yet.

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/M8m3J9R-6n0&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M8m3J9R-6n0&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>


Hmm messed that up a bit.  Ok who knows how to embed video clips on here?  Helllllppppp   :-[

It still work if you click on the yellow text in the link lol.

 

[Switch]

Yea, you just use [ media ] [ / media ] tags.HTML won't work
Wow, that is the bigest laser harp I've seen.But there are some other people that built them.I don't know if they have or had an account here though. :-/

 

[Kenom]

OK now this concept is really cool however using the beams randomly to just touch is not what I would consider entertaining. Now if he had assigned a specific note to each of the beams and had done a pretty cool "piano solo" by hitting the notes that would have been waaaaay cooler. Would take a lot of time to coreograph but it would be a lot better than just a few (3) random notes on a keyboard

Still a really cool idea.

 

[Heidi]

Trying to find the other clip from the concert where he actually does play the lead melody on
the laser harp. At the end of the piece he does prove it's real, by running his hand through the
beams. I have the dvd of the concert and each note is 100% spot on. Very difficult, if not
impossible to mime. There's a few people who have made their own laser harps and uploaded videos on
utube if you do a search for "laser harp" then you can find a few videos and links to sites where
they show how they did it. It's not easy unless you know a lot about connecting
scanners, to electronic sensors, to midi keyboards.

Here's a challenge. First person on here to make a laser harp, upload a video, but be wearing
a LPF tshirt, or at least hold up a cardboard sign before starting to play.

 

[VillageIdiot]

Re: The best thing ever to do with a laser  :

What if the fog accidentally got clumped up and triggered a unexpected note? ;D

 

[Switch]

Would be cool to use different laser colours for different octaves ;D It would also be cool if laser beams were specially placed on a stage so that a dancer would interupt them and thus playing the lead solo and doing the coreography at the same time.

 

[VillageIdiot]

Re: The best thing ever to do with a laser  :

What, like the Ocean's Eleven guy except he actually touches the lasers?

 

[Switch]

Re: The best thing ever to do with a laser  :

What, like the Ocean's Eleven guy except he actually touches the lasers?

And they don't move.

 

[Chicxulub]

Re: The best thing ever to do with a laser  :

That was pretty cool. I imagine they have sensors above him that detect the lasers, and when his hand breaks the beam it makes a noise, just like the IR laser beepy things at banks and other places.

 

[Heidi]

Been doing a bit o research into how laser harps work.
The beams are made by a galvo and ttl blanking. The galvo scans a fan 60 times a second using the ttl blanking to turn the laser off inbetween positions making 12 beams. In front of the harp is a sensor that deects the green reflections off the white gloves the player wears while playing the harp. When a beam is broken, the sensor detects that a beam has been interuppted and the computer knows the position of the galvo when the beam was broken and triggers the correct note.
I've even seen one where the broken beam changes colour too.

Fog from a hazer machine doesn't trigger the sensor, but rain can cause problems.
At the top of the stage are mirrors to deflect the beams over the audience.
Looks totally amazing when you're standing 100 metres away

 

[Dr_Evil]

Check out this page. There are plans for a DIY plus videos and more.

http://www.stephenhobley.com/build/

 

[Heidi]

Excellent Dr Evil.

That was the site I was looking at earlier today. Thanks for posting the link.

Found another utube link for a Jean Michel Jarre concert.
This one is in the middle of Paris, with the stage built over the road,
using the buildings and skscrapers as screens for huge projections

If a giant animated laser hooded cobra snake projected onto a skyscraper is
your thing, then this video is for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGy6WfbK7Jg&feature=related

 

[Things]

Re: The best thing ever to do with a laser  :

This wouldnt actually be too hard to builb, though it could be costly. You'd need some sort of liquid sky scanner, or galvo's, + be able to turn the laser on and off to create the lines. Then all you'd need was some good alignment skills and a few photocells and some sort of software. Really cool though...

 

[nikokapo]

does he use photocells to sense if a line has been obstructed? im curious about that

 

[pseudolobster]

Re: The best thing ever to do with a laser  :

it seems like this would be so much easier with multiple lasers in fixed positions, rather than a scanner.

in fact, it'd be completely trivial to make one with multiple lasers... just get something like 12 laser pointers, 12 photocells, 12 relays, and a midi keyboard... you could do it without any active electronics at all... just solder relays to the keys on the midi keyboard that are triggered by lack of voltage coming from the photocells.
sure, you could only play one octave, but there's plenty of things you could do with pedals etc.

One thing I didn't see in any of these videos, which would be completely awesome, and would make this into a real instrument, is the ability to change pitch based on the height at which you interrupt the beam. I'm guessing this would be incredibly hard, but certainly not impossible. At the very least you could probably use a webcam and write some software that would do it.... hmmm... now you've got me thinking...

 

[Dr_Evil]

Re: The best thing ever to do with a laser  :

One thing I didn't see in any of these videos, which would be completely awesome, and would make this into a real instrument, is the ability to change pitch based on the height at which you interrupt the beam. I'm guessing this would be incredibly hard, but certainly not impossible. At the very least you could probably use a webcam and write some software that would do it.... hmmm... now you've got me thinking...

Like this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yta0aJrbOxU