Technology
The circuit of a light organ separates the audio signal into frequency bands and controls the light channels according to the average level of each band using dimmers. A typical party light organ of the 1970s had three spotlights, red, green and blue, for sounds in bass, medium frequency and high frequency.
Due to their simple structure, light organs were popular as DIY projects for electronics hobbyists in the 1970s and can still be found for sale on the internet.
In 1971, the Rickenbacker guitar company offered their 331LS "Lightshow" model (and matching bass, model 4005LS), the body of which contained a three-channel light organ (with a dimmer); each channel corresponded to the pitch of the strings being played. The soundboard on these models was replaced with thin plexiglass cutouts over a translucent moire diffraction material.
With the widespread adoption of cheap PCs, some hobbyists started experimenting with using PCs for frequency analysis instead of analog filters.
Read more about this topic: Light Organ
Famous quotes containing the word technology:
“If the technology cannot shoulder the entire burden of strategic change, it nevertheless can set into motion a series of dynamics that present an important challenge to imperative control and the industrial division of labor. The more blurred the distinction between what workers know and what managers know, the more fragile and pointless any traditional relationships of domination and subordination between them will become.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)
“Technology is not an image of the world but a way of operating on reality. The nihilism of technology lies not only in the fact that it is the most perfect expression of the will to power ... but also in the fact that it lacks meaning.”
—Octavio Paz (b. 1914)