Black goo is the new oscilloscope: Love Hultén's ferrofluid synths | Hacker News Reader

Black goo is the new oscilloscope: Love Hultén's ferrofluid synths

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280 pointsglitcher57 comments

While I love Love Hulténs creations I think the article (and headline) does not emphasize enough the origin of these ferrofluid visualizers: https://www.burnslap.me/26

We should also name the artist, DAKD JUNG. He also sells audio visualizers based on this concept

Well now I want one, thanks a lot.

This specific format maybe but it's been around for a while hasn't it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBr5fcHILLM

https://digitalartarchive.siggraph.org/artwork/sachiko-kodam... In 2001. Audio reactive, even

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.

Agreed. I am curious how good Hulténs’ 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.

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

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).

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.

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!

It adds to the mystic. The Synthesizer is the Beast from Planet 9

Ferrofluid can be used for INPUT too, not just output [1].

[1] A Reconfigurable Ferromagnetic Input Device https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&d...

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

That guy really understands how to get timbre out of his synths. Damn what an ear.

That's really impressive, and just the beginning. Wait until dozens of people have had a decade to fool around with his base concep. I'd like to see the ferrofluid in 3d. It is naturally a 3d material but his displays are ~2.5d. I'm thinking a big sphere in the middle of the room, kinda like at the end of Netflix's "DARK".

> That guy really understands how to get timbre out of his synths

He literally just builds new chassis composing multiple existing off the shelf synths. He does not build from 0

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!

The Winamp visualization we always wished we'd had.

Doesn't ferrofluid have a limited stability?

“Ferrofluids synthesized about 30 years previously are still stable.”

Ferrofluids: Applications K. Raj, in Encyclopedia of Materials: Science and Technology, 2001

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.

I guess you could simulate this on a regular screen, with the advantage that you can show a lot of other things too.

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.

> ... 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.

Whooosh....

The analogy wasn't about nutrition. It was about taste. If your first thought was nutrition then you definitely missed the point.

I absolutely cannot get into synths, it's such an an interesting way to make music, but can get so expensive.

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

Or Vital synth (free) with GarageBand (free) or Reaper (long free trial then $60)!

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.

for hardware, check out Behringer. They have made cheap clones of classic synths along with a couple of their own creations.

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.

How are they keeping the ferrofluid from sticking to the glass?

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.

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.

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?

...Viscosity?

Ferrodust can visualize all of those fancy field lines, but man this is still amazing

Now use it with a reflective surface additive and magnetic fields as add hoc camera lense shaped by neural nets.

Glitter and coded aperture.

Imagine what an eye possible to change internal shape can acquire, stray light scanning every pixel individual, then tailoring the camera to the scene, all without touching expensive glass. Every device a little rippling hubble.

Does Love build the electronics too, or just make existing synths into wild art pieces?

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.

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

Thanks for the info. Can you check some other website on the .xyz domain, e.g. https://abc.xyz , or https://www.tusmo.xyz ?

Both reachable.

Cool wibbly noise maker, btw. Is there any way to turn the sound on permanently, rather than for just a note?

Thanks for checking! Not sure why this is the case, maybe past usage of the domain. I was thinking of a domain name change, perhaps this will help.

Sadly no continuous sound for now. Generating a single note lets me simplify the app, I don’t have to deal with audio latencies, I can focus on graphical performance only too.

Also my goal was to put visuals first here, i.e. let the user generate and interesting shape and later allow them to “listen” to it.

But yes, long term it would be nice to have that as an option, I’ll keep that in mind; thanks for the feedback — and glad you like it!

This is very vague, but maybe what I'm asking for is an envelope control? Some way to control attack/sustain/decay over the top of the generated noise.

I was truly expecting a reenactment of Gary vs David Synth Wars! Bummer.

Reminds me of the Kryptonian displays in Man of Steel.

It's the white gloves that really make that video shine.

Maybe a nod to Jack Dangers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYMX5QuUaj4

Finally my dream of a physical screensaver is realized

Huh. The first video causes my Framework 13 AMD running Firefox on Windows to reset.

so sick

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