My Video Synth Setup: Part 4 – Portable Case with mixer

After a lengthy delay, I’m back with an updated walkthrough of my portable video synth setup.

As you may imagine, a video synth setup can be an involved, cable ridden mess. I really wanted something very portable, easy to setup and ideally minimal stuff to lug around.

Despite having a ton of gear in my garage, I wanted to focus on what is actually needed to do visuals for the modular meetup group I belong to as well as the occasional proper show. I decided to focus on a combination of ‘canned’ videos that have been produced using my home studio gear, captured, mangled, glitched and moshed as well as some live options to give me the ability to mix things up on the fly…ideally with sound reactivity.

So here is the hardware I crammed into a Nanuk 935 carryon case (it’s what I had to work with and they publish their acrylic cut files for doing custom inserts):

• Raspberry Pi Cluster (running Pi Looper, Spectral Mesh and others) with a Jetson Nano (running WavePool HD) at the top of the stack
• Eyesy – Critter & Guitari just updated the firmware to v3 that gives it a dramatic new lease on life with the new support for Python 3 and a bunch of new modes. You can also now use a custom ChatGPT client to have it create modes for you….it’s not perfect but is surprisingly good at troubleshooting the code and I’ve made a bunch of custom modes using this
• osee GoStream Deck HDMI mixer – it’s one of the cheapest video mixers on the market that really has a lot of functionality and gives other mixers like the Black Magic ATEM a run for it’s money. They have a couple of models but I went with the least expensive model which still allows me to mix up to 6 sources (4 HDMI, AUX video from SD card and one USB-C input like a webcam or capture device) plus two different stills and it can also be setup to livestream to Facebook or Youtube if desired. It also gives you a 2nd video out for the preview display to see all your sources in one screen, as well as all the settings. It can also record your program output directly to SD card as well as play back video from the same SD card so you can layer video on itself easily. They also sell an all-in-one case with the mixer and screen inside a hardshell case. It was my inspiration for my case using stuff I had on hand. They just released an 8 input version as well.
• Micca Media Player – I wanted another loopable source for video files and found these Micca’s to work great. They come in 1080p or 4k versions, I went with the 1080p model since the GoStream Deck is just 1080p. The Micca can also output composite and comes with the cables as well
• Recur – I put my Recur standalone player/looper/shader device into a compact Eurorack case and have the wireless keypad in the Nanuk case. I’ve also got a 2nd one that I’m going to dedicate to just shaders.
• Korg NanoKontrol 2 – I have two of these, one for WavePool HD and one for Spectral Mesh. I accidentally discovered that the lock holes in the Nanuk case are perfectly spaced to allow for me to design and 3D print a little holder for the Nanokontrol. I also have a custom sticker for the controls
• Roland R-07 audio recorder – simple solution for capturing ambient audio when I don’t have direct (or close) access to the audio mixer at the event. Audio is passed to GoStream mixer’s MIC input. Headphone out gives my a line out to the Mutable Ears (see below) so that I can add audio reactivity to the Eyesy, VidPix and others via the eurorack mults. The mixer’s audio knob gives me a simple attenuator to adjust the audio level for the reactive parts of the system
• Mismatcher Petite – to help control some of the sync issues as well as introduce some glitchiness
• underneath the mixer is a custom designed acrylic insert that holds a couple of computer fans that cool the mixer (it uses its metal case as a heatsink and gets VERY hot with prolonged usage so a laptop cooler is the normal recommendation but I wanted to build it into the case
• power bar – everything is plugged into this and there is (normally) only one power cord coming out of the case
• various USB capture cards – these are dirt cheap and I’ve had zero issues after using them for a couple years. Each of the Pis and the Jetson Nano each has a capture card going into them from various sources – one feeds a 3 way HDMI splitter into WavePool HD and has an HDMI passthru (like this one) that is fed into Input 4 on the mixer so I can switch to unprocessed video at anytime
• 3 way HDMI splitter – gives me the ability to mix in the Eyesy, video looper or a 3rd source (iPad/Laptop/etc.) into the mix easily
• multiple USB charging blocks – 4-5 in one USB ports to run things like the PIs, capture cards, light, etc. from inside the case. I originally wanted to hardwire the PIs to switches but always ran into ‘lightning bolt’ power issues by using different cables and couldn’t be bothered to sort that out so just went with large charging blocks
• green USB numpad – Adafruit Macropod controller for the video looper allows me to start/stop/pause/rewind video clips from a thumb drive on one of the PIs
• Retroscaler 2x – I’ve been playing around with using this retroscaler from my video game toolbox to upscale composite video signals. It also adds a retro look to those inputs. You can get them for half price on Aliexpress if you’re not in a rush
• Projector – depending on the location, I rarely have access to a house projector or screen so I bring my own. I have a few different ones but lately, I’ve been using this one I got from Amazon for $80 that has a surprisingly great throw distance and brightness for the price point. Of course, sometimes I want more brightness or throw depending on the location and we usually have other members in the group with better projectors.

Here’s a workflow diagram of the in/outputs:

The Spectral Mesh (dotted line) is something I use occasionally, the Eyesy/Pi Looper/Video Equations (red boxes) all have their outputs going to a 3-way HDMI switcher that is patched into the capture card to WavePool HD that has a pass thru so I have the dry version of that output as the Dry HDMI In (pink box) as it’s own input to the mixer. The Mixer AUX Video is a playback from the onboard SD Card and useful as a looping background plate to layer over top of. The (blue) audio source (either AUX or ambient mic) goes into the mixer MIC IN and the output goes to the eurorack (Mutable Ears clone) and then is also sent to the Eyesy’s audio in. The Ears creates the gate/envelope that is then multiplied and shared across the eurorack to modulate the RECUR.

Inside the companion eurorack case, I put the following:

• Mutable Ears (CCTV clone) to capture the incoming audio signal, create a gate and envelope which is then fed to other modules
• VidPix – composite video synth inspired by the Atari Video Music with CV controls and audio passthru
• Vidmix – dirty video mixer with a crossfader and cv control
• buffered multiples to duplicate the incoming audio signal to various devices
• Recur eurorack module – I designed an acrylic plate to put the recur into my case and added a 1U expansion plate with additional USB and dual HDMI outs (via a splitter inside)
• Video Equations – a fairly recent addition to my gear, a super fun, retro video game style character generator that is CV controllable

Gear Photo Gallery

Full case and monitor

Video Equations in a laser cut & 3d printed housing

closeup of Video Equations

In situ at one of our monthly meetups

Recur in a 3d printed eurorack case. I abandoned this approach since the case was small and required power for the Mutable Ears

Full case spread open

Testing a new config with a sequencer, x/y joystick and midi in

DIY Looper controller

Here’s one example of the output of all the inputs running as I step through some of the new Eyesy modes chromakeyed over a couple of different video loops:

Here’s a captured preview out video showing all the sources at play (Video Equations is in the Recur slot):

Here’s another sample from our Star Wars day event. It uses a custom Eyesy mode that uses audio reactivity to trigger a random text phrase (from a premade text file) and in this case, I used a custom font that includes a bunch of the logos from Star Wars and other recognizable shapes. Chromakeyed with moshed footage from Andor and layered on top of the Death Star plans:

More chroma keyed video – this is a video loop (people falling/swimming) chroma keyed with a moshed feedback video laid on top of the Death Star plan video.

Finally, here is a clip from our VanSynthMeet monthly event with all of the above projected onto a bare wall during a performance