a2v2a advertisement by brendan bellomo and japhy riddle done in adobe photoshop
2005
the a2v2a, built by brendan bellomo and i, standing for "audio to video to audio", is in short, an audio effects processor. there is no specialized hardware. the a2v2a is merely a circuit to effect an audio signal using already existing technologies. you could build it yourself with the appropriate devices.
here's how it works:
have you ever taken an audio signal and plugged it into the video input jack of a television or monitor? what you will see is a bunch of horizontal white stripes flashing on the screen. these stripes actually represent the audio wave form. the brightness is equal to the amplitude (or volume) of the wave. the frequency (or pitch) is represented by the amount of stripes on the screen. here are some examples of what simple waves look like:
these examples are just simple sine and square wave samples. most audio has a much more complex representative visual signature with many stripes of different sizes flashing around wildly. this is what a2v (audio to video) is. i'm not sure what happens with today's flat screen televisions. a crt monitor was used for the a2v2a.
one can also plug in video to an audio jack (make sure volume is low) and here the sound of a video signal. what will be heard is a buzzing. the buzzing will change in tone depending on what image is being transmitted by the video signal emitting device.
this diagram below shows the basic idea of what the a2v2a is used for:
taking an unprocessed audio signal and combining it with a processed one to create a unique special effect. the processed signal is where the real magic takes place. here we have a video camera pointed at the screen on which the unprocessed audio is being displayed. the video camera's video signal is combined with the unprocessed audio signal and both are sent to a speaker. the video camera sees the horizontal stripes on the screen that are being produced by the audio from the audio device, and sends that video signal to the speaker. if the screen is exactly full frame, then the same frequency, as the unprocessed one, is sent to the speaker. if the camera is zoomed in, it will only be seeing some of the stripes. now, remember that the number of stripes is related to the pitch. the higher the frequency, the more stripes. so, if the camera is zoomed in, it will be seeing less stripes, thus lowering the pitch. the above image is not the complete circuit that brendan bellomo and I used for our a2v2a. it's just a diagram explaining the purpose of the device. we used a mixer and some noise cancellation processes for ours.
the a2v2a was conceived and toyed with in 2005. on june 10, 2007, i hooked it up again with a simpler circuit:
the above diagram is the same idea, just simpler. i used the speaker in the television, which lacks in quality. but it's nice and simple this way. there is no unprocessed signal mixed with the processed one in this case. this time i played with basic in-camera video effects. they corresponded very logically with how the audio was affected. for instance, an effect that leaves residual images of earlier frames, puts a delay effect on the audio. all in all, this whole project was and is a lot of fun for people (nerds) like me. here's an example video of how it all goes down, complete with plenty of jump cuts:
if you are like me and would like to play around with this sort of thing, i give this warning: it might damage your equipment. try it on a monitor you don't care about. i've never had any problems and i've used many monitors, but that's not to say it's completely safe for all monitors. and i've never tried it with an lcd or plasma display. be careful. don't say i didn't warn you. if you'd like to talk with me about it, send me an email, or give me a telephone call.