I currently play in a band and would love to, "decorate, " the stage with all sorts of stuff aside from the usual stage lighting and whatnot. I've always been a fan of oscilloscopes-you know, those devices that show a sound wave on a screen whenever you speak into a microphone that's hooked up to the oscilloscope. The problem is, I have no idea where to find something like this-I've looked on eBay and have found oscilloscopes that can be used for medical purposes (i. e., heart monitors) but have no idea where I can find one that's controlled by sound. I'd love to be able to hook one up and have a microphone plugged into it, or have someone's guitar plugged into it...the possibilities are endless! I know there's programs you can download that could make your desktop computer or laptop into an oscilloscope, but I'm not about to lug a computer onstage and I don't have a laptop. I also know there's a way to make a TV set into an oscilloscope, but I'm not about to try that. Any ideas?
A standard oscilloscope used in electronics should work well. You will have to make some sort of adapter, though. Problem is that they are quite large and heavy, and the screen is pretty small. (often about 5") A laptop running some sort of oscilloscope software should work better I guess. Oh, and if you get an oscilloscope, be sure to get the old-fasion CRT type. The LCD type won't look very good on a stage.
If you had a PC and a load of monitors, you could set them on stage and run those visualizations and stuff that windows media player has built into it. That also has a "scope" mode that replicates an oscilloscope. Maybe a projector if you can find one?
I second the laptop idea. Then you can have a monitor for each sound channel you want displayed visually.
