Comments on: Inexcusably borderline linkage - Use chemicals

Inexcusably borderline linkage - Use chemicals

Pretty_Generic — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:53:04 -0800

The Milk Drop visualisation now comes by default with Time Warner's Winamp, and is the greatest thing ever.

By: MiG

MiG — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:55:19 -0800

Nifty. Wonder if there will be an iTunes version?

By: twjordan

twjordan — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 21:59:45 -0800

My thoughts exactly MiG

By: rooftop secrets

rooftop secrets — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:03:10 -0800

Milkdrop has been the coolest thing in the world since I first saw it. Hours have been lost staring into the milky oblivion. Glad to see Winamp finally caught on.

By: borkingchikapa

borkingchikapa — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:14:16 -0800

Before I download it, how is this different from Geiss and the default Winamp visualisations? None of them seem to handle multiple instruments too well...

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:15:31 -0800

It's different in so much as it's the greatest thing ever. Whenever I use it, it's as if I have my own personal VJ who's been spending weeks planning the visual feast in store.

By: ashbury

ashbury — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:34:58 -0800

oh yes, in this case you have to just believe and do it. milkdrop is absolutely phe-no-me-nal.

By: Ryvar

Ryvar — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:43:27 -0800

borking: IIRC, Milkdrop was Ryan Geiss's post-Geiss plugin. Nullsoft specifically hired him to write it.

By: twjordan

twjordan — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 22:44:00 -0800

should have poked around before I posted... anyways, there's something called projectM aiming to be the iTunes alternative for milkdrop.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:01:54 -0800

Dunno. I still like Geiss a good bit, and Tripex is pretty cool, although apparently dead. Requires some 3D juice though.

By: muckster

muckster — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:06:06 -0800

I'm still happiest running a ton of AVS presets.

By: figment

figment — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:36:52 -0800

One of those things you've just got to try. Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody was fantastic and now Another One Bites the Dust! and I'm not really a Queen fan.....

By: Onanist

Onanist — Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:42:12 -0800

Ryan Geiss is THE eye candy man. But why are there so few other cool visualisation programs around these days? With all the megabytes of video RAM and CPU power that many computers have now, it seems that eye candy hasn't really kept pace. (Lots of MilkDrop user-created presets available here).

By: black8

black8 — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 00:53:14 -0800

Damn, that's cool. I'm running it at work and can't get anything done! Thanks!

By: painquale

painquale — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 01:16:50 -0800

It's amazing that you can set it as your desktop wallpaper. I used to love Geiss; I had no idea there was a sequel. Thanks!

By: kevinsp8

kevinsp8 — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 01:29:57 -0800

If you have a nice video card (I have the Radeon 9800), the R4 winamp plugin is incredible (much more impressive than Milkdrop, IMO). I run it with the computer hooked up to a 100 inch (DVI-connected) hi-def home theatre projector at parties. It's cool!

By: lotsofno

lotsofno — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 03:51:04 -0800

if you guys want to see something really bad ass with milkdrop, check this out: go to preferences (ctrl+p) select plug-ins->visualization->milkdrop, hit configure checkmark "start in desktop mode" if my directions were correct, you are now running the AVS as your wallpaper. as far as i know, itunes/windows media player have nothing that comes close to it. justin frankel even wrote in his blog about how pitiful wmp 10's visualizations were: "I played with it a little more, and started messing with its visualization effects. These are even more pathetic! One of them was even a nearly exact copy of the rotating 3d dot spectrum analyzer I originally wrote back in like 1997, that did manage to end up as an AVS effect. It just amazes me how shitty of a product this can be. So I figured, there have to be some better visualizations out there for it, right? So I went and checked out their site, and the best thing I could find was G-force (which now they are trying to sell G-Force Gold for $10), and I laughed even more. G-Force is such a piece of crap. I mean really! Compare it to AVS or Milkdrop, and they just aren't in the same league. COME ON PEOPLE. I haven't touched AVS in over a year, it's been out for over 6 years, and the only thing that I've seen that comes close is shit that Geiss did (cheers, Ryan). OK so there are some decent newer 3d accelerated plugins too, but those really aren't the same if you ask me..."

By: skallas

skallas — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 04:07:18 -0800

Why dont the other winamp plugins do "desktop mode?" Its cool looking and doesnt get in the way of your other apps.

By: skallas

skallas — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 04:08:37 -0800

lotsofno, its even easier than that. Just right click the window and select "desktop mode."

By: NationalKato

NationalKato — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 04:28:50 -0800

R4 looks nice, but it costs 200 UK just to get the nag message off the screen....

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 05:29:29 -0800

Thanks for the Bohemian Rhapsody tip....wow. I just wish this was around a million years ago when I was still dabbling with hallucinogens.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:00:08 -0800

I honestly have never gotten the point of visualizations. My two "music situations" are 1) as background when I'm using the computer, in which case I have the player as small as possible, or 2) when I'm not using the computer, in which case the monitor turns itself off. How do visualizations fit in? Even the good ones, I download, say "that's neat", and never look at them again.

By: rafter

rafter — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:14:21 -0800

What smackfu said.

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 07:41:39 -0800

Your monitor doesn't have to turn itself off.

By: bargle

bargle — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 08:01:11 -0800

So... you never turn the lights off, put in a good CD or fire up a good playlist and just stare at the center of the monitor until your brain turns to pudding and starts oozing out of your ears? Weirdo.

By: fungible

fungible — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 08:10:36 -0800

It doesn't look that different from iTunes visualization in the screenshots. But I suppose I'd have to see it in action first. And it has a desktop mode, OK.

By: alex_reno

alex_reno — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:04:40 -0800

I just wish this was around a million years ago when I was still dabbling with hallucinogens. Just what I was thinking. Of course, my computer then was capacle of 320x200 4 color, so it wouldn't have looked that great.

By: purephase

purephase — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:53:57 -0800

Milk drop is a lot of fun when friends are over. Just sit back, grab them a beer from time to time and watch them drool.

By: Human Stain

Human Stain — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 09:54:09 -0800

God didn't create music for you to sit at your computer desk and stare at the pretty colors. He created it so you can get baked on the couch and watch Nova specials on mute. Nerds.

By: caution live frogs

caution live frogs — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 10:22:25 -0800

so i just upped to winamp 5.06 and loaded the options for milkdrop. and holy crap, it's got settings so you can use 3d glasses? hot damn. i agree - windows media player has nothing on this. not to mention that there's practically no way to turn off visualizations on WMP, and winamp comes with the vis window hidden by default - winamp became my default media player years ago, the first time i realized that WMP took longer to load than it did to play the .wav file i'd just double-clicked. so thanks for this. now i have to put my headphones on and see what the vis looks like...

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 10:28:16 -0800

I installed the projectM plug-in and was severely underwhelmed. It was sort of like the built in iTunes visualization but more... broken. (Doesn't work well at different sizes, or in full screen; can't change the options for it; it always has some annoying text in the corner). Is it just not very developed yet, or am I missing something?

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 10:29:07 -0800

Oh, and it doesn't really seem to respond to the music all that well, either. Which is what I really wish for.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 14:26:14 -0800

it doesn't really seem to respond to the music all that well, either I always liked g-force because of it's ability to detect musical changes, but I've yet to see anybody do a *great* job at it -- I guess there are just so many different kinds of music out there, it would be hard to write an all-in-one plugin that had the underlying AI to pull it off.

By: rooftop secrets

rooftop secrets — Tue, 30 Nov 2004 21:46:39 -0800

you watch milkdrop continuously long enough with some perceptual aids (read: drugs) and you will discover just how in tune with the music it can be... *drool*

By: jzed

jzed — Wed, 01 Dec 2004 03:31:32 -0800

Milkdrop is fabulous. I have to say that I don't think a lot of other WinAMP visualisations react that well to music though. The music player Sonique used to have a very good visualisations community. Rabbit Hole was perhaps the best of the bunch - a simple tunnel vis, but it was amazingly reactive. Thanks to the joys of the Sonique Visual Plugin Wrapper, you can use many Sonique visualisations within WinAMP.