VGA JAM

Posted on 2 mins read

prologue

Some weeks ago, I was struggling because my old 32bit laptop that I use for livecoding performance, is not powerful enough to run the great Hydra visual live coding platform (github), and I need something to give interest to the “visual” part of the performance.

One morning I woke with an intuition: “hey, maybe I could bend the VGA cable to produce some glitches!”.
Googling around I met CHA/V but was too complicated: buy stuff, build stuff… I just wanted to bend! My attention went captured by the works of James Connolly and his tutorials to bend audio into VGA cable and video into audio from VGA. CRAZY!

But also, “create” a VGA cable is too much for my lazy ass, and bend an existent one is impossible, the connectors are a big block of melted plastic. No Way.

realization

After a little search on ebay, I found a simple VGA switch like this for 10 bucks

Nice uh?!

This easily permitted me to modding the signals.

The idea is: push audio signals into RGB channels, and pull out sounds from them.

materials

  • drill
  • wire
  • tin soldering stuff
  • jack plugs
  • some switches

schematics

Wire every colour, H sync, DDC data and DDC clock to every jack plug. I used pins from source A and I/O output. Remember to wire ground to every plug.

I also added 3 switch to change the plugs on the right and make them connect to R G B instead of H sync, DDC data and DDC clock, with that modification the use of feedback loops will become more interesting, e.g:

colour => audio mixer => send output => colour

So the colour will be influenced by sound and the other way ‘round.

process

Drill the holes, attach components, solder wires, close box, draw some exotic letters and arrows, and destrooooy!