Animusic is an American company specializing in the 3D visualization of MIDI-based music. Founded by Wayne Lytle, it is incorporated in New York and has offices in Texas and California. The initial name of the company was Visual Music, changed to Animusic in 1995. The company is known for its Animusic compilations of computer-generated animations, based on MIDI events processed to simultaneously drive the music and on-screen action, leading to and corresponding to every sound. Unlike many other music visualizations, the music drives the animation. While other productions might animate figures or characters to the music, the animated models in Animusic are created first, and are then programmed to follow what the music "tells them" to. 'Solo cams' featured on the Animusic DVD shows how each instrument actually plays through a piece of music from beginning to end.
Episodes
A bunch of instruments play on a room completly surrounded by pipes. This animation begins with the ball firing testing on the acoustic guitar/bongo double instrument. The stage is mostly made up of a circular vibraphone fountain, acoustic guitar/bongo/ banjo/bongo double instrument, a drum kit with a slide-bar marimba on top. They are all played by ball bearings that shoot out of certain pipes. The room's walls are ethier white or pink and the floor appears to be made out wood. The instruments are all connected to the pipes.
A robot band kicks out an odd-time, laser-infused techno-rock tune while riding on top of their musical starship.
Pogo Sticks features the return of Mr. Stick, the popular robotic bass from Stick Figures on Animusic 1. This time "he" has been reformatted to include wheels and a second string. He has the ability of bouncing and the capabilities of motion. He also brings along "friends" and "cousins" in the form of similar instruments.
Resonant Chamber is a very mellow song from Animusic 2. It could be the follow-up of Aqua Harp. It is a purely acoustic piece performed by a complex multi-neck stringed instrument. Set in a peaceful inner chamber, high in a sky somewhere, a different moon is seen out each window.
Instruments set inside a cathedral play three movements of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" played on a light-beam pipe organ with drums, bass, many other instruments... and pyrotechnics! These sections include "Promenade" and parts of "Hut on Fowls Legs" or "Baba Yaga" and "The Great Gate of Kiev."
As Pipe Dream was by far the favorite from Animusic 1, the instruments return in Pipe Dream 2 – aged and a bit more dented. Out comes a manic tune with even more ball bearings flying everywhere. Instruments from the original play on a room completely surrounded by pipes. They are all played by ball bearings that shoot out of certain pipes.
An organic set resembling the bridge of an alien spacecraft pumps out plasma-enfused prog-techno. The strobed light show (probably) has invisible aliens tapping their feet. We think. Or something. The animation is set in a room bounded by alienistic dark green pipes, with colored tubes and pads that play when light flows through them from fiber-optic cables. The light flows through the cables at a visible speed, and so the cables probably are filled with supercold matter, called a Bose-Einstein condensate, which slows light down to a visible speed. The fact that the drums actually interact with these packets of lights is most likely due to there being glowing matter instead of light coming through their cables, which solidifies on contact with air, and evaporates on impact.
There are three robotic drummer players in this animation. The first one is inside a spherical cage of percussion instruments with limited movement along a straight pole. The other two "satellite" players move around the outside of the drum kit along two large circular tracks. This animation has 171 drums, cymbals, and other pieces in total. They are deployed and connected to the main kit over time in different sections.
The closing Finale: Set atop an ancient mountain-top monument on a planet far from here... A massive stone grid comes alive with plasma-emitting satellite dishes, lasers, and percussion rings. We could say the music was out of this world, but it actually may just be from the 80's. Set on a peak in the mountains, the piece is performed on an Aztec-like pyramid, with a long series of small stairs leading up to it. The performance starts with the blue chorus beams appearing to trigger the transformation of the pyramid into the musical temple. At least three other planets or moons can be seen in the sky, one of which bears a strong resemblance to the planet Jupiter.
