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Glitch effect

Pixel Drip

Pixel Drip is a glitch video effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. One-way vertical pixel sorting that pulls bright columns downward.

Runs live on video, images, a camera or generated art. Stack it with any other effect, and route LFOs, envelopes or any of ten audio bands to its controls so it moves with the music.

Try Pixel Drip free All effects

The untouched demo art: an eye inside a triangle over wavy teal, blue and peach lines — Source

The eye-in-triangle with faint, thin vertical streaks trailing through the bright areas — Pixel Drip, default settings

What Pixel Drip does

Thin lanes cut across the frame, and inside each one bright pixels run in the chosen Direction, pulled over darker ones by a search that looks up to nine steps ahead. Drip heads travel along the lanes on staggered timings, and red and blue stretch by different lengths so the tails fringe. Columns sets lane density, Reach the search length and sideways wander, Blend the opacity.

Using Pixel Drip

Where it works: Slow intros and ambient loops for a pack, where the drips creep rather than tear. On cover art it leaves thin runs off the highlights that read closer to paint than to a digital fault.
With the music: The heads move on the effect's own clock, at whatever pace Speed sets. Route B2 (sub bass) to Reach so the drips lengthen through a bassline, or a slow LFO to Blend to fade them in over a phrase.
Starting point: Columns at centre, Reach at three-quarters, Blend at three-quarters, Direction on Down, Speed at a quarter for a slow creep.

Controls

Columns: Horizontal lane density for drips.
Reach: Vertical search reach and horizontal jitter.
Blend: How strongly sorted pixels replace the source.
Direction: Which way the bright pixels run.
Speed: Rate of the effect motion. Centre is the authored speed, hard left a tenth of it.

Pairs well with Pixel Drip