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Pulse & motion effect

Strobe Slicer

Strobe Slicer is a beat-reactive motion effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Horizontal exposure slices and hard light flashes for beat cuts.

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 Strobe Slicer free All effects

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

The eye-in-triangle art cut into horizontal strips, several slid sideways so the lines break into steps — Strobe Slicer, default settings

What Strobe Slicer does

Cuts the frame into rows and slides about half of them sideways, re-rolling the pattern ten times a second, while a warm white flash fires on its own clock roughly every 0.8 seconds. Randomly gated rows also drain slightly toward grey. Rows sets slice density, Shift the slide, Flash both the flash and how hard the slices mix. Direction turns the rows into columns or rings.

Using Strobe Slicer

Where it works: For the drop and the hard cut, when the picture should stutter for a bar. On a social clip a few frames of it hides a jump edit and sells the edit as intentional.
With the music: Its flash runs at a fixed 1.25 per second, so it won't lock to the track. Keep Flash low and drive it with an Envelope triggered by the beat, then give B7 (snare) to Shift so the rows throw wider on each snare.
Starting point: Rows centre, Shift three-quarters, Flash a quarter, Direction on Up and down, then raise Flash only for the drop.

Controls

Rows: Horizontal slice row density.
Shift: Per-row horizontal shift strength.
Flash: Strobe flash and slice mix strength.
Direction: Which way the exposure slices are cut.
Speed: Rate of the effect motion. Centre is the authored speed, hard left a tenth of it.

Pairs well with Strobe Slicer