Tape Damage is a glitch video effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Head-switch skew, line dropouts, and rolling frame wobble at high intensity.
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.
Rolls the whole frame vertically with a slow sway plus sudden jumps, wrapping the picture so the triangle shows up twice. Random rows black out sixty times a second, slide sideways and pick up swapped-channel colour, and a strip at the frame edge skews sharply with a red and blue split, like a head switch. Roll, Dropouts and Skew each own one of the three.
Using Tape Damage
Where it works
Breakdowns and transitions where the tape should look physically chewed. The rolling wrap also hides a cut between two clips, which helps stitch a Reel together.
With the music
Roll sways on its own and jumps at random. Try a beat-triggered Envelope on Dropouts so each hit blacks out a burst of rows, and B2 (sub bass) on Roll to heave the frame with the bassline.
Starting point
Roll at a quarter, Dropouts at centre, Skew at three-quarters, Speed at centre.
Controls
Roll
Vertical roll and wobble amplitude.
Dropouts
Line corruption and color smear on bad rows.
Skew
Head-switch horizontal skew strength.
Speed
Rate of the effect motion. Centre is the authored speed, hard left a tenth of it.