About LZX
Mission
LZX designs creative, experimental video instruments as a counterpoint to broadcast equipment, desktop video, and GPU-based image processing. Our work is informed by the historical video synthesizers of the 1960s through 1980s, by conventional video production, and by analog computing. The goal is to preserve and extend a set of tools that have empowered artists for more than half a century, and to keep them accessible to working practitioners rather than big studios. Where software editing is a timeline medium, patching an LZX system is a tactile, embodied, performance medium.
History
LZX began as a DIY project in 2008. The company was founded in 2010 in Denton, Texas (Lars Larsen, Jonah Lange, and Ed Leckie) and relocated to Portland, Oregon in 2015—where instruments are designed and manufactured today. The line has moved through several generations of modular instruments:
- Visionary (2011–2015)
- Cadet (2013–2019)
- Expedition (2015–2018)
- Castle (2017–present)
- Orion (2018–2022)
- Gen3 (2022–present)
- P-Series (2024–present)
For a short public overview of the company and flagship products, see the About page.
Documentation credits
The LZX technical documentation is authored by Lars Larsen and Aaron F. Ross, with illustrations and animations by Ramin Rahni.