Audio Respone in visual jockey.

[Makingcoin]

In Visual Jockey how does the audio response work? Is each composition within a show suppose to react to the audio in? I am just playing around with it and it seems like the compositions are doing the same thing with the music in or with it not being inputed. Thanks

[many2]

Sound response in visualJockey is achieved by connecting dynamic variables to specific input channels. To do so right-click on any node in a FXC tree and select the "variables..." option. For more information you should read the manual, especially the Using vJo - Create FXC chapter. This particular chapter will guide you through the whole process. If you have any more question after that please feel free to post them on the visualJockey forum,
http://www.visualjockey.com/phpbb/index.php
A lot of people there will be glad to help you discover the wonders of vJo R3.2 ;)

Many-2

[KillingFrenzy]

I'd hasten to bet that most of the compositions you're playing with are not configured for an audio response.

1st step - Make sure the program is getting audio in. Check your sound system view and adjust your record in appropriately until it gets a nice range of the waveform without clipping too much.

2nd step - Enter the dynamic variables dialog on any effect that supports such input. Here, you'll see the variables of the particular effect that can be mapped to any of a variety of devices. These devices include the sound system. You can take a stream of data from the sound system and map it to a variable. The most obvious of these are "Beat(cos) and Beat (Sin.) These extract the beat rate and create a nice sin or cos wave based on that. This gives you a fluid range of variables that sort of sways to the beat. Try mapping this to something as simple as "mixing progress" on the picture manager.
You'll find that alot of the effects default to a "function" that is not related to sound. This is to let you see some movement, without having to have an audio source. Be sure to choose an initial value of 0, or "null" instead of the "function" selection before you map your sound variable. Otherwise, the resulting graph will include the initial value as a base, or the function in addition to whatever values you add/subtract/multiply from the sound device.

3rd step - Scale the values you're receiving to get the best looking effect. Some factors create too much movement and need to be brought down considerably. You don't want to give the audience the spins. Other factors won't do much until you amplify them. Careful tuning is the difference between a ludicrous, and a subtle composition.

That should be enough to get you started.

The nasty part is having something that really is "synced" by the time you
- capture sound
- map to sound
- render video
- convert video with scan converter/video card
- run video through mixer
- run video into projector
- spit out video

Even if you take out the processing part of that it is hard to get a true "realtime" audio response.

[Makingcoin]

Thank you very much. That was very helpful. I wasn't expecting that good of a response. It is much appreciated. Cheers:nod:

[sneakyimp]

so does VJo generate abstract images like Winamp or Artmatic? fractals and stuff like Fractune? I checked out the VJo site briefly and didn't see any posts that touched on this...if anyone has experience, please share!

j

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by KillingFrenzy
Even if you take out the processing part of that it is hard to get a true "realtime" audio response.

Yep.... thats why the best audio response is done by the VJ, cause as humans we hear the repetition and sense where the track is going too. We can be pre-emptive with the video mix..... thats why a VJ on the mix is far better than any audio sensitive program

[vjpixylight]

Hey while on Visual jockey...I have this error mesage when I go to start up the program:
the VJE32.DLL file is linked to missing export DDRaw.DLLDirectDrawCreateEx
any idea what I should do??

[many2]

Originally posted by vjpixylight
Hey while on Visual jockey...I have this error mesage when I go to start up the program:
the VJE32.DLL file is linked to missing export DDRaw.DLLDirectDrawCreateEx
any idea what I should do??

The best thing to do is to report any bug on the visualJockey board, where the programmers team will find them and kill them as soon as possible. Maybe another user also had a similar problem and will be able to help you there. Here is a quick link :
http://www.visualjockey.com/phpbb/index.php

About abstract image generation, vJo R3.2 does have a lot to offer in that area. Among the image generator effects available you will find Julia (for fractals), a seamless procedural texture generator, a fluid generator, a waver, the flower power effect (spyrograph like effect), a sound spectrum analyser with custom sprite support, and in the free Nash Arts plugin you will find more generators (arabesque, freeline, lightning and fire). Remember that you can modify the dynamic parameters of all those effects in real-time (according to sound detection, keyboard, mouse, MIDI, anyhting) and that each of these generator can be mixed and expanded with any combination of all the effects available for visualJockey.

Many-2

[vjpixylight]

Okay Thanks Many2!!

one question about the midi controllers. What controller #'s can be assigned(range, if any),and do they have to be manually loaded parameters, or does VisJ have a midi learn function and can you also slave the VisJ to an external midi clock??
cool the proggie looks a lot like a PC equvilent to Videodelic...
(at least in a few respects...c:)

[elbows]

Your error message sounded a bit like a direct X problem - what version of Direct X do you have on your PC?

The best abstract image generation to me is achieved by making sophisticated effects with lots of the elements linked to variables, there arent many built in effects which are as instant & sophisticated as some winamp etc plugins out there. You can use some Sonique visual plugins if you get the Booster pack.

You have to set most of the midi stuff up manually - its quite time consuming but the way it works does give huge amounts of flexibility. A midi learn function would be nice for shaving a few seconds off the variable-midi setup procedure.

Midi supports 16 channels, and you specify the number of controllers you have on each channel. Only 1 midi input port is supported at once though, although if you had a setup using more than 1 midi interface then you could use midi translation software to get round this.

Unfortunately there is no support for midi clock or any other midi sync/time signal stuff. At the time the midi plugin was written, I dont think anyone knew exactly how best to link midi time info to the way visualJockey works, and there was nobody around who was an expert in these things to help explain. There was also some fear that some of the midi timecode stuff was so many continuous messages that it might harm performance, but I think there are 2 types of midi time stuff and this would not be a problem with them. Unfortunately as you can probably tell I dont know much about that side of midi!

[vjpixylight]

Midi clock is one of the most simple of midi functions...at least with audio instruments... I hope that someone in the Visual jock world is able to plug that in...:nod: :nod: :nod:
as far as the Direct X problem, I will check the Ver. and thanks...