DoubleT
28th December 2005, 08:32 PM
Ok.. first post n all, but here a gig report from a VJ gig i did just before christmas, if anyone was there let me know what you thought.
Taken from my blog--> http://hedgerows.net
Therapy Sessions is a monthly drum n bass club night / rave that goes down at Herbal, Kingsland Road, Shoreditch. The music is the darkest drum n bass known to man and the label that puts the night on, Freak Recordings, is definitely the most obscene, vile incarnation of the music industry. My brief was to really "freak it out, go crazy with it". The usual VJ rig consists of a 3.4Ghz computer running R4v1.20, an OpenGL visualizations problem, two live camera feeds, one with night vision lens. But as its Christmas I decided to beef the rig up a bit by adding a Modified XBox with various movie clips, including the best of The Shining, and Titles pre-exported from BluffTitler 4.0. I also took an extra projector along, as the club equipment usually craps out on us, due to prehistoric wiring.
7.50pm - 1hr 10minz til Doors
We got in the club a bit early this time, which was great, i was accompanied by a friend, Pete and the legendary, Bob Ward. Both offered to roadie and their help is always a great assistance. Pete rigged the cameras around the DJ booth while i got the computer and XBox running with the video mixer, as Bob set up the 2nd projector. The sound engineer from the club was actually there for once, so i was also able to get a clean feed from the clubs mixer to sync the R4 visuals with, usually i have to make do with a mic placed near a speaker in the club, this has undesirable effects!
8.30pm - 30minz til Doors
The bulk of the rig was set up and working, but we had no screens on the walls and the clubs projector was doing its usual thing of not working. I had originally decided to project a 2nd image onto a wall facing the DJ booth, which was the longest wall of the club, but the promoter was unsure of this as a huge Black banner with a White Skull and Crossbones with the club nights logo and details on was hanging there. We tried a couple of different positions and decided to project just to the left of this banner, giving a "kind of cool/spooky/horror key stoning effect. Also the club projector was refusing to work and so I could only see the projected image if it was in this alternate place. Then the sound check from hell turned up.... Limewax - Scream War at Full Volume. Ouch!
Doors Open
After much fiddling cables the club projector is still giving a blue image, but the 2nd projector is really clear and striking with all the club lights off. After about fifteen minutes of playing with a remote control, Bob got the club projector working! Horah! Saviour! We then tried moving the 2nd projected image onto the Therapy Sessions Black Skull & Crossbones Banner, It Looked Awesome!
I had used Blufftitler, a DirectX visuals Titling software to make 90second clips which introduced each DJ set throughout the night, some of the detail of these was lost due to a bad projection screen in both cases, but the larger details was still clearly visible. These mixed live with night vision camera shots of the DJ, R4 visuals and some of the most disturbing video footage committed to film over the last 30years.
The club was packed to capacity and people were really up for partying hard through til the end, at 2am. The air conditioners were maxed out to the point that condensation was falling almost like rain from the ceiling, luckily we had a towel that was used almost every 3minutes to wipe water from the surface of the equipment we had running. Fun!...
Overall the gig was a success, the label owners were pleased and i got comments from most DJs saying they were caught watching the visuals a bit too much whilst on the decks, especially when the twins from The Shining starts flashing in and out on a projection almost the height of the club.
I attempted a recording of the main output with sound from the mixer feed, but i had to attempt this in a slightly different manor as i had run out of computing power and don?t have access to any digital video recorders, i used a VCR. Old School.... Well we all know how in order to successfully program a VCR you must be one with the devil himself. Sadly not recording of the video, but the audio was captured from the live broadcast XO had running through Bassdrive.com If you want to hear the sets from the night and I highly recommend it, head to http://www.dnbforum.com/showthread.php?p=111420 (http://www.dnbforum.com/showthread.php?p=111420)
Taken from my blog--> http://hedgerows.net
Therapy Sessions is a monthly drum n bass club night / rave that goes down at Herbal, Kingsland Road, Shoreditch. The music is the darkest drum n bass known to man and the label that puts the night on, Freak Recordings, is definitely the most obscene, vile incarnation of the music industry. My brief was to really "freak it out, go crazy with it". The usual VJ rig consists of a 3.4Ghz computer running R4v1.20, an OpenGL visualizations problem, two live camera feeds, one with night vision lens. But as its Christmas I decided to beef the rig up a bit by adding a Modified XBox with various movie clips, including the best of The Shining, and Titles pre-exported from BluffTitler 4.0. I also took an extra projector along, as the club equipment usually craps out on us, due to prehistoric wiring.
7.50pm - 1hr 10minz til Doors
We got in the club a bit early this time, which was great, i was accompanied by a friend, Pete and the legendary, Bob Ward. Both offered to roadie and their help is always a great assistance. Pete rigged the cameras around the DJ booth while i got the computer and XBox running with the video mixer, as Bob set up the 2nd projector. The sound engineer from the club was actually there for once, so i was also able to get a clean feed from the clubs mixer to sync the R4 visuals with, usually i have to make do with a mic placed near a speaker in the club, this has undesirable effects!
8.30pm - 30minz til Doors
The bulk of the rig was set up and working, but we had no screens on the walls and the clubs projector was doing its usual thing of not working. I had originally decided to project a 2nd image onto a wall facing the DJ booth, which was the longest wall of the club, but the promoter was unsure of this as a huge Black banner with a White Skull and Crossbones with the club nights logo and details on was hanging there. We tried a couple of different positions and decided to project just to the left of this banner, giving a "kind of cool/spooky/horror key stoning effect. Also the club projector was refusing to work and so I could only see the projected image if it was in this alternate place. Then the sound check from hell turned up.... Limewax - Scream War at Full Volume. Ouch!
Doors Open
After much fiddling cables the club projector is still giving a blue image, but the 2nd projector is really clear and striking with all the club lights off. After about fifteen minutes of playing with a remote control, Bob got the club projector working! Horah! Saviour! We then tried moving the 2nd projected image onto the Therapy Sessions Black Skull & Crossbones Banner, It Looked Awesome!
I had used Blufftitler, a DirectX visuals Titling software to make 90second clips which introduced each DJ set throughout the night, some of the detail of these was lost due to a bad projection screen in both cases, but the larger details was still clearly visible. These mixed live with night vision camera shots of the DJ, R4 visuals and some of the most disturbing video footage committed to film over the last 30years.
The club was packed to capacity and people were really up for partying hard through til the end, at 2am. The air conditioners were maxed out to the point that condensation was falling almost like rain from the ceiling, luckily we had a towel that was used almost every 3minutes to wipe water from the surface of the equipment we had running. Fun!...
Overall the gig was a success, the label owners were pleased and i got comments from most DJs saying they were caught watching the visuals a bit too much whilst on the decks, especially when the twins from The Shining starts flashing in and out on a projection almost the height of the club.
I attempted a recording of the main output with sound from the mixer feed, but i had to attempt this in a slightly different manor as i had run out of computing power and don?t have access to any digital video recorders, i used a VCR. Old School.... Well we all know how in order to successfully program a VCR you must be one with the devil himself. Sadly not recording of the video, but the audio was captured from the live broadcast XO had running through Bassdrive.com If you want to hear the sets from the night and I highly recommend it, head to http://www.dnbforum.com/showthread.php?p=111420 (http://www.dnbforum.com/showthread.php?p=111420)