Why discard some amazing 3D sound reacting progs & WA plugins?

[BrainStove]

I have to disagree with some of you about this apps are only for newbies, the key is to use these and a ScanConverter with Genlock, Composite or S-Video video Input pass-through and chromakeying capabilities (like mine), then you can feed this signal to your videomixer (if you want more sources to work with).
By the way, my ScanConverter is an ancient TelevEyes/Pro with Genlock from Digital Vision Inc. (I think now is out of business ???) and I have it since 8 years ago still working as a champ.
In a lot of my work I use DancerDNA (What a 3D sound reacting speed demon!!), Oozic and some WinAmp plugins chromakeyed over a real time live video input shooting at the people dancing on the main floor and you?ll hear them screaming pleased with the visuals synchronized with the beat & the feelling of the music.

So, if you want the best ScanConverter for everykind of work... please don?t forget that Genlock feature, probably vanished on the current cheap models but try to get one anyway if you can afford it (You don?t regret ;))
In conclusion, in our VJwork every tool you can get and use is and will be complementary, not excludent! :nod:

[HuoLong]

whats genlock? (sounds like a vjc review) :) and "winamps" avs is NOT bad... and this is also quite interesting http://www.technosis.com/mocha/ and to plug sonigue plugs you need this http://www.winamp.com/plugins/detail.jhtml;$sessionid$SC3MHKIQ4NMTI5YAAAARCZY?co mponentId=102608

[hamageddon]

remember the hama scanconverter, huo?

genlock is basically a scanconverter with ability of combining
a computer output with an additional videostream,

[MoRpH]

Hmmm ok winamp/oozic/dnadancer audio generated stuff keyed over live camera............. where is your personal input into this mix???? that could be setup by anyone and left as an in house system and run fine (sans windows :p) without you even touching it.... doesn't sound like VJing to me :confused:

Hama fairly good definition. why not cut and paste that in over in the VJC faqs.

[BrainStove]

Indeed MoRpH... all of your thoughts are on the right scope and makes sense to your point of view, but again remember what I said before: "in our VJwork every tool you can get and use is and will be complementary, not excludent!"
So if you have a long and experienced path already run, well... you always will be miles away of any newbie even using these new automatic tools.
The idea is don?t reject resources because them seems for beginners only, (you always will find new, original & creative ways to use them) due your multiple skills, experience and trajectory.
As regards to your quote: "that could be setup by anyone and left as an in house system and run fine"
I have to admit that maybe because my other work as a consultant and technology researcher, I tend to give more automatized solutions to everyone, but come on MoRpH... if you have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the show, well you can go without miss a simple beat of the music. :)

[MoRpH]

As I said in another thread if I have to go to the bathroom I switch to tape, that way ppl know I'm not doing it live... they understand I have to go to have a break and they understand and respect that....... I guess I like to fly by the seat of my pants, automated systems = not for MoRpH

[Rovastar]

Hi there.

I was going to add a new topic with various points but this one seems relevant. A thread I posted on another distant forum eariler but this a more relevant one.

----------------
Why traditional VJ?s never work?
----------------

Visuals as we know are no where near used as often as they could be in a club environment. I know of clubs that have projectors etc but no visuals being displayed.

Thankfully there are more and more clubs embracing the idea.

I though have never see what I would class as a decent quality VJ set. Not through lack of trying here in the UK ? and I have seen so called ?decent? VJ acts. Yes the crowd where impressed but for me have been disappointed as there is just is a lack of music reactivity there it seems.

I do VJing myself from time to time in the UK but I would feel a poor relation to the people that frequent these boards. Why? Because the stuff I use is run through a computer.

See I create and I?m involved in the Winamp plug-ins community. The programs run on the computer dynamically create visuals based on what the music is doing.

As techniques and technology gets more sophisticated the music reactivity and

For me a general problem for decent manual visuals is that as you do not know what the DJ is playing next/drop a tune/guess what the music is going to do next how can a person be expected to manually do music reactive visuals via a video mixer with any degree of accuracy.

Computers on the other hand this can all be done automatically to a reasonable degree of accuracy. And obviously in time these reactions will improve and the human VJ will still the same.

Many VJ listed here don?t talk at all about using automatic music reactive visuals. Let alone using a media player with their visualizations. Do you not rate them?

Are we looking at a new future here? Is manual music reactivity all old school?

If I ran a Winamp plug-in like MilkDrop (and selected 1,000 decent scenes) and left this running would you class this as a proper visual set? I admit not doing the live mixing but....

I would like people opinions about this as it does not appear to have been mentioned before.

Download Winamp 2.8
http://classic.winamp.com/download/

Some plug-ins to note and try:

R2e:
http://r2.rabidhamster.org/
Milkdrop:
http://www.milkdrop.co.uk/

Of course tweak the settings do get a decent fps and detailed textures etc.

john

[Jorjo]

Originally posted by Rovastar


----------------
Why traditional VJ?s never work?
----------------


For me a general problem for decent manual visuals is that as you do not know what the DJ is playing next/drop a tune/guess what the music is going to do next how can a person be expected to manually do music reactive visuals via a video mixer with any degree of accuracy.

john

GOOD POINT BUT WRONG.

You have just stated clearly what a VJ does, and also that you feel that you cant be expected to do it

Manual? Define that?

Winamp is still manual, just because it has a sound reactive capability does not mean it has inteligence, or the ability to choose content.
How would Winamp handle R&B? The VJ is still required to select initial content to suit the event. What diffrence Winamps reactive ability vs AV syncro on a Desk? There is no Black Vs White issue here, more Shades of Grey as to how much automation the Vj conciders nessasary.
Riverdance, requires no av reactivity since its midi programed, and totally automated, but it still required setting up manually by someone who could be considered the VJ,
Winamp on the otherhand can create graphics from the audio, but cannot ever hope to select relative content.
Picasso is deemed art because of the feelings aroused by his work, a piccasso style plugin isnt going to impress anyone in the art world.

Since when did the Vj follow the DJs choices?
The DJ follows the crowd and the vibe on the dance floor, Hes not free to play just "anything", He is trapped by the mood of the crowd,
yes he has freedom to influance that mood massively, but he dosnt control it, he can only guide it.
The VJ follows the same vibe and If the DJ is any good, Both the VJ and the DJ will combine going roughly the same direction at the same time.
Automated VJ programs? Dont be fuckin daft. there is no such thing and never will be. Sound reactive yes, when you can come up with a plugin that can feel and react to the atmosphere and mood of a gig in the same way as the human psyche, You will have sucessfully done away with the one element critical to the whole scene.... ie, people,
not just VJs, the whole point of clubbing/entertainment and life in general would be gone.
Its a bit obvious.
Human interaction cannot be programmed....
no matter how clever software gets,, it still needs people to use it.
The only point you have made is that clicking one button to do a whole show = Lazy bastard.
As for the new style old style VJ argument.. its bollox,
your either workin the vibe or your missing the point.

All good VJs strive to be in tune with the vibe regardless of the tools.
A VJ can choose to use software content in his set, or he can choose to replace himself with software at which time hes no longer the VJ.

The VJ search for totally automated software then becomes pointless, since he is no longer involved to give a damn.

As Morph said, put a tape on, You may as well since your not by your own argument prepaired to be the VJ

"WHY TRADITIONAL VJS NEVER WORK" Duuuhhhh
VJs are traditionally human, ie "LIVE" they need to be there to feel the vibe and react to the mood of the crowd.

An automated program by definition cannot be a VJ.

Sould your comment have been posted thus?
---------------------
WHY traditional VJs cannot be automated programs
--------------------
In which case, you clrearly feel that the rest of us here Cannot Work BECAUSE WE ARE VJs.

If you really believe in your stooooopid comment, Id figure that you could be much happier in a winamp plugins forum

(yeeeeesh! I am getting too old to be tolerant of daft comments)

[Rovastar]

Glad you replied. Sorry of the post sounded harsh. I too love to do visuals in nightclubs when I have the chance.

Maybe I should have used the terms visuals in the clubs rather than VJ's

DJ's play to the crowd?

To me the most important thing is the music then the playing to the crowd thing. It is easy for a DJ just to play anthems and that would get the best (most positive) crowd reaction.

To me it doesn't make a good DJ. sorry. Only bad DJ's get ?trapped? by the crowd.

I use the some approach with club visuals.

If you want crowd reaction all you have to do is have a video camera rooted to the projector and focus on the crowd.

This does not make good viewing and besides it is so 1990's.:)

I am not missing the point. The vibe argument to me is just a lazy excuse so some VJ can play 2 minutes of star wars or something. I am not saying you are like this but you must have seen the type.:)

To me and many neutrals that I have asked the more the visuals react to the music the better. You seem to be missing this point.

I understand that a computer can never choose content ? no computer in the world cannot accurately define when a beat is 100% either. I do sometimes choose my own scope of content within the plug-ins to have the human element but most of the time to be honest I do not feel it is needed.

From the impression I get from you is that you never use any computer generated sound reactive stuff in any of your sets at all. You may need to get with the next generation of visuals in clubs.

So you see the plug-ins stuff as not art?

I must say the visualization are just as much art as any other art form. I have express myself with what I design and how sound drives that motion. Others view these and have the same appreciation as other art forms.

I am glad to see you are so mature as to comment on the plug-ins that I mentioned and give your opinions as to what I am talking about. :rolleyes:

[eXhale]

Hi Rovastar

For me, the way visuals "stick to the beat" isn't as important as the content and the way it is mixed by the VJ who, yes, is an human being, not a machine, with all the beautiful imperfections this imply :) If computers could replace us, then there would logically be no more musicians either (and no more life).

I also find computer-generated visuals repetitive and boring, although extremly static visuals aren't any more exciting. For example Scanner, an UK artist I saw a few months ago, only displayed a serie of slightly moving pictures. Video shouldn't be confused with photography.

Designing winamp plugins at home may very well be interesting and creative but you're missing the "live" part of VJing which I think is the most interesting.

[Rovastar]

Interesting points.

:)

I find it a little ironic though. At the start of VJ scene the promotors would say 'I have a projector I will just play video/promo stuff'. VJ come along and try and convice him that I will beat match (to a degree) the visuals with the music and have an interactive experience.

Now newer technlogoy comes along and instead of embracing this you, the previous pioneers, dismiss it. ANd worse than that you are dismissing it without even looking at what it can do.

You may find them music reative visuals boring but as for repeative I have to disagree I have thousands of different 'scenes' and only time stop me creating more.

Consider what world of Nightclub Visual stimulation.

None at all: Bottom of the scale: Obviously not very impressive.:)

Then playing meaningless/random videos/loops. Not very impressive again but something for people to look at.

Next step is manualy selecting (mixing) the video/loops to the music/mood of the club. Get the people involved more.

And to me at the same level or above (but obviously you people here not not class it as) Computer music generated visuals.

The next step is manually selecting (mixing) different computer music generted visuals with video loops. Surely this is the best of both worlds.

The orginal topic of this thread is 'Why discard some amazing 3D sound reacting progs & WA plugins?' Yet no-one has answered this question.

The only answers I can find to answer this

[petewarden]

The biggest problem for me with WinAmp type stuff is that the emotional response they inspire at best is 'Ohhh, Ahhhh, Pretty...', like fireworks. Watching humans scratching clips, tweaking live input, doing VJ stuff, has made me laugh, surprised me, made me want to dance, made me think (eg Coldcut's political takes), evoked a sense of wonder, built an atmosphere, as well as 'Ohhh, ahhh...'

WinAmp is good at what it does. It's just not doing what I'm interested in.

Nobody's stopping you from going ahead and stealing all our bookings with your setup. You have a theory, and the place to test it is in the clubs. :)

Pete

[Rovastar]

:confused: don't know what happened there. I have missed loads of my points. Try again.

The next step is manually selecting (mixing) different computer music generted visuals with video loops. Surely this is the best of both worlds.

I have tried this but I imagine (from the comments) that many of you have not.

The orginal topic of this thread is 'Why discard some amazing 3D sound reacting progs & WA plugins?' Yet no-one has answered this question.

The only answers I can think of for this are.

a) You have never seen what you can do on a computer nowadays regrading visualizations. (I am sure there are a few of you like this.)
b) You have used them and think they are not detailed enough.:confused:
c) You have used them but you do not understand them and how to create you own stuff in the ones that alway it and you fear them.

I do find it funny that no-one has really addressed the question.

I am probably classed and knew I would be as a third class citizen in the Vis world. Yet I do not know why.

When I met a promotor it is the usual what do you do, etc.

If time premits I do a mock hook up of what I do. And let teh promotor put different records on. The look of surprise and amazment is always there. They are always impressed - I would say more so than ad hoc traditional VJ set.

What do the promotors get well exculsive visuals within this designed by me one of the few people in the world that is actively involved in it. + I will beat mix etc when required etc. But of the time this will be every so often switching scenes on a beat and/or displaying pic/info etc.

Question.

Is what I do ruining the scene? Discuss

I do not expect anyone else to reply to this topic as that seems a lack of interest/understanding in this topic. But will check back and carry on the discyussion hopefully without my bad grammer, etc.:) I am rushing too as off out in a bit.

If anyone wants to prove me wrong about there work I live in London and also often back at my birthplace in Derby. I would be more than happy to meet and exchange ideas................

Later,

Pub awaits...

[eXhale]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Now newer technlogoy comes along and instead of embracing this you, the previous pioneers, dismiss it. ANd worse than that you are dismissing it without even looking at what it can do.
There is a lot of great softwares to mix MP3s automatically without any DJ nowadays. Are DJs old & stupid for saying that such softwares will never replace them? :)

Originally posted by Rovastar
The only answers I can think of for this are.

a) You have never seen what you can do on a computer nowadays regrading visualizations. (I am sure there are a few of you like this.)
b) You have used them and think they are not detailed enough.
c) You have used them but you do not understand them and how to create you own stuff in the ones that alway it and you fear them.

I do find it funny that no-one has really addressed the question.
I think petewarden made it clear though, he said he was not interested in this kind of visuals. And I'm not either, I like video samples, because they are somehow more real and more living. I also happen to be interested in creating visuals in environments others than clubs/raves where such automation would not be welcome. I don't think anyone said what you do is bad but you seem to think people are wrong or stupid for not having the same interests as you.

And to answer your question, I personnaly don't think such visuals are "ruining the scene", I just don't consider them as competition for what I do (or plan to do). The screenshots on the milkdrop website are actually fantastic and I wish that the winamp VJs I have seen (who all used the standard AVS presets) could create visuals of this quality. :)

On another note, have you checked out VisualJockey (www.visualjockey.com)? :) This software is quite similar to Winamp in the way it is used. You can also create presets and code your own plugins, and the structure provides a lot of sound analysis. The difference with Winamp is that it has been designd more speficically for VJs so it has some useful features for VJs.

[BagheeraRC]

very fine lines/clarification needed.

beatmatching- important. implies/shows immediate relation to music.
content- equally important.
when combined, synergy results; the whole is greater than the sum of it's parts.

yes, you can hook up a plugin. yes, it will be nifty. but what degree of control do you have? what are you showing? i have seen some very cool-looking visualization plugins for various mp3 players, but they're still computer-generated. as such, they're missing something. the difference is so fine as to nearly make it a matter of semantics. you can give a computer a tempo and a style, and have it generate evolving beats based on algorithms. but is the result music? same holds true for video, methinks. yes, it is possible to hook up a computer to react/change based on sound. but what would you call the result? i would argue that music/art is intended as a conveyance of ideas- computers don't have ideas, they are just programmed to react. it is the human's job to supply a line of reasoning/ideas; this is what separates computer-generated visuals from human-generated visuals (some, myself included, would categorize this as art).

computers are nothing more than tools. for some, they are an outlet for creative urges. for others, they are just a means of paying the bills.

intent matters. how you use (or choose not to use[ie: setup autonomous beat-reactive system]) your tools matters.

i think that this is an extremely important topic that NEEDS to be discussed more. it deals heavily with the nature of vj'ing, and i think it calls for some kind of distinguishing name. while the name vj is certainly catchy, i would not classify many of us as such. the impression i was given of vj'ing would perhaps be better termed as a viewsician/videosician- you are to use your computer to create a fluid stream of video to match music. your computer becomes your instrument, and you become part of the experience.

it is the art and the style that should be used to distinguish vj's from each other. because, when it comes down to it, isn't that what really matters? our differences are what cause us and our art to change and evolve on a continuing basis. if we all had music-reactive winamp plugins, there would be no differences. however, the influence of such programs cannot be entirely ignored- as long as there are people like you out there, there will be people like me, obsessed with the art of the scene, and we will be forced to evolve to keep up with techie advances. conflict/competition causes change.

so those of us who dwell with near-fanaticism on the art evolve, and change. if you can make a sound-reactive plugin, chances are, we can program the same thing, and add ways of manipulating the variables. we can incorporate the discoveries you make. but how will you evolve? sure, you can keep making cool new visuals. so can we. covered that already.

the sole difference, it would seem, is thought/intent. can you program a computer to think?

herein lies your limitation.


just my opinion
: : ray

[Jorjo]

hemmm.
OK rovastar,

You reckoned we missed your points.
I'll try blunt

Sound reactive... There is no sound without ears, only waves.
there are no visuials without eyes.
Computer generated visuals are bland, swooshy, 3d whatever,

Any VJ selects anything he chooses to fit the vibe, including CG, the difference being software can only create content, it cant VJ.

Your next point. paraphrased a we dont use modern computers etc... ARE YOU FUCKIN NUTs? We use everything we can, including mindless CG plugins, this group has many programmers who are VJs.
HINT "They do both"

Now unfortunatly I feel its time to be personal.

Your comments that DJs who play to the crowd are getting it wrong are placing you in a group of idiots who are tottaly removed from reality.

YOUR ONLY A DJ or A VJ WHEN YOU HAVE AN AUDIENCE.

So when your standing by my stage telling me how good your theorys are. Id be pointing out that without an audience, your just a guy whos getting it wrong .

WHY IS A DJ or VJ ON STAGE? TO PLAY TO THE CROWD. not wank himself off to the beat of his own drum.

So to cover all your points, Djs & Vjs serve stimulation just like a bartender serves drink, we may have more freedom but there are still limits as to what the greater public percieves as worthy.
Auto generated CG imagery is concidered pretty but bland by the public.
You mentioned starwars, Heres a diffrent slant,
Starwars was a multi millon $ movie with a storyline, which also included CG. It rolls of your tounge because you along with the rest of the world can remember it.
There is nothing to remember in the content from plugins, it just bland abstract imagery. even at its sound reactive best, its still only useful as a basic tool and little more.

By comparison.
A full day filming the troubled streets of Belfast, then using lightwave to create a shopping trolly, superimposing it into the film, in psycadellic colour changes as it flys through the streets = a 20 second clip that the local clubbers can relate to the expression of "being off yer trolly"
THATs 3 WEEKs CG for 2seconds, and meaningfull content (which can be AV syncro'd through a desk) Ya got a plugin for that?

Now your point,
the reason why such mindless topics as winamp plugins don't feature on a VJ forum, is because they have fuck all to offer the VJ other than as a Visual background.

You may get excited about your pligins but my audience's reaction is "so what?" accordingly the reactions of VJs is going to be the same.
The forum is comprised of people who exist only as VJs when they play live to an audience, the rest of the time we collect footage/loops and smarts.
Your post insults the VJ, the audience and promotes ACG visuals as the alternitive.
Its clear that you have an interest in visuals on a content generation level, and equally clear that you have no concept of the world of entertainments, The world in which the VJ in some form will always exist.
SO to cover your point.
PLUGINS = stimulating lighting
VJ = visual interaction and memorable content.

The club owner who chooses to play MTV as more entitlement to an honoury label of VJ, than a guy whos visual solution is to generate pretty colours by booting up a computer plugin.

Your whole post in a nutshell.
VJ = continious striving for inteligent impact
Programming plugins = pushing the boundrys of mindless visuals.

you just dont seem to be able to grasp the diffrence.

Traditional VJs cant predict the Yada yada yada,, NO SHIT SHERLOCK, thats what makes it difficult.

Auto CG can't VJ

SO anytime you want to catch up to the reality the rest of us are all to well aware of..
feel free to jump in with a solution instead of condesending misinformed crap!

[wellREDman]

as an ex musician i totally agree that the ones who get paid/laid/respected and/or famous are the ones who who know their audience and play with/for them.
but do dismiss WA avs or any other generic swirly shit is to limit your palette,
i play video loops,
i play swirly shit,
i play swirly shit and video loops,
i play swirly shit under , over , around and inside video loops
whatever feels right according to the crowd, the music, the venue and my mood usually in that order.

[Jorjo]

lmao
Well said red.
Swirly shit is swirly shit even fancy swirly shit.....
Damn usefull for padding.
any VJs here feeling threatened by soundreactive padding?

doubt it.

Why is it ever newbie wants to reinvent the wheel? we all got excited by winamp on day one... ffs is a starting point for many VJs...
why is it every few months and newbie come along and want to tell us all about it all over again?

GIVE ME a sound reactive, realtime version of light wave and maybe ill start to be impressed, (and it will still be clever swirlly shit)

[MoRpH]

I have already contributed to this thread, as well I have to agree with many of *****'s points and all of RED's :cool:

[Rovastar]

Hi again all. There was much chat was said last night (drunk by me) about this issue but for the benefit of those who missed it here are my views on the points made.

OK sorry if I sounded like you lot are wrong or stupid that was not my intention. It is just that as computers get more advanced then the effects get more advanced and this happens at a rapid rate.

The way I see it is that in the old days of VJing people used video clips etc more partly (I know not wholly but for some this is a factor) because computers could not generate detailed images. So obviously more video clips were used. I feel that some people forget the advances the CG world has made. Maybe you do not but I searched the boards for reference to winamp and nothing is really there. I thought that there would be comments on the using some of the latest winamp plug-ins. (Really winamp plug-ins are the most advance I know Sonique and WMP do the same plug-in but they are on a much for basic scale.)

On audiovisualers.com there is a lot of swapping VJ loops etc. They have CDR full of loops for sale, etc. No what I do not understand is why use a loop when you could have a reactive visualization.

Say you wanted a loop of a CG volcano for a background image or whatever. Why do that when you could show say B-plugin probably nearly as detailed and will have nice music reactivity. Why use the other ?static? loop?. This is truly something that I do not understand..

With most of the visualization in the past year they are highly configurable and you can create you own scenes within them so you can personalise them etc. Many have VJ modes and cater for VJ?s now I am not saying you should use them all night necessarily but for mixed with your usual stuff it will enhance the experience surly.

Some of you say that you are aware but there is no talk about checking the latest visualization out on these boards (or you VJ talking on the visualization forums). Let alone creating stuff within them.

Also some of you seem to think the public do not want music reactive visuals this reminds me of an amusing story. Sometime ago now someone posts on the milkdrop forums to say thanks for the products, etc. He said that his mate was in a new (musicial) artist comp in mainland Europe someone the first prize was a record deal, festive dates and a wad of cash, etc so it was a serious thing.

The comp was held in a club with a couple of thousand people there and there was a resident VJ there and other (musical artists) brought there own VJ etc with 1000?s of pounds worth of kit as normal.

Anyway this act just had MilkDrop plug-in running (and an outdated & buggy version at that and I think it wasn?t even configured properly thus give a 0.1sec delay or something). He actually won the contest because he was good no doubt not because of the visuals But in reviews of his music etc they commented that the visuals we very impressive and more so than the other ?professional? VJ ones. Stories like this make me smile.:)

To me I want to give the club goers the best visual stimulation out there. That is my only goal. For me a many other out there sound reactive visuals achieve this. Maybe I am not a VJ and only use the tag because it is what people have heard but I do not know what to class would I do clubwise. Maybe I need to work with you VJ?s to create something truly special.

Consider this: The DJ makes the makes the images are generated by what the DJ is playing so the DJ creates the pretty pictures.

As for feeling threatened ***** mate. I know you are where you want to be but consider this. If I approach a club owner (a club owner that is not a VJ himself though.;)) that, say, has a projector and office PC already there and say to him ?Instead of paying for a VJ every time you want visuals just hit run on this visualization any time. I will give you updates every week of new scenes (10 sec install) and you pay me a monthly fee.?

If a newbie 21 year old VJ wanted to VJ in that club for money they would have to put on a hell of a show. That could be a problem for the traditional VJ community. Do you not think? No matter how you look at it is cheap (cost wise) and quality competition.

Loads of clubs now have projectors playing a (promo) video over and over again as it is cheap it is only a small step up to the next level.

Also you will not need even a fancy PC for this set-up as most of it is run via the graphics card I myself have a G-force 2 MX 64MB which you can by for about 40 UK pounds now (probably even cheaper I do not follow prices often).

I know it will be swirly shit but where would that leave you swirly shit would you not play it anymore.

Oh?I know computers cannot think. But they can give the impression of intelligence just like a computer chess program Use the strengths of the computers and don?t focus on the weaknesses.

Anyway just some more thoughts on the subject. I have more but this is too much typing as it is.:)

[spook]

each unto their own...

[Rovastar]

Oh about the playing to the crowd thing. A artist like APhex Twin does not one bit play to crowd.

What I do not like is DJ's that sell out. We all know DJ's/Artists like that they may be successful but for many true music fans they lose a lot of respect.

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
But in reviews of his music etc they commented that the visuals we very impressive and more so than the other ?professional? VJ ones. Stories like this make me smile.:) And they make ppl that are actually out there VJing in the field taking or creating stuff from a huge number of sources and MIXING!!! it live groan..... obviously they still haven't learnt

Maybe I am not a VJ and only use the tag because it is what people have heard but I do not know what to class would I do clubwise. Maybe I need to work with you VJ?s to create something truly special. yep maybe its something you should look into...... try a collaberation between what they are doin and what you do and BTW if your not mixing live I wouldn't really call it VJing in my personal interpretation of the term so no I wouldn't even put you close to a VJ, a programmer would be more honest and real.....

Consider this: The DJ makes the makes the images are generated by what the DJ is playing so the DJ creates the pretty pictures. Pretty pictures, this shows your missing half the point mate....... who wants a DJ generating swirlies when you can have a VJ mixing live from any number of sources and number of styles of content. Mind you as the analogy b4 of the DJ using an auto mixing MP3 program, ppl want to here a real DJ cut it up, add spice, drop things in, work the decks...... ppl need to see VJs doing similar things to learn to appreciate what we do, just like DJs had to struggle for recognician of what they did in the early days.

As for feeling threatened ***** mate. I know you are where you want to be but consider this. If I approach a club owner (a club owner that is not a VJ himself though.;)) that, say, has a projector and office PC already there and say to him ?Instead of paying for a VJ every time you want visuals just hit run on this visualization any time. I will give you updates every week of new scenes (10 sec install) and you pay me a monthly fee.?

If a newbie 21 year old VJ wanted to VJ in that club for money they would have to put on a hell of a show. That could be a problem for the traditional VJ community. Do you not think? No matter how you look at it is cheap (cost wise) and quality competition.

First that would be a real prick of a thing to do to the VJs that are struggling to find a foot hold in your area, secondly you would be helping the promoter to limit their view of OUR artform to a over simplified random/audio gen cheap parody of real video art, let alone nothing of the PERFORMANCE FACTOR!!! aslo I'm sorry but I'm yet to see anything come out of winamp that I would call "quality competition" compared to most VJs mixes I have seen.

Loads of clubs now have projectors playing a (promo) video over and over again as it is cheap it is only a small step up to the next level.. Winamp maybe a small and easy to make step, but why not help the clubs make a giant leap a head to the real deal of performance VJing???

[eXhale]

The example of competition you give is the one where the promoter doesn't care at all about the visuals and just want to use a projector he bought a while ago. This is the kind of situation that VJs face all the time, and the goal is to show them the value of a real person.

For example I was at a big festival in Spain two weeks ago and all 5 rooms had projections but it was either pure camera or winamp stuff. Out of the hundreds of concerts on the festival, I only saw visuals created by a real person 4 times (and I can tell you that the crowd DID notice the difference!).

By the way, what if the promoter think he has enough scenes / presets and stop paying you the monthly fee for the updates? The computer will have taken your job and considering that the number of clubs in an area isn't unlimited, you'll be in deep troubles :p

[eXhale]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Oh about the playing to the crowd thing. A artist like APhex Twin does not one bit play to crowd. But not everyone is Aphex Twin... :p And his name is well known due to many quality release while yours isn't. (And his music is not computer-generated ;)) Aphex Twin doesn't even need to play with the crowd because he's so famous that people just come to see his person. I remember an interview where he explained how frustrated he was by the fact that, when he DJ'ed, there was always tons of people just looking at him without dancing.

The only VJs who are a bit known by the mainstream -- Coldcut, Hexstatic, etc -- are doing real shows and releasing DVD albums. This will never happen to you if all you do is submit scenes/presets to a local promoter. Not that fame is something we should all look for but a bit of recognition is nice :)

[Rovastar]

Hi all.:)

MoRpH,

I do not think you understand all the these plug-ins can do too. You can interact with them. Not like you can but I can press a key to display a new scene or pictures (video clips I am working on too). Put them over/under the stuff. There is more interaction bew. Or I can just leave them running automatically if I feel lazy. I have done the work at home with the beat reactive alorithms, etc I might even design a scene that work will with one song if I know one that would be played etc.

So it does not have to be all automatic that is what I am talking about with the VJ options in the visualizations.

So I amn sort of a VJ but I am not confortable with the term.

As for the nightclub automatic thing. It would be a prick of a thing to do but if I want to do this full time it is a decent busineess opinion sorry. ANyway would you stop working in your area becuase you are stopping the competetion of up and coming VJ's. I think not.;)

Also maybe I am more interested in creatring visuals than the live mixing. Maybe like someone would creates the records rather than the DJ that plays them. I dunno. :confused:

eXhale,

Some of the crowd think that a live VJ is better some think that CG visuals are better. That is the way it is. That is something we should all remember.

As for the not paying me thing. It would take the form of a license so if they said fuck off then they are not licensed to play them so they could not. ANd besides that the club goes would get board if they notice the same ones too many times and advances happen all the time so a visualation 2 years looks primitive to what they look like now.

[Rovastar]

eXhale,

I disagree with the recognition thing. Already millions of people around the world have Milkdrop on their machines and a chunk of them know who I am.:)

And hell if my product is used loads in clubs and TV etc I will have a lot of recognition.

Please note: The nightclub thing is an idea I have just though off. At the moment I am working on getting more TV stuff sorted out. First project should go live in a about 2 weeks.:)

Edit/ Richard James is famous and not because he sold out and played anthems all night.;)

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
MoRpH,

I do not think you understand all the these plug-ins can do too. You can interact with them. Not like you can but I can press a key to display a new scene or pictures (video clips I am working on too). Put them over/under the stuff. There is more interaction bew. Or I can just leave them running automatically if I feel lazy. I have done the work at home with the beat reactive alorithms, etc I might even design a scene that work will with one song if I know one that would be played etc.

So it does not have to be all automatic that is what I am talking about with the VJ options in the visualizations.

Good to here.... you give me an app that does everything SVi/Resolume/VJamm/etc (including a UI cause full screen sux).... does for free in a winamp pluggin with beat analysis for when I have to go take a piss or scratch my arse..... great, I look forward to it..... until then I'll keep using them, popping in a video when I take a break and leave the swirlies to the lighting ppl


As for the nightclub automatic thing. It would be a prick of a thing to do but if I want to do this full time it is a decent busineess opinion sorry. ANyway would you stop working in your area becuase you are stopping the competetion of up and coming VJ's. I think not.;)

Actually I have helped a number of local VJs get a start in the scene :) there is room....... just not room for brainless automaton swirlies that hold REAL VJs back...... and BTW I have actually weened a couple of ppl of them, mainly they ain't interested in going back once they learn the real art.

Also maybe I am more interested in creatring visuals than the live mixing. Maybe like someone would creates the records rather than the DJ that plays them. I dunno. :confused: Hmmmm thats a bit silly when your talking about beat reactive stuff..... as was said b4 a machine will never beat/mood/style match like a human, if you want to be a content creator go a head and sell your work to VJs (if anyone is interested in BUYING it) to MIX live.

It would take the form of a license so if they said fuck off then they are not licensed to play them so they could not. ANd besides that the club goes would get board if they notice the same ones too many times and advances happen all the time so a visualation 2 years looks primitive to what they look like now. LOL the licence thing is laughable...... try getting that signed in clubland, let alone honored.....

As for the pp getting bored with the same thing....... it already happens to me everytime I see a winamp pluggin :nod:

[murph]

I agree with exhale, people know when there's a human behind it, and they can tell when you're playing new stuff or doing something really interesting. We use winamp and the like in our work, but we use it in interesting ways that don't make all the geeks in the audience go "man, I could do better than that at home!" (which is what made me get into it, with cthugha, the precursor to winamp plugins) It's great for layered background stuff, and I'm absolutely LOVING visualjockey for this, but we usually use resolume and clips in the forwground. We still prefer more abstract style clips while clip mixing, but clip mixing is where the human performance aspect is, and where people will really notice what you're doing. One of my favorite combinations is when we can borrow a friend's MX50, I'll trigger clips on resolume while my partner manhandles them with the mx50. Our best show ever was done this way, with the review "What you trying to do Matt, show up Terry?" (Mullen) Why yes, yes we were... =]

The bottom line is that you have visuals that are just there, and you have VJs, who are performers, and if they're really performing, it'll be in ways winamp cannot. People can watch winamp at home.

I love milkdrop, watch it all the time at home, but it doesn't know when the bass drop is coming, it can't tell the difference between a breakdown and a buildup, and it's not evolving, it's not that much different every week, it gets boring. When I bring different VJs into the club night I book for, every one brings a different style with them every week. That's cool, that's rewarding, milkdrop is not.

The first time you use a video mixer you'll understand. I did too.

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
eXhale,

I disagree with the recognition thing. Already millions of people around the world have Milkdrop on their machines and a chunk of them know who I am.:)

And hell if my product is used loads in clubs and TV etc I will have a lot of recognition.

Wow so firstly your famous amongst the small community of ppl that DL winamp pluggins..... great I'm sure that will translate to huge pull in the clubs (NOT!!) And if it was used heaps in the clubs (although I don't see why they would) and TV how exactly will that recognician (from the general public) flow on to you when all ppl see is the output??? you planning on branding/water marking it all??? the promoters/stations won't buy that champ....

PS excellent points Murph, especially "The first time you use a video mixer you'll understand. I did too" sooooo true :D but for me it was a CVI :)

[Rovastar]

As for the license thing if I have a agreement with a club and then they change there mind. I will find out if they use the s/w. It would not be hard. These clubs are businesses too and I honestly do not think that all of them would risk it. And if the updates are cheap enough it would not be a problem. If it is the cost of one month use idsthe same a a few hours of a 'professional Bruce Lee clips all night' VJ many might take the offer up.

I mean why aren't VJ's in every club because the clubs canot afford it. This could be a cheap alternative.

NAyway it would be like a reletaionship with the clubs hopefully.

I mean if the TV company i am working with at the moment decides to stop paying me for updates legally I can say you cannot display my art anymore. Legally they are at a loss.

People are already interesting in paying for it and I have even asked anyone yet these people have come to me.:)

[KillingFrenzy]

Because I live in a software town, and every 3rd motherfucker out there has a computer that's faster then mine
If I play winamp visualizations a) they'll recognize them b) they'll laugh because they look so much better at home on their flat panel with a full spectrum MP3 then with a line in.
I have found a way to use visualizations, and that's through a Sonique Loader in visualJockey (program). The nice thing there is that I can mess them up sufficiently to not be as recognizable as a "screensaver" and use layer combination techniques to get audio analysis to blend into my other content.
So, I've found a way to integrate some of that...
But hell, I still use tapes. Lots.
Nothing like one time, disposable content. Loops are too easy to get overly attached to. As are visualizations.

Humans were built to recognize and adapt. The brain sort of figures out a pattern and learns to stop thinking about it consciously. Using a visualization is like putting someone on a bicycle. Pretty fun. Showing a movie is like giving them an icecream cone. Mmm tasty, but starts to taste the same after a bit.

My technique is to put them on the bicycle (by doing swirly things and beat reactive backgrounds) and then start feeding them little samples of different types of ice cream (clips.) And, if I do a good job, the ice cream flavor I choose will match the mood of their environment as they pedal along.

Now, do I win the award for most ridiculous VJ analogy of the month?



As "Rowdy" Roddy Piper says;
ALWAYS FORWARD

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
a 'professional Bruce Lee clips all night' VJ

Hahaha I think you just gave away what your really thinking right there.......

[Rovastar]

Not a water mark a popup every 15 minutes they would hardly object to that. I could just have a scene with the name of it in it. More stuble than R2e scenes that would be ok.

Anyway as it is there is a decent enough level of fame for me as it is.:)That is not why I do it - one day you will understand.:)

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Anyway as it is there is a decent enough level of fame for me as it is.:)That is not why I do it - one day you will understand.:) Good cause you should be happy just doing what yoour doing..... as for the "one day you will understand" dig, I already have that under control, no need for your 2cents

[Rovastar]

Originally posted by KillingFrenzy
a) they'll recognize them b) they'll laugh because they look so much better at home on their flat panel with a full spectrum MP3 then with a line in.


Ok people will not recognize the ones that I play.:) Why not tweak the plug-in so it looks different with your own style.:confused:

And there really isn't that much difference with mp3 and line-in with the right configuration you can have a bearly noticeable delay.MAybe 0.02ms. So it is not all that bad.

[Rovastar]

Originally posted by MoRpH
Good cause you should be happy just doing what yoour doing..... as for the "one day you will understand" dig, I already have that under control, no need for your 2cents

Hey I didn't start the "one day you will understand" thintg.:):p

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar


Hey I didn't start the "one day you will understand" thintg.:):p :rolleyes: ones valid, one is just makes you sound arrogant............. over it.

[Rovastar]

arrogant

ummh see I get the impression from most of you here that you are arrogant. 'We are not using that free software, we know what we are doing you are a newbie you know nothing about the scene at all' is what I am reading.....:(

Some of you seem very naive about other stuff out there. :sad:

[KillingFrenzy]

Here's a nasty arguement....

But I'm just going to throw this out there.

Back in the day, I recorded a tape of erm... I think "Jazz" or some other visualization plugin.

I can play that tape, as a backdrop... and most people just assume it actually is going to the music.

So.

When it comes down to it, most people will read visualizations as going to the music, even if they aren't.
Which sort of defeats the purpose, to some degree.
Perhaps this is why I never bothered to put that much effort into them after that.
Sure, you can customize them... but I don't have the money to dedicate a sole computer to one, and the software I use is infinitely more configurable to live interaction.

I think having your art shown in peoples homes, however, is something to be quite proud of. I just think the "automation" aspect of visualizations is probably what raises people's hackles.
MP3 players are pretty amazing these days, they can even crossfade and beatmatch. Do you think DJ's want to hear that. Sure, it might be useful to them... but kind of sucks the wind out of what they do. Now start talking to promotors about replacing them with an MP3 player, and you'll get some gripey DJs.

I think the reason people don't talk about plugins as much here, is that most of them have active forum sites to discuss them on.
We don't really talk about film here, either... and certainly we use that medium. This site tends to focus on those elements of the VJ community that don't have a solid forum.

[KillingFrenzy]

Live sound

Delays:
Capture/or Feed in.
Program delay
Scan converter/TV output on Laptop
Video Mixer
Projector

All those delays add up.
Not maybe too noticeably, but I used to work in production and it seems like about a two frame delay or worse to me. Enough to be irritating on some level.

I usually run soft beat reactive effects, so that what becomes more apparent is the rhythmic nature of them, as opposed to a hard cut.

[Rovastar]

I know what you mean with a tape loop of a vis and people think it is reacting to the music.:) But I think that is more relevant to the older days of plug-ins pre-Geiss days. When the whole screen reacts to the music it is is more obvious. Esp on a big break etc. it is more noticeable. Showing a big break with a just a waveform in Jazz is not that noticable anyway.

On the few times I have done visuals in clubs the really strong movements get teh best response from the crowd.

Although there are forums sites for plug-ins they are really discussed (if ever by VJ's) you sometimes get I am having a party how can I use the visualiztions etc.

So I thought you must talk about them here (the software forum) but you do not. So Visualizations are never discussed. Yet some of you use them sometimes. Film I consider a little different as there are so many films out there compared to the number of visualizations. If a new film came out I cannot imagine anyone wanting to know about it. But a new visualization being released I thought you would want to know about it and discuss the various merits/pitfalls of it.

I mean you talk about visual jockey. Now I have used that be found not enough the sound reactivity so not for me.:)

I feel that some of you here still think of visualization like the old days as that is how many of you started off. And do not realise the advancements that have been made. As none of you talk about it how do you know if something is really good or not?

murph,

'I love milkdrop, watch it all the time at home, but it doesn't know when the bass drop is coming, it can't tell the difference between a breakdown and a buildup, and it's not evolving, it's not that much different every week, it gets boring. When I bring different VJs into the club night I book for, every one brings a different style with them every week. That's cool, that's rewarding, milkdrop is not.'

How do you know the bass drop is coming? This is one of my orginal arguements by the time you have reacted to it the computer will beat you to it.

For the breakdown and build up what about choosing a preset that is suitable for this. There are 2,000+ of them and many respond in very different ways. So you can do more with it.

I can make it look different every week.

Question: So you book VJ's for clubs if a VJ didn't turn up and/or went home ill in the middle of a set would you consider running something like MilkDrop that night or would you have a blank screen.

Of for thiose of you that are interested if you run any WA plug-in for live go to Jaspers (http://home.hccnet.nl/th.v.d.gronde/) and download the input and most importantly output plug-in otherwise you will get a delay when running live.

[eXhale]

Originally posted by KillingFrenzy
Now, do I win the award for most ridiculous VJ analogy of the month?Hahaha you could easily apply for the most ridiculous VJ analogy of the century :p

When it comes down to it, most people will read visualizations as going to the music, even if they aren't.
Which sort of defeats the purpose, to some degree.
Perhaps this is why I never bothered to put that much effort into them after that.
Sure, you can customize them... but I don't have the money to dedicate a sole computer to one, and the software I use is infinitely more configurable to live interaction.Same here, I actually always keep a few tapes of winamp-generated animation and no one notice a difference. I guess it shows the power of imagination :)

[KillingFrenzy]

I think people will use visualization plugins within vJ software...
Best of both worlds.

Several programs have plugin architectures.

If you coded a version for visualJockey that would be great.
Same thing as coding within the winamp architecture, just a smaller user base.

Cool thing is that it would allow access to things like midi control and live video input to be combined with the visualization.

[Jorjo]

I dont get it..
Why is this thread still running?

Std equipment MX50. hit the AV syncro button on a black matt with the mega/mosaic/paint functions and yhe screen is sound reactive before you even feed it a visual...

Rovas whole point is re sound reactive. thats never been that big a problem to create.

Rova, it seems to me that you reclon VJs play porn and brucelee movies.. Perhaps it would be best if you saw a few VJs work for real before you decide that secondrate auto cg is the answer, I agree its better than lamers playing old movies all night, but it clear that you have no experience of the VJs who on the front line.

Im happy to use your new toy,, however Im not prepaired to kid you into believing its more than a smart visuals bed.

BTW you should contact the clubs and sell them premix tapes to replace the DJs too... Its as good and Idea for DJs as for VJs, infact you could put it on a vhs tape with your plugin synced to the beat..

CAUSE LIKE NOBODYS EVER THOUGHT OF IT BEFORE...

except, radio stations, supermarkets, reastaurents, hotels, and the rest of the fuckin industry...

Maybe they just market it wrong.

Good luck.

PS, what colour is the sky in your world?

[Rovastar]

*****


OK let?s look at the facts. Nightclubs already are willing to pay for me to do visuals where I can just stand there doing nothing. If I approached these clubs and said for the cost of one night of me doing this which can be not much you could do it yourself as many times as you want. They would no doubt be interested.

Now I do not know what other club owners you know but in my world the club owners/promoters do not have bottomless pits of cash and are looking to save money where they can. Also many do not see visuals as a needed part of the night esp if costs too much many and it seems many want to ?keep up with the Jones? and have them for solely that reason. Visuals do not put bums on sets?.yet.

Clubs already have lighting and lasers that automatically primitively react to the music. (Hell even my mate who sometimes at weekends is a mobile DJ for weddings etc has cheapy lights and even a cheapy laser that ?move? to the music) And more and more clubs now have projectors in them. So some could see this as the next logical step.

Hell already clubs around already just leave visualizations running.

The way I have sold what I do to these people is to say that look it does not matter what music is playing the program reacts dynamically to what is going off. I let them test this theory by me standing back and them putting on there own records and the limited number I have spoke to are impressed. They did not even have a clue that such things existed.

So I do believe it could work easily. I do not expect for you here to agree with that as it obviously will be counter productive to your careers (well maybe not you established acts but the up and coming ones). It may even ruin the scene.

Anyway I have no plans to do anything like that yet (both cannot be arsed as to me this is a hobby and I feel it will work better when a vis scene in clubs is more established and poach work.;);p) I just wanted throw that idea in the ring. It is just how the scene could change, like it or not.

To use your analogy it has been done before blah blah blah the only people that could approach clubs are people in the plug-in scene currently numbering about 10 in the world. ummh.

In the real world Some VJ's DO play porn and stuff (footage of Sept 11th and stuff too :weird:) in fact the first time I mentioned do visual to a promotor he said what you do video clips of porn and stuff and another said they has problems before because a 'VJ' played this stuff.

Oh at the moment the sky is blue not a cloud in there at all. What colour is the sky in the all club owners are Vj's (and multi millionaires) world?:):p

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
So I do believe it could work easily. I do not expect and of you here to agree with that as it obviously will be counter productive to your careers (well maybe not you established acts but the up and coming ones). It may even ruin the scene. OK so you come here to do what???? to tell us you want to ruin our scene and you don't care about our careers...... bugger off mate. SIMPLE

[Rovastar]

MoRpH

Not at all. Too me there are 2 terms of the word 'scene' in this.

1) VJ'ing live/traditional/manual.
2) Visuals Stimulation to the music for all.

Most people in the world would see them as the same thing. We know they are not.

Now I know that this is a forum for VJ's and I sort of fall in that category whether you like it or not. But also I see this forum for opinion 2 too.

I am also confused at your lack of respect to the plug-in scene. As many/some of you started doing what you are doing because of that. To my knowledge there is only 1 plug-in author that actually get paid to develop plug-ins and he works for Nullsoft. Many of the rest do not make a penny from the scene at all. What makes matters worse are that some clubs/VJ's/promoters use visualizations without giving credit at all. Gordon Williams (a plug-in author (r2,r2e)) originally made his vis shareware and no-one even bothered to register for ?10 to show there respect. His stuff was used commercially around the world. 20,000 ppl Festivals etc, etc.

So from the vis peoples point of view sometimes/some of us see some VJ's as thieving gits/making money of our backs and show a lack of respect.

You take about your careers...... uummh

So you consider it offensive when I have an idea of making money out of all the work I do?

(edit I initially came here to talk to you people about the scene. And taht is what I am doing)

I am not going to disappear just yet anyway.:)

[murph]

Originally posted by Rovastar
How do you know the bass drop is coming? This is one of my orginal arguements by the time you have reacted to it the computer will beat you to it.

I can make it look different every week.


I know when the bass drop is coming because I listen to music. Because I'm smarter than a computer. I'm a dancer at heart, have been for a long long time, and I instictively know when something big is going to change, you begin to have an instinctual feel for it, that can't be programmed. The biggest thing I get messed up on is when I can tell something is about to change, and I think it's gonna get crazier but it gets mellow instead. I hate that. =]

As far as making it look different every week, no you can't. The winamp swirlies do different stuff, yes, but it still looks like winamp swirly stuff. What I mean by booking different styles is that the type of content and style of every VJ I book is distinctively different. Some come with lots of apocalyptical stuff, some with very upbeat imagery, some with very abstract stuff, some with spacey stuff, some with satanic kill yourself and eat your children stuff. All these people play this different stuff in different ways, mix it in different ways, and use different effects. THAT is what makes a VJ and defines his style. If you VJ and decide that milkdrop is your style, that's your perogative I guess, but people who know there is more variety (and care about that) will be looking for more. I don't get paid much as-is, any promoter I'm working with would laugh you out of the club. They know the difference.

I'm guessing you're doing work for a lot of top-40 style clubs, the kinds of places I'd expect this kind of thing, where my girlfriend drags me out and I see they have 3 nice screens and some big screen TVs playing some lame old mind's eye video. I wish those places could afford me too, but I'd charge them extra actually, mostly because I hate their music and their clientel. Some day maybe there will be actual VJs interested in serving those clubs. (maybe you're it)

You say we're brushing you off without knowing what your stuff can do, but we do know, at least I do... I'm watching milkdrop right now, with some presets DL'd from www.milkdrop.co.uk. (most of which aren't as nice as the stock set, IMO) Now what I want you to do is consider our point of view, find a video mixer, and use it, even with just two machines running milkdrop, I think you'll find it gives you whole new dimensions to play with, and a realization of the possibilities which we're exploring every day.

The first rave I used a video mixer at I played video games, luma keyed with Geiss. I let the DJs play tony hawk most of the night while I played with the luma keying knob. I was giddy like a little girl, it was so cool, I just had to keep doing this. A month later I played my first gig with my own video mixer. It's been a hell of a lot of fun since then, but I left the winamp plugins a while back, because they just weren't interesting anymore after a certain point. It's hard to explain, but give it a try, you'll see.

Are you anywhere near the midwest US? I invite you to come to my club, I'll make sure you see what the VJ is doing and maybe get to try out working with a mixer. I'll even invite you to play a night there, or a side-by-side gig with us, we each take a couple screens, see the difference.

You have to understand that what you're proposing is about the same is telling the club owner, "ditch those expensive DJs, I've got a whole book of CDs you can use! I'm sure you've got a cd player back in the office, right?"

[murph]

I see you're also a moderator of that message board and the author of many of the stock milkdrop presets. (many of which are my favorites, props)

[Rovastar]

Actually I have done very little VJ work. But musically the clubs are chillout rooms (downbeat stuff K&D, Quantic, klein records stuff, etc) what me and my mate DJ do and Drum and Bass nights. I am into my music more than I am the visuals even. So I understand the feeling music take and you can guess what is coming next. :):eek:

Now I do not follow drum and bass so I find it more difficult to predict when the DJ will drop the next tune etc. What is played is up to the DJ I cannot see how if you are VJing a scene you do not follow you can effectively beat match etc.

Are you saying you ALWAYS know what sound is coming next? I am not that physic I am afraid.

I have used (played with) a video mixer but sadly not in a club environment. As the promoter ran out of money and the nights stopped.

I know the extra dimension that that gives and it is cool. I am thinking use 'traditional' VJ techniques with computer generated stuff that I am involved in.

Hopefully at AVIT I will work with Red and maybe others to see what we can do.

[Rovastar]

Originally posted by murph
I see you're also a moderator of that message board and the author of many of the stock milkdrop presets. (many of which are my favorites, props)

I run ww.milkdrop.co.uk so everyone can share.:)

I also want to make clear that I did not write MilkDrop Ryan Geiss (creator of Geiss:) and now a winamp employee) did but I work with him in devolping new versions. Milkdrop has changed a lot from when it first came out.

[eXhale]

Visuals do not put bums on sets?.yet.
I think this sums it up! :) Many of us are trying to change this and this will require both the promoters to change their attitude (see our value) and also VJs to improve the quality of their visuals because most of us would admit that a lot of visuals created at the moment are pretty poor. In the past 2 years, since I got interested in VJing, I only saw a few VJs who really blew my mind. (And I have seen a VJ who was obviously using lame samples from porn movies ;)). It's just a matter of opening your horizon I guess.

[Jorjo]

hemm its all gone reasonable thanks to most the calming voice of murph reason.
However i was stuck in the chat room with rova overnight and typed this up,, Itl address his issues accordingly.
.........................
IN THE NAME OFF SWEET SUFFEIN FUCK !!!!!!!
What does it take to get through to this lunitic?

ROVA Last night you where convinced that you could talk SKY into winamp plugins for the blue screens on the radio channels.
like they didnt think of screensavers? DUUUU, BANDWIDTH for swirly shit, FUCKIN brillient idea, lets use up satilight bandwith so people can watch swirly shit on the radio channels, (which BTW would alsio ake it a TV CH and fuck up their licence etc) Another big money plan from ROVA

Win amp is a grown up screen saver. SO FUCKIN WHAT !!!!!!

Heres a few clues as to why your insane.

1 your a 28 year old winamp programmer with no experience of the entertainment marketplace.

2 MTV are kinda market leaders and worth a little bit more than you,,and with a few really fuckin smart cookies on their team. Since neither they or the artists are replaceing music videos with winamp, Id Be GUESSING THERES A FUCKIN REASON FOR IT!!!!!

3 For the first time it possable for a club to have it OWN bootleg Live TV straight to screen, and ALL you want to do is get us back to the fuckin TESTCARD.

4 your whole argument is based on SOUND REACTIVE.... WILL you ever fuck off with the sound reactive shit.. Theres a hundred heaving sound reactive women of the fuckin dancfloor who are more worth watching than your bloody tweeked SCREENSAVER

5 EVERY FUCKER WITH A COMPUTER IS SICK TO DEATH WITH SCREENSAVERS AND 500 million homegrown free WINAMP buttplugs, which is possably why the movie capital HOLYWOOD arnt running scared and havent bought MILKDROP from you to protect the whole fuckin industry.

6 for want of a better discription VJs make one-off movies to go along with the sound track LIVE. Where exactly do you fit in? other than to supply club owners with screensavers?

7 When clubowners can charge people to come see a computer play, youll be worth a fortune, Untill then its about the atmosphere the Talent create. WE are under no threat FROM a bloody laptop.

8 VIDEO DUKE BOX,, big flop, maybe your dream of a MP3 dukebox with fancy screensaver will work some place where they havent heard of reality yet. A video tape or VCD produced by any VJ, including upcomming events and all that toss will be just as marketable as your plugin, with the advantage of not needing a box that by default has an operating system that gives it indigestion. Fuck man, Id throw them into the clubs in your area for free, just incase anybody gets confused and belives your a VJ

9 Creative meaningful content is NOT swirlly shit even if it is sound reactive, An Ugly bastard on a dance floor is soundreactive but that wont make them worth watching.

10 You are singlehandedly good for the bussiness. Everywhere you put your software, is a venue ripe for a VJ to go in and show them how to use YOUR PLUGIN properly. AND The other 99% of it that your all singin and dancin screen saver cant DO. But at least you will have got them going in the right darection.

[i gotta stop with the numbers or ill swamp the board]

SO far your only advantage over your choosen brucelee movie is sound to light.. The crazy part is,, Bruce lee can hold the attention of an audience for an hour and a half, Youd be hard pushed to get anyone to sit down with a case of beer and a pizza to watch 20mins of winamp.... or are you some real special kind of no life freek?

Even the stoooopidist pre newbie VJ here strives to have more impact than that. Just as no DJ worthy of the title would consider hitting the random play button on your winamp with a hard drive full of mp3s to a live audience.

Time for the truth
you spent all this time working on a plugin. and you want to do great things with it....
Guess why it was you that created it?

Cause your the muppet that thought what the world need is another fancy screensaver.
The only person who values it is you.
Everyone of us here has throwen away more relevent content.
Many of us dont even bother recording our o/p anymore because the standard is so consistantly high as to prefer to work fresh each time.

By playing your plugin as a bed, any twit will have improved on it by simply working live over it, SO WHERES YOUR POINT?

FUCK OFF OUT and come back in with a line like "hey guys Im a programmer who made this cool plugin" and you may get a few takers.

But stop thinkin you have a clue about the market.
As long as there are free winamp plugins availabe, the real value of yours is defined,,, WORTH FUCK ALL.

SO get it into your head,,, Its a winamp plugin... YEAH WE KNOW..
BIG FUCKIN DEAL

Plug me 2 beta players and a pair of stage cams into it, point me to the input monitors, show me rotary contols, dedicated function buttons, T bars and a place for me to get MY input up on the screen.. HU? oh It dont need me.. AHHHHH sorry my mistake, I thought this was a VJ forum, Hang on,, I Get it,,,,,, ITS A FUCKING SCREENSAVER FOR WHEN IM AT THE TOILET. COOL, man thanks shit it will even give me time to swing by the BAR.

HINT WWW.SCREENSAVER.COM Go hang out there for an eon or two.

Since theres usually one muppet a month
I vote Rova for the title... MR AUGUST

[Jorjo]

I still think Rovas the best stress relief a VJ can get (espesially when you up all night rendering)

[Rovastar]

FFS what is your problem *****. The SKY thing was something that as I doing another music channel on SKY I thought it would be nice to have something anything there rather than a blank screen. Can you not see that?

It was a drunken chat and it was just an idea I fully know that I may not be able to convince them or I might not even try. But it an idea.

Fuck off with you pissing taking about me trying to stuff ? I told you because I though you might understand how wrong I was

From a technical point of view bandwidth etc is getting cheaper all the time and maybe now it is not feasible but in a few months it may be there are nearly a 1000 channels there I don't think 1 or 2 more will make a difference. I keep my options open.

I am a technical person ad I know the cost of bandwidth and it would be fuck all to someone like sky for this scenario. They have multiple sky active channels which display all sort of stuff. They cost is not that much of an issue. It may have been once but in today market place it is not all that mucjh at all. Maybe you needed to read up a little mate. 'Oh they have the Internet on computers now do they' - Homer Simpson.

I hoped we are all on the same side here. Creating visuals to go with the music and enhance the musical/club experience.

No matter what you think of what I do some people do like it. And for me it is better than having no visuals at all.

I want to help advance visuals and peoples awareness. Maybe you do not. I think am doing this. Foolish people who thing all my stuff is a screensaver is like say you just play a video all night.

Ok no experience of a marketplace does not mean I do not know about it. I am a punter too you maybe need to step back and think what do people want. Some people have never seen swirly shit like this and just naturally presume it is like plug-ins were 5 years ago.

I was surprised that many here dismissed what I do as not useful.

OK you create meaningful content etc I am more involved in the technology size. If we work together we get better results can you not see that.

With your shopping card example if that was music reactive moved frames forward or backward to the (intelligent) attenuation of the bass say that would enhance the viewing experience. I think it would look better than running a static film clip. You could use normal you name effects as well butt his surely can only make it better. Or maybe you want to live in the past. Maybe it is time you let the next generation take over.

The plug-in community is more likely to be able to make something like this viable. I am not you cannot do this but no-one seems that interested in that side of it.

'500 million homegrown free WINAMP buttplugs, '

I know you are just trying to make a point but hardly anyone makes plugins this year about 3 new visualization have been come out this year. Not everyone has them and new stuff does not come out that often. A lot of club goers may not know one end of a computer to another.

Also because they are free it seem to think they are not worth will I know Katascope has give up writing WA plugins because VJ?s do not class even the quality ones as professional. ??? Yet if it was to cost x pounds then it would be more respectable I do not understand this. You do not want decent free resources. :confused:

When I have done stuff in a club people go ?wow what is that?. ?Not I am bored of that.? Works better still in a chillout room when everyone is getting stoned.:)

LOL screensavers your set is probably more like watch Tv with the sound down and music playing.

Also I find you comments confusing as you also appear to insult and VJ?s out there that use music reactive CG stuff in the set.

I think we are on the same team (apart from the tacky porn boys that can actually stop gigs being made) it is just we have a clash (understate of the year award) of styles that is all. I want every nightclub to have visuals and I want people to go to the clubs for visuals as well as music have an experience.

I think what I do is relevant and how I apply my talent. And helps the advancement of the scene.

(edit: Sorry for forcing you at gunpoint to stay in the chatroom the othernight.:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: )

[Jorjo]

Originally posted by burstingfist
A true master uses what is available. He doesn't need any of this bullshit. A true master needs just a knifesand some celophane to produce the shit that blows yer mind. The tools are just a medium for cerebral mastery...




:D Hu? Skin me one up !!

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Also because they are free it seem to think they are not worth will I know Katascope has give up writing WA plugins because VJ?s do not class even the quality ones as professional. ??? Yet if it was to cost x pounds then it would be more respectable I do not understand this. You do not want decent free resources. :confused: I said I would like to see it above...... but I want to see something that can both play clips in the way I can @ the mo with current software (with a good UI) and something that can do generative 3d.... I'll personally try to steer clear of the swirlies cause that ain't my style but of course we want good free software but it has to be able to do what others already can, as you can see generative stuff isn't really that important to most of use because we enjoy the input we have without it, which isn't to say we wouldn't use it if it was there..... simply put different ppl prefer different software.

As for basically putting a bunch of real life live mixing VJs out of work simply to sell your little plugins (swirlie or not) is anti what this community is about, maybe if you ran somethreads about what ppl would like to see winamp be able to do, etc... then you might get somewhere... were not righting the platform of as a whole (some of us keep an eye on things) but we don't think there is currently anything that is a complete trade in for some of the great VJing software out there.

As for swirlies Vs clips, I can catagorically say from every punter I have met in a club or party, Clips = (mostly)good, Clips with some swirles = Good too, Swirlies by themsemlves = Boring.

Also thanks to the swirly crap out there that has been used by ppl to fill screens maybe winamp has a bad wrap/cred in the VJ world maybe if you were to do a full VJ mixing style pluggin you would package it seperately or in a way that ppl will refer to it in an independant software sense rather than as a winamp pluggin..... just ideas to help acceptance mate, those are the facts.

[Rovastar]

I don't understand why not have another computer running winamp to go with your other computer/2 vcrs, video cameras.etc,etc. You have a lot of kit this is just another feed in.

See it as another source.

They are not your a style that is ok.

About the veiwpoint of the punters will most people I have spoke to have a totally different opinions to the people you have.

The last gig I went too before even considering doing it maybe was a Warp records duo in London. Brand new venue Ocean in Hackney. lovely tech for displaying visual. Now they had a VJ I presume.??? but most of the clips were one at a time.

I asked people I got talking too what they prefer and the repetitive clips of a tyre rolling down a hill they were like what is the point in that boring. The CG stuff only a couple of scenes but used a few times and were from a swirly CG point of view only ok clips IMHO. The reaction to them was oh I like that scene.

I asked what do you think of that big screen. No leading question. And remember I has never VJ'd and didn't know these people before and only played on my computer .

I admit the Vj was probably shit (hardly any 'mixing' as such) but it was a high-ish profile night with big acts in a 2000 capacity club.

So not all people think fancy swirly stuff is nonsense.

Maybe the ratio of video clip to reactive swirlly stuff is 60:40 in for video of 70:30 or 80:20 etc but not everyone wants to see it. And as swirly stuff gets more detailed and more advanced maybe more will like swirlies. (LOL WTF am I using your negative terminology) The point is some people do prefer it.

But obviously combining the 2 is the main objective for ultimate result IMHO.

I think some of my stuff for swirly stuff is pretty good but I want to make better stuff too.

Also I would like to thank murph for downloading and studying Milkdrop rather than dismissing it totally.

Are there any effects that you find interesting / worthy even. As I would be interest to know as to what style of this swirly style you think is best and different to what is out there in the VJ scene at the moment. And I will focus on creating more scenes like this.

And thanks for the invite but in the UK but hopefully I we see what some of the best the UK has to offer at that thing in Leeds this forum is doing.

Sadly most promoters do not know the difference from the advance swirly stuff and a clip VJ. I ones I spoke to did not have a clue.:) You forget how many fools are out there in this industry it?s not just *****.:)

[Jorjo]

A good point morph

rova if you can write sound active plugins, why not consider taking them beyond winamp and have them stand alone with the controls we crave?

Like stupidly simple things such as a gain that is effectivly brightness/contracst but wont fade the blacks, lumanince to die for and chromas that are adjustable in layers. even a winamp style playlist for loops?

And before you pop a blood vessel,
Untill you climb off your opening comment of WHY TRADITIONAL VJs Wont work, Your standing in my opinion is still kinda low.

If you want a clue as to why winamp dont cut it... Check out moonster. although diffrent it a better way of solving our problems..
Now if you can combine your plugins whit something like that, and include s/a 3d minipulation and a/cg backgrounds into something like it. I will personally contact sky on your behalf & make an ejit of myself trying to sell your idea based on any such product.

[Rovastar]

Originally posted by MoRpH
Also thanks to the swirly crap out there that has been used by ppl to fill screens maybe winamp has a bad wrap/cred in the VJ world maybe if you were to do a full VJ mixing style pluggin you would package it seperately or in a way that ppl will refer to it in an independant software sense rather than as a winamp pluggin..... just ideas to help acceptance mate, those are the facts.

Yeah I guessed it had a bad wrap/cred. I think this is unfair though.

I was aware that much of the time I try not to use the term wianmp plug-in as it does sound cheap. Yet to dismiss them as much of the VJ scene has done is counter productive.

Ummh you see this as 'I' should change to help you guys get better visuals and more work (is what it boils down too) yet you by your defination don't want to change you habit and look at all the stuff that is available.

I also presume you also not want to dispaly something that someone might have at home the vis might be recongised and you think that your cred will be damaged. AM i right?

[Rovastar]

Originally posted by *****

Untill you climb off your opening comment of WHY TRADITIONAL VJs Wont work, Your standing in my opinion is still kinda low.


Ok I admit I did that opening line to again extra effect and get a response. Look at the thread before I joined it no-one was interested in even talking about it really sometimes you have to say something controversial to get a reaction. Well I did that.:)

The wording ofthat line could have been better but I thought fuck it see what they say they don?t appear to know the advances that have been made. Visuals are not like 3 year old plug-ins.

Sorry if I offended anyone. But you must admit there are things the plug-ins can do that a human cannot in reactive ways. Sorry to go on about but that is part of my point. These reaction stuff writing algorithms to work out what the music is doing can look very effective and certain thing can look different. This is something the new plug-ins allow you to define as most of them are preset based now and people can add there own twist to it that the author did not think of. That is mainly what I do.

I was surprised at the lack of talking about the subject and a bit offended. No comments generally mean I don?t use that crap. Yet there are getting more advanced ? I admit still swirly. But the swirl stuff is getting better and I presumed that you at the cutting edge of visuals for the masses would talk about the subject a lot. Wow have you seen this (ok maybe not wow but at least an active interest I thought you should have know what MilkDrop is already (it is over a year old from the orginal version) you lot are the into the scene (of audio/visuals) ) even if you do not use it in your set. Although some you claim to use them as a filler. So I though there would be more chat about it.:confused: sorry:(

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
I don't understand why not have another computer running winamp to go with your other computer/2 vcrs, video cameras.etc,etc. You have a lot of kit this is just another feed in. Sorry but I actually like to try to use a smallish live rig and I'm not going to waste an extra laptop on having it run the video equivalent of a lighting wash....

[Rovastar]

:( well the more you limit your opitions the more you limit your set.

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Ummh you see this as 'I' should change to help you guys get better visuals and more work (is what it boils down too) yet you by your defination don't want to change you habit and look at all the stuff that is available. I'm not asking you to change anything, but if you want to contribute to the existing community then you would do well to familiarize yourself with what is already out there, if you want ppl to use something you make to replace something they aready have. I thought you were interested in a challenge of making your stuff more live VJ friendly *shrug* if not why did you bother offering

I also presume you also not want to dispaly something that someone might have at home the vis might be recongised and you think that your cred will be damaged. AM i right? Hmmmm I don't like the way the swirly shit looks simple, as for something they might have @ home, as soon as you start putting layers over the top of your video wash (swirlies) its already more..... so no I don't really give a shit, do you think I care if someone recognizes a video sample I might use???

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
:( well the more you limit your opitions the more you limit your set. yes there are downsides to having smaller rigs, but thats why I'm saying why not integrate it with another more VJ focused app, as it is obviously only one aspect of what ppl are looking for.

[Rovastar]

I understand what you mean Morph but it is also a chicken and egg thing.

If when MilkDrop or whatever was first released a professional VJ said this is not bad but can you do it with XYZ then maybe.

But with no demand there is no need to create something new for a small market place.

I figured that pro VJ's would want to simply have it as a feed first.

I am more interested in making the visualizations do a couple more Vj jobs within itself rather than intergrating with the current stuff out there.

Remeber it is a free product and all the work I put into it is my free time. So as I said to do this to help everyone else out and make money I feel I do my bit already. It esp makes me less motivated as many professional VJ's class plug-ins like ***** veiwpoint and they are (and me) are worth nothing/waste of space. It does not exactly inspire me to do something for free for you. Esp as you CAN easily use it as another feed (and do not!). DO you see my poiint here?

Surely companies like VirtualJockey should look at generic WA plug-in support. As they produce a product that you pay for and instantly you have a whole world of extra swirlies.

Also you lot talk about laptops :confused: I use the full PC as the graphics cards in laptop are so out of date and you obviously can upgrade the PC GFX cards too. Do people here just use laptops. I know it is more to lug around but the detail of the real time generated stuff world be too poor for what I want.

[MoRpH]

Originally posted by Rovastar
I figured that pro VJ's would want to simply have it as a feed first.

I am more interested in making the visualizations do a couple more Vj jobs within itself rather than intergrating with the current stuff out there.

Remeber it is a free product and all the work I put into it is my free time. So as I said to do this to help everyone else out and make money I feel I do my bit already. It esp makes me less motivated as many professional VJ's class plug-ins like ***** veiwpoint and they are (and me) are worth nothing/waste of space. It does not exactly inspire me to do something for free for you. Esp as you CAN easily use it as another feed (and do not!). DO you see my poiint here?

Yep but as I said *shrug* I'm only talking from a personal stand point and there prolly are ppl out there that are interested in doing that..... me, I only have 2 laptops and not planning on another for quiet some time, I'm not really going to sacrifice the functionality I have in other softs for a generative program that doesn't have other features I need. If you wanna do it, do it or don't if you think its not worth it.... piss or get off the pot.

Surely companies like VirtualJockey should look at generic WA plug-in support. As they produce a product that you pay for and instantly you have a whole world of extra swirlies. Thats a good point and I do think they have a sonique plugin player, a winamp one would be good too, but VJo has its own bad points that are covered elsewhere on this board (an I might had have STILL not been fixed, inspite of a promise :( aaahhhh oh well I continue to wait)

Also you lot talk about laptops :confused: I use the full PC as the graphics cards in laptop are so out of date and you obviously can upgrade the PC GFX cards too. Do people here just use laptops. I know it is more to lug around but the detail of the real time generated stuff world be too poor for what I want. Desktops/Laptops...... do a search its all been covered, I moved on from luggin towers to gigs years ago..... what ever the GFX card

[LEVLHED]

With a thread this long about a subject like this, I'm not sure I could add anything new to whats already been said, but I think I'll try....
Wonder why we don't have a whole forum here discussing winamp plugins? What is there to discuss?
You send sound in, it spits out "video", you click through/tweak presets...and what else?
We can go on and on about the asthetic merit of using stuff like this...thats good reading, but what else is there to talk about?

There is a place in the VJ world for "soud-reactive blobbly swirly shit"...its eye candy and many punters may WANT that, it also serves as a good starting point for aspiring VJs, but from my point of view there's really nothing to talk about here!
It does what it does, does a fantastic job at it, it can be a useful tool, but on a relative scale there's nothing for a VJ TO DO! So I don't see what we could talk about that isn't already discussed on other forums (forums that any interested VJ is smart enough to goto on their own)...other than "plugin Blah v2.x released today"

I think this thread has been beat to death....please prove me wrong and say something that HASN'T been said yet...

[murph]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Also I would like to thank murph for downloading and studying Milkdrop rather than dismissing it totally.

Are there any effects that you find interesting / worthy even. As I would be interest to know as to what style of this swirly style you think is best and different to what is out there in the VJ scene at the moment. And I will focus on creating more scenes like this.

I like the real geometric stuff, the stuff with a lot of depth to it, like Harlequin's Dynamic Fractal, A matter of taste (remix), Harlequin's Delight, Omnipresence Resurrection (love that one), Geiss's Swirlie 3. That's the kind of stuff I make in my own work, so of course it follows that that's the style of plugins I like as well, but if you want to know, those are my favorites.

One thing I'd like to mention that becomes a barrier for us in using your software in our work, is just that it's too detailed. We're working with video resolutions, and generally would be capturing something like that into another program at 320x240, which makes all those nice detailed lines look like ass. A Visualjockey plugin would help me a lot, the sonique one is cool, but none of those are as nice as milkdrop. We could mix it in the hardware mixer on another channel, but whether coming from a tape or a laptop, svideo res is still the best we'll see, which is like 480x480 at most. Still makes nice neat little lines look like poop. We can't ask you to make the lines thicker or something, that'd take away from it considerably.

as for laptops - my Dell inspirion 8200 is playing milkdrop quite nicely at about 50% cpu util. It's got a geforce4go in it. No problems. =]

[Rovastar]

Thanks murph it is always nice to know what other think. Esp. other visual expects like we have here.

:eek: You cannot use more then 480x480 :confused: I just presumed the you could use up to 1024x768 XGA as that is what most projectors run at and I presumed the mixers worked under the same. (personally I wanted projectors that run at 1,600x1,200 as I can easily create the visuals (just tweak the config setting) to run at this res and the bigger the image (via projector, etc) the more you lose in depth.

Cannot your mixers have an input of anything more than about 480x480 or am I missing something here?

Displaying at anything lass than a high res is ugly.....

LEVLHED

Not much to say as we have had 70 post already.:)

I never expected a whole forum but I expected maybe the odd post.;);p

I see what you mean about what you could talk about here but when the original subject is why dismiss them there was no real comments. The other forums about this swirly stuff no VJ talks about it. You talk about all the rest of the VJ software here (it is the software forum) and some of you use just eye candy. I was a little surprised.

I know three is nothing/little for the VJ to do but surely part of you job too is to create the best visual experience possible is it not?

Maybe the cred of such things has been ruined by kids who run downloaded AVS presets through Winamp and call themselves a VJ. Therefore you frown on such things dunno. I don?t feel that I fall into that simplistic category.

Of some of that has been said before.;)

[eXhale]

Originally posted by Rovastar
Cannot your mixers have an input of anything more than about 480x480 or am I missing something here?

Displaying at anything lass than a high res is ugly...

I think murph meant 640x480 or whatever NTSC resolution is.

And no, only the high-end mixers accept XGA or above. I don't think it makes much difference to the punter, most of the time the real problem in clubs is to have the image bright enough because of all the lights and fog. Some will say that "chunky is funky" :D but anyway there has already been lots of debates on this issue :)

[KillingFrenzy]

I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't seen anyone using visualizations in a club for a while. The clubs don't really own projectors, and when they have one, they tend to want someone running it more actively. When they do want to spend $5000 to run trippy light patterns, they just spend it on lighting that takes care of the whole club.

The closest thing to a visualization situation I've seen lately was my downstairs neighbors Superhero party last week. I saw that they were just going to play mp3s with a vis plugin, so I brought down a couple of monitors to put on either side of the computer and gave them a stack of Marvel comics videos. Guess what everybody talked about?

Another reason I don't use too many vis plugins is that I'm actually trying to be businesslike about software. Which is to say I've shelled out good money for programs like visualJockey (watch morph's face pucker.) If I spend enough time and effort within it, I can get some nice sound reactive swirly lovin' goin' on and I can tweak it realtime with midi. This means I don't have to buy vis software seperately or worry about rights issues.

I often play shows where the promoter has reserved exactly one round small table in a crowded club for me to setup gear. I can't afford the space of another laptop in these situations.

I'd love it if clubs had permanent installs of vis plugs with projectors and the VJ just came in to do a set. That would make me happy. To some degree I think the failings of the VJ in terms of providing a good concise energetic set are due to the burnout factor of playing for 6 hours. I can do it as well as anyone, but I know my audience and myself would probably get a better jolt out of a good 2hour concentrated effort.

I'm going to take a break from serving ice cream and develop another analogy here as far as production levels go.
Visualization software is in a lot of ways the Michael Bolton album of the visual world. Now, if you were seperated from society, and happened on a nice CD of Michael Bolton's "Time, Love, and Tenderness" you'd listen to it and think how really crisp and clean and great it sounded played on your big Mackintosh amp and good Dahquist Speakers. Listen to those mids, hear Curtiss Steigers hit a high note on the saxophone. Man is that tasty.
Now, in the real world, Michael Bolton albums get played in supermarkets, Dentist's offices, and Public Transportation. You get sick of them. The production value is there, but what do they have to say? When Michael sings "When a Man loves a Woman" is he really thinking about anything but his own pretty hair?

A good VJ is like a Suicidal Tendencies tape. It may not sound good at home on the big system; because of all the pops and hiss, and the waver of the section where it got caught in your friends car and you had to untangle it. But if you listen to it on your walkman on the bus to work, it cuts through all that other noise.

[Jorjo]

Rova..
You have talkied me into a bit of research.

The only plugin Iv found thats doing anything near the mark is Quarkamp.

The rest where buggy and pure shite for a totally diffrent reason than the content.

The computer im working on is finly ballanced between working and crashing, the reason for this is the full functionin dual desktop config that suits Media player dumps and other softs i use.
All most all the plugins need to be reconfigured to run (many just fuck it up) the only one Ive found yet that can auto distinguish between one monitor in 3d and one std was Quarkamp vis v0.2 with its dancing 3d objects.
My point being. my system isnt std. and if the plugin cant adapt to any system (where Quark could) then the plugin is simply limited and usless on the road.
SO if the pluging only work on a basic config.. Forget it VJs computers can be a tad strange

[wellREDman]

iguess there is loads to talk about on this topic after all,
for me the a better analogy to how i use vis is like the drums in a music composition,
a low level constant onto which to layer further levels of video, but which flows through and under the hooklines and melodies and can be cut back to in breakdowns etc. as such what i look for in a vis is for it to be easy to set up and go and not require any attention beyond setting up a bunch of presets which fit with the style of the event.
there has been a constant lighthearted arguement between me and another vj in my crew, AtomX about our choices of vis, he prefers the oldshool gforce type vis cause he thinks the audio responsiveness is most important whereas I prefer AVS cos it can create a lot more varied types of stuff, from spacy swirlies to more abstract geometric stuff which makes it more useful in tuning the visuals to the event, and also for me the audio responsiveness is less of a priority as what i want is a moving texture to use.
on the resolution front the reason all we want is 720x576(pal) is that we are using second hand or old technology video mixers, and it will be a while before the technology trickle down gives us anything better...
I downloaded milkdrop and was really impressed, it seemed to have the responsiveness of gforce with the variability of range of gforce.(AtomX liked it to)
I tried it out at a show last night but it didn't agree with our show machine, it was really fast on the main display bt when dropped to a quarter speed in the dual head output of our G400,
we tried tweaking but to no avail ,I still used it cos it was nice to use new textures but AtomX gnashed his teeth..

[katascope]

I've been providing visuals for rave/events (with custom software written in C/C++) for about six years now, and have learned a little about what most promoters want, what's being used, and the current paradox:

1) What's needed : Most promoters don't care if you are using live visuals or pre-generated. Most promoters don't care if they are sound-reactive or some guy flipping the cross-fader. They also don't care if you made/wrote them, or ripped them from someone else. Those things are personal to each vj.

Promoters want :

Non-repetitive Big Colorful Hypnotics
To put "Eye-popping visuals" on the flyer.
Visuals that match the groove/vibe(and hopefully the music)
To have you put "text"(names/times/etc) on the screens.


2) What's being used.

Crap - Put in a tape, hit play - You are a VJ!

Video cue-boys - VJ's who have a pre-set, pre-sequenced range of clips to be played on the director's cue. These vj's appear mostly in theatre.

Video scratchers - VJ's who favor pre-generated clips, and mixing them in/out on the fly and changing their speed. These vj's appear mostly in clubs.

Video generators - VJ's who favor realtime cg effects, usually sound-reactive. These vj's appear mostly at rave/concerts.

3) The current paradox:

Right now both VS VJ's and VG VJ's have the same problem - Six hours is a long time to adapt to the sound without getting repetitive. Both types of VJ's must have a huge library of effects they can call on. Eventually even that won't be enough.

The paradox is how to create complex rich worlds instantaneously. No-one has solved this. The reason is the complexity of a 3d scene. We don't know how to create a truly new world in less than 2 seconds. We can cue up a video, change the parameters on the generators, but neither type of vj can actually create something new. We can have worlds created by rapidly filling in a template, but that won't last long either (see following quote)

The result? Both video clip and video generator vj's will run out of footage, or be unable to put up an appropriate display at times, and the crowd will get bored.

Until we can deal with that paradox, video clip versus video generator holy wars are completely useless to both sides.

A quote - (Godel, Escher, Bach : p 621)

"You get bored with something not when you have exhausted its repertoire of behavior, but when you have mapped out the limits of the space that contains its behavior"

A good vs vj with lots of good clips can delay that effect - but eventually people will realize the vj is just playing clips and there is a limit to what can be done.

A good vg vj with good software can also postpone that effect - but eventually people will realize the software can't simulate the entire universe and there is a limit to what can be done.

Obviously software that incorporates both techniques would be best, but that would be declaring peace and everyone seems to think this is a holy war.

The real war is against the 2 second barrier. The best vj's look at that first, and vs/vg issues second.

And yes, watching cg sound reactive visuals for an hour is kind of sad(unless you are vj tweaking), but watching pre-generated video for an hour is called "a movie", and I'm sorry, but VJ's are nowhere even close to DJ's when it comes to mixing techniques for pre-created media.

[burstingfist]

Originally posted by katascope

The result? Both video clip and video generator vj's will run out of footage, or be unable to put up an appropriate display at times, and the crowd will get bored.

Until we can deal with that paradox, video clip versus video generator holy wars are completely useless to both sides.


I agree that the "either or" mentality is not the only one possible. VJing is just another form of artistry. Like most artists, they too use many different types of tools to create what they envision. Sometimes you might use some sort of sound reactive widget, another time you might use a bunch of clips, and another time you just play a VHS tape. There is no right or wrong answer. The bottom line is humans are not God, and are not able to create anything remotely as amazing as the reality in which we live. Even the best cameras and CG cannot capture the look and feel of a natural setting.

Tools are good, use tools, but don't let the tools use you...

[Jorjo]

I'd settle for anything that even looks NEW

Heres a daft thought for the programmers
How about Rehashing some of the old shit with modern machines
such as.. Liquid walled tunnel that arrives at a full screen [loaded with a clip] then pulls back turns, then fucksoff down the next liquid tunnel to the next screen, I dunno say in a chamber with the screen embeded in an object..
Ok it id be boring quickly, but it would still be a clip loader an if it had winamp walls????
Im thinkin a playlist and looping of clip till ya hit the move on button, anyways if it lands on a screened clip that comes up to full screen size normal mixing can continue externally (ok so Im a desk jock who uses a puter too)
But recently Ive noticed many club tunes are bangin then dependin on the mix, they just stop and balls about without a beat (the bit that has ya yellin NOT AGAIN n diving for francis ford capolia or sunset clips) At that point it would be handy to mix back to the puter and hit the "fuck yee" button and drop of into a lazy swirl towards the next clip with an "Arrive bitton for when the beat decides to put in an appearance again.
I ask yee.. two buttons "play clip" and "mess about between"
If it can be done,,,, I have a name for it "emergency use only"
Besides Im sick to death of frickin tunnels that go no place,, It would be novel in its self to arrive somewhere even once........

[Rovastar]

Originally posted by eXhale
Some will say that "chunky is funky" :D

To me that is like saying you prefer ugly woman.:);):D

*****,

You will not believe this but I downloaded QuarkAmp (I have so many plug-ins but not this one. :o ) but it did not work just killed WA and screw my desktop res all up. Couldn't fix it either. SO I cannot comment on what it is like I just know it is over 2 and half years old.

I think the set-up of machines is just swings and roundabouts.

Red,

I honestly didn't know that most of you only have mixers that do that res. :( That is shame.

I am surprised as you use plug-ins you had not come across things like Milkdrop before (there are a few others that are probably worth a look too). Shame that it is slow though. :eek: :( Maybe we can get that fixed for you soon.:)

Oh I understand AtomX's frustration about the slowness and lack of responsive things. Grrr :)

Kata,

Hi there mate, welcome to the mix. It is nice to have more viewpoints from the other side of the fence.:)

A pretty good summary on what the scene is like at the moment.
A pretty good summary on what the scene is like at the moment.

Peace............never.;):D

*****,

Sometimes the things we create are rehashed versions of the old styles with the new technology/effects. Ben MArsh (Tripex) has doing some lovely old school spectrum analyzers effects with a new modern twist in Tripex 3.IMHO

But maybe not enough.:)

Tunnels. :)

I am unclear as to actually what you mean by what you describe due to the very nature of describing animations in word more than anything (I have given up trying to describe what screens look like). ......

I know some (most) tunnels can be boring (they do not hold my interest for too long either) but some people really like them and are still used today for new stuff (Ryan Geiss - Monkey currently in beta mode - a bit like rehashed tunnel of old styles) but people seem to really like them still. :)

[BrainStove]

Well, now it?s time you?ll have to bear the beating of my words too...

First at all everybody is Right and everybody is WRONG, so no winners so far and never will... case closed!

2.- According my point of view only WellRedMan & lately KataScope are showing the most smart, clever, focused, concise, synthetic, conclusive and open mind opinions/facts about the topic.
WellRedMan with his brilliant (and short) 1st post on this thread about to the limit your palette/playing swirly shit under/over/inside/outside/around/along/beside video loops remark and KataScope warning the uneludible fact to run out of enough new/fresh visual material to avoid your audience get bored of you too soon. That sound to me very similar to the discussion about the DVD-DJs on my other thread... Hmmmmm!!

3.- Just think about this facts: if you wish/want to make a lot of money VJing or achieve your Artistry Ambitions/Recognition fulfilled in the VJ world... FORGET ABOUT THAT, first cuz on the money side you would have to get booked everynight "on different places each night" (to avoid repetition) and even so you?ll have exhausted your visual library and the most of your visual repertory during the first week of the run without earn enough money to justify that effort, and even worse how to make/take time to get/create new material (remember VJs usually do all their stuff alone and you are VJing everynight so a fair 8 hrs sleep time is left every morning to start all over again) and you still have the problem of how to avoid the usual punters/clubbers everywhere (for sure the same underground tribe around) don?t get bored and accuse you are playing the same shit everytime they see you and sending to the hell of course your next contracts from the same promoters too.

Curiously there are some interesting scientist facts worth to comment here about how the Ear-Eyes-Brain connections equation are done that could lead to understand better our reality; there are a huge differences about how the human being feel/process/storage audio/sound and visual stimulation on memory... well I wont go to explain that issue here, but I think is clear to everyone that on the boring scale meter there is a "50 vs 1" relationship about that, meaning that you are gonna hear/resist the same Song/DJset 50 times more for each one of the same Movie/VJset before you?ll get bored to death because the absence of novelty and BrandNew no memorized data stimulation.

On the Arty/Recogn side of the equation; you as a VJ are not a MovieMaker/FilmMaker or big Director/Producer with a huge distribution chain behind you to show/sell your "VJ Movie" all over the world from your original home made master piece. Even more, on the Raves if you dont get the screens centered just above or pretty near centered on the stage where the DJs are playing, I bet 80% of the crowd even wont know there are visuals at all on the party (swirly or not), due the flashy lights go blind to everyone and as most of you know, every punterfreak already comes to the party with his/her own chemical movie inside them.
So clearly our work is not to be seen on a Cinema where the audience indeed come to focus on content and clever storytelling skills, because that is the purpose of those more calm down places to get meaningful visual input.
Unfortunately our real work (where each one of us are booked for) always is attached to the music (Live Bands/Raves/Clubs/Parties/Etc.) and only as a companion EyeCandy ornament of the true protagonist, the Djs/Musicians music makers people.

4.- Yeah, of course all of us could be doing VideoArt stuff, Video Installations, Video Sculpture, Experimental work, etc. but aimed probably to Museums/Film Festivals sort of audience and without earn a penny of your Artistry/Scientist/BusinessMan/Whatever efforts you put on that. So forget about that because it is not relevant to VJs issues neither the scope of this thread.

5.- Ok, maybe some of you are not aware that you are not trying to impose your point of view each other (whatever your side of the controversy is), but you are trying instead to impose your taste (a hard thing to do), because due the very individual/subjective nature of that, there is no chance to achieve any agreement about it... So how the hell any of you are going to explain to me the Taste/Flavor of the Peach specially when I never in my life ate a peach before, can you understand that?

6.- People like Rovastar, *****, MoRpH and some others rebels, controversial, conspicuous ,inquisitive, inquiry minds, anticonformist guys are the people I like and love to know everytime, people who dont scare to be alone against the world spitting out their thoughts & beliefs until they can digest enough info to change their minds or at least open wider and plenty their scope, just experience can do the magic... remember that said "More knows the devil for old than for wise?"

Do you remember ***** your recent position/situation on the Briefcase VJ thread?... that?s the way man, keep all of you of the same way and keep the world rolling, only rebel people can do it... Cheers to DaVinci!!!
Only I would like to have seen any useful post from VjAnyOne NE1 on this thread far beyond of his Vectors little world... sorry pal, just pulling out a tiny spine out there.

Well enough for now, as you know is not any candy to me to spit out in english all this deeper Topics/Thoughts but I?ll try to do my best anytime.

P.S. Oh Yeah, no confused/worry emoticons were used in my post neither smiley faces were used... nothing to smile about.

[Jorjo]

Its is an idiot who paints himself into a corner...
Its a bigger idiot who designs a system that can erase its self.
But it takes a whole damn population to vote that system as the worlds most popular operating system.

Ironic.. We are expected to show the world visual poetry when the reality is the Blue screen of death just itching to happen.

[BrainStove]

Very sophisticated, very sophisticated post *****... I only hope I?m not misunderstanding your kinda coded ala "The Matrix" post message. :alien:

P.S. Inclusively I wonder if I?d ought you this post before???