I'm jumping in...

[CptAscot]

Here's another post from complete newbie so please bear with me. I'm a graphic designer by day... mostly motion graphics and other multimedia type projects. I'm about to start playing shows with a couple friends who have a hip hop band/collective. Basicly our idea is to have a 45 minute set, 1 mc, 1 guy on the tables, another guy on an mpc, and me rocking the visuals. We really want to bring a higher level of "showmanship" to the live hip hop scene, so the person doing the visuals (me) will be right up on stage with everyone. I'm a mac person so I've narrowed down my software choices between vdmx2 and MD3.

What I need from you guys is some real world advice about which program suits which needs. Idealy what I want to happen is me on stage with a laptop and keyboard and DV camera (I already have a beautiful Access Virus Indigo w/ 3 octaves and an XL1). We are going to have about 4 or 5 45 minute sets so I want to have a general sequence of videos planned out for each set as well as a library of stuff to improvise on top. I also want to be able to take live footage from the XL1 and mix that in as well. Also since I want to use my Virus as my main controller how well do both of these apps support midi. The Virus has 32 knobs which I would love to use. Could I use the mod wheel to as a fader between clips??

Another area I'm a little confused about is the actual hardware I need. Like I said I have the keyboard and XL1 already, and I'm ready to purchase a g4 laptop and projector. What else is needed on top of the stock g4 laptop? how exactly is the video sent out from the laptop?

[Mattbot]

You get a 2nd monitor out off the G4 powerbook via a built-in S-Video jack on the back of the laptop. You shouldn't need anything else except for maybe a midi controller if your keyboard doesn't do usb. But I don't much about midi so I'll let some else jump in.

I'd also recommend a mixer for graceful recovery ability in the event of a computer crash. It happens.

[CptAscot]

nobody has anything to add as far as software goes??
advantages/disadvantages of one over the other???

[sleepytom]

read the reviews @ www.vjcentral.com + www.audiovisualizers.com download demos of software that sounds good + try it out for yourself

there is no better way than by trying things for yourself

[hyperdimensional]

You could also look @ max/msp with nato. Its far more versatile. As far as midi goes, there are plenty of usb 2 midi convertors, checkout edirol (a division of roland) and maudio.

[MoRpH]

Tom's suggestion is the way to go, you really should iunvestigate software yourself to find somethjing that is YOUR style....

As for max&nato yeah they are very interesting but far too over priced