Xarene in the VJ booth keeping me company and promoting for the Fascist Party.
Hence, the red arm band.
As you can see there is not a lot of room for the VJ booth. I had about a 2.5ft sq. area to work with.
I was lucky that they have a Edirol DV7 PR so I brought my hot swapable drive for the DV7, one of my laptops and a midi controller.
Maybe I have too much gear but, two and a half square feet of surface is never enough and a lot of clubs never think about the VJ's needs.
That's another rant for another blog.
One more reason to rackmount it. Go vertical not horizontal.

Two screens and the Main room at club 1015 during "Get Freaky".

1015 has invested in a Edirol suite.
They have a DV7-PR,w/ touch screen, V4, 8x8 matrix router, 6 3inch rackmount monitors, 4 projectors and screens in the main room and 3 others
tied in through out the club.

Just look at this line up! Some of the best breaks ever. Freaq nasty, Krafty cuts & Skills, Lorin and Karsh Kale.
I'm just bummed that I was stuck in the Main room all night VJing. Yeah, the music in that room rocked, but it was going off in all the rooms at club 1015.
I only got to experience the other rooms in very short and small doses.

So a hour before Freq goes on they tell me that he has some special video that he wants to play during his set. He says its timed to the music and it has to be played at exactly the right moment.
Then he is concerned about giving it to me. He only brought the movie in quicktime format on a CD Rom. It wasn't even a DVD. That meant that I had to copy the files to my harddrive and then play them out one of my VJ applications.
He was concerned that I might keep them and want to use them for my own sets. I acknowledge that some VJ's have made copies of Dj's visuals before. More than 1 VJ had copied Paul Oakenfold's visuals.
However, this was 3 1 minute long 3D animations of Freq dancing in the street. Typical camera fly by's etc. Why on earth would I want to use animations of Freq Nasty in my own set? I won't comment on the style of the animations. I love the guys music but his animations done by some artist who worked on "Lords of the Ring" have something to be desired of. (It must have been a budget issue).
So after his set I made a point to make sure he watched me delete all the files off my computer.

On the set for Billy Idol's new music video in Hollywood with Vello from V squared labs.
Vello created a 3 screen backdrop 2 15x20' and 1 10.5x14' surfaces. He sync'd the video on all 3 screens using 3 Edirol DV7 PR's, 3 V4's, a midi MOTU 8x8 and an Edirol PCR-50.
The graphics looked amazing and at times all 3 screens became one big landscape screen.
Big prop's to Vello, one VJ that has emerged as the go to guy in Hollywood for VJ'ing and concert tour content.
BTW, Billy looks the same as he did in 1984.

What's nice about the DJM 1000 is that it has D link. (Funny, they call it D-Link, Roland / Edirol call it V-Link both are just fancy names for midi). You can select"V" button for the edirol V4 or select the "S1, S2, E1, E2 buttons for various midi devices. Essentially it works like a midi router. You can even select multiple devices. At least this is what I was told at NAMM by one of their reps.

Pioneer introduces a new DJ mixer (DJM 1000)with midi out off of the crossfader. That's right crossfader only. Unlike the Allen & Heath that has the midi on the EQ's as well as the fader.
What does this all mean?
Well, now you can link your Edirol V4 or VJ app to the crossfader so you A/V artists and DJ/VJ's don't need 4 arms.
It will simplify the mixing between two DVJ's or EJ's or Miss Pinky systems. However, if you are mixing 4 sources you are still only halfway there. Pioneer is working on a true A/V mixer but I don't think it will be out until end of 2005 if we are lucky.
The DJM 1000 does have digital inputs so you can get a lossless audio signal straight into the unit.

VM03 from Numark

DVD01 from Numark

The AVM01 from Numark

Those fuzzy numbers at the bottom are the adjustments for the fader throw.

Audio/Visual Culture

Audio/Visual Culture
Okay, all you t-bar flippers. It was only a matter of time.
Edirol's new DJ crossfader has various settings on the back of the fader. You can adjust the distance from the end points.
The picture is fuzzy thanks to my camera phone.
Click the link on the right of the page.
Suggested Retail is $99. US.
As V4 saturate the market I'm sure there will be more retro-fits. I'm personally waiting for the pearl handle T bar with diamonds.
Vegas baby, Vegas!

Audio/Visual Culture Reports From NAMM 2005 Trade Show

Audio/Visual Culture

Edirol has released a series of overlays to spice up your Edirol V4 mixer. Here are two of the designs.
Funny, that last year we suggested creating overlays for the V4. We were going to include them in the VJ Book that we are working on. Yes, the same VJ Book that everyone has been talking about on VJ Forums. However, poor D-Fuse has been taking all the heat.... Anyway the VJ book is planned to be the same size as the V4 so you could take a page out of the book and it would be an overlay for the V4.
More post to come
including, Pioneer, Korg, Numark and whatever else I find at NAMM related to the audio/visual culture.

DJ crossfader for the V4 Suggested retail is $99.99 US

back of the DJ crossfader for the V4.

new v4 overlays for from Edirol

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VJ Culture blog focuses on the culture surrounding live media performance. Whether it be video, audio, or web mediums.
Reviews on hardware, software and events.