Serato Video General Discussion

Forum
 Serato Video General Discussion
Auto crossfade video with any mixer? (well, Poneer, at least)
Talk about Serato Video and Video-SL.

Auto crossfade video with any mixer? (well, Poneer, at least)

phatbob 12:52 PM - 28 April, 2009
I can't honestly believe I'm the first person to come up with this idea... I've searched the forums and can't find any reference to it, so I thought I'd share it with you as it doesn't seem to be common knowledge.

I'm currently writing a review of VideoSL and MixEmergency for www.skratchworx.com, and have bought them both. I use a Pioneer DJM-707 with my SL-1 box.

I also use a Korg PadKontrol for midi control, and my natural inclination was to stick a footswitch into it for using the one-button auto crossfade in ME. (A feature which would be great in VideoSL, by the way).

That worked well, but with VideoSL, which has two button pushes for left/right auto fade, I was left pushing 2 pads on the Korg. This works but is a lot to think about when mixing vids.

During one gig, whilst dreaming of buying a TTM-57 which would do all this automatically, I started to wonder exactly what the Fader Start jacks on my 707 put out through a cable? Well it is a simple switch, basically, making a contact or not (sorry for the vagueness, I'm no electrician).

A bit like a footswitch...

From memory I think you are supposed to link to CDJs with a mono 3.5 jack cable, but I was at a gig and only had a stereo to twin phono. So I with a jack adaptor I stuck that into the footswitch socket on the Korg.

And as if by magic, open the fader, and the footswitch input receives midi data!

The Korg only supports one footswtich, so I had to find a way to incorporate a second. I had an M-Audio Oxygen 8 keyboard at home, which has a Sustain Pedal input (similar to a normal footswitch), and so for the Saturday night I hooked that up to the computer, put a cable from the other fader start to that, and there it was. Midi data recieved, and on a different midi CC to the Korg.

I then assigned them to either side of the auto crossfade and spent 6 glorious hours crossfading video all night with just my DJM-707.

Some notes:

* I'm using 3.5 stereo jacks at the moment. Mono might be better or worse, haven't tried it yet.

* Pioneer Fader Start produces a different electrical signal to most other brands. I'm guessing this might work on other mixers but have no way of testing.

* When you return the fader (i.e after doing a scratch), the video doesn't go back. It's all or nothing, but of course you can adjust the fade time, or turn off fader start on the mixer as and when you need it.

*Carrying an Oxygen 8 around on top of my other gear is a pain. What you need is a midi pad with 2 footswitch inputs. On that note if Akai want to send me an MPD32 to play with I'll happily accept! ;)

I could try and post a video of this in action tomorrow if you'd like.

Has anyone else tried this? Has anyone got sufficent electrical/midi experience and could refine this set-up and make it cleaner?

Let me know what you think. Cheers.
DJ ROC HOUND 12:19 AM - 21 March, 2013
I want to hook up my 909 that way.
Since this post is almos 4 years old, did you find any device that'll do the job?
Eric N 5:10 PM - 21 March, 2013
If anyone has figured this out, I'd love to know! I just picked up a DJM-3000, would be awesome to be able to use it more effectively for video and not always use the 57...
DJ Tecniq 4:04 AM - 22 March, 2013
Quote:
If anyone has figured this out, I'd love to know! I just picked up a DJM-3000, would be awesome to be able to use it more effectively for video and not always use the 57...
Why get a 3000 when there's other Pioneer mixers that are midi-capable?
Eric N 4:07 PM - 25 March, 2013
Got it from a friend for a hella deal and it's super clean. Also, I mainly got it for when I do 3-turntable shows (which are only a few times a year) - and those usually are all-wax nights and aren't video shows. Now that I have it though, it couldn't hurt to make this work, if it's possible! :)
phatbob 8:34 PM - 25 March, 2013
Looking at the date of the original post, it was only a few weeks afterwards that I decided the setup was too limited and WAY too much hassle, and just bought a suitable midi enabled mixer. I'd recommend anyone else do the same.
Eric N 10:19 PM - 25 March, 2013
^^^LOL word.

I picked up the 3000 on a bargain, and the 19" is dope for being able to put the 3rd turntable behind it (rather than having 2 on one side), but I may just sell it and get a 700 or something similar instead...
DJ Tecniq 12:01 PM - 26 March, 2013
Quote:
^^^LOL word.

I picked up the 3000 on a bargain, and the 19" is dope for being able to put the 3rd turntable behind it (rather than having 2 on one side), but I may just sell it and get a 700 or something similar instead...
Yah get a 700. If you wanna use it for video mixing you'll need a midi-sub cable. I use the cakewalk um-1g and plug it to the midi-out on my 700 and it works perfectly for assigning the mixer for midi. However The midisport uno failed to assign anything in serato. I began to think it was my mixer but no it turned out some midi-usb cables have issues being compatible with the 700. Cakewalk worked on the first try. If you get a different midi device don't say I didn't warn ya.
DJ Tecniq 12:01 PM - 26 March, 2013
midi-usb*