can we see some of your work?

you've been VJing longer than all of us here? really? how long is that. I've been doing this a pretty long time too.

you've seen mine ;-)

since 1990

pretty sure myself, hardy, charlie five, kris p and plenty other have all been spinning videos at least that long or longer. i still have all of my mtv rips from before labels starting servicing djs.

oh i forgot. curious if you have any work that's posted online to show. i thought i knew most of the guys in the us who've been doing this a while but obviously i missed one.

Wow, I guess I should send back all of my telegenics and rock america 3/4" tapes starting from 1987...when I started playing "cheesy" music videos for customers.

And unless you are from Europe (or been there within the few years and attended a few shows) you have no idea how the video art form is progressing.

oh i forgot justin allen. this guy has been doing this for at least as long as i have. probably longer.

I never spun videos, always seemed cheezy and still is imho. Im more into creating stuff myself and mixing this. I was based in Miami during the 90s, we had all sorts of different set ups.. Originally we used an Amiga with 2 timebase correctors to allow us to mix with Hardware. Then we have tried alot of different mediums to get different results. I just recently quit MTV germany after 12 years of animating, cutting and directing for their Onair department.
The question at the top of this thread was if people are mainly mixing music videos witht the software... and it seems to be the case..

So what? Get over it.
You're just jelaous cause you don't know how to :)))))

your right, Im jealous you caught me. LOL!

I see where you're coming from Frogstar but honestly. It takes a REALLY,.. REALLY long time to create enough content to fill a 4 hour set and keep it fresh when you are spinning 3-4 nights a week.

I create a lot of content too but seriously, doing even 1 set with content I created is out of the question. It might take a month do shoot a single video. Ok, there's 4 minutes of footage.

Seriously, it's just not possible to do sets with original content. A system that does any kind of automated "visualizations", even if generated by a person operating the controls in realtime, is not original content in my opinion.

So if spinning original music videos put out by the artists is not your thing,.. what is it you plan to use VSL for,.. or how are you working with video in your live performances now? In other words,.. why are you here?

Also, would love to see some of your stuff you did with the Amiga's. I messed around with that stuff too. Video Toaster FTW!

Creating content can take a long time... depends on how you do it...
fastest way depending on your style is to figure out your bpm... and translate that into the number of frames needed... If your NTSC .. stick with 30 frames and not 29.97. If your PAL use 25.
either make 1 bar, 2 bar, 4 bar etc loops and get the frame rate.
then work with these numbers and concentrate on syncopating filters to properly loop or end on each loop/clip. Once you have a good loop... save it... and make 10 filtered versions of it. or put em back to back and turn your 2 bar loop into a 4 bar loop.. and add as needed...
trust me... working with a simple loop that wont eat your memory will allow you to modify it all you want and create variations without trying to stream two 3 minute full frame clips.

Save your settings and files and just build your database this way.

I plan on using still images to mix with..set up in different configurations with video versions of the same still image but manipulated.
the video sl would only be a channel in a hardware mixer which would have different sources going in. Other sources would include dual modded xboxs with 30 hours of loops on each one. Plus using the xbox controllers for realtime analog input if needed.

Yeah, I know how to do all that Frogstar. I just don't think it looks interesting at all. Watching even 5 minutes of video content created in this way would bore me to tears. I learned a long time ago that for me, the most interesting thing to watch is humans interacting with the world around them with camera capturing the action and post production doing something to make it special. This stuff happens on a snails pace. Even a very BUSY production company only makes a handful of these per year and I'm not a company,.. I'm a single person and production is very expensive.

For me, content that is created in the method that you describe, while cool and interesting to some people, is not interesting to me.

However, I'm still waiting for a link to see some stuff you've done. Maybe I'll get a fresh perspective.

Also, to answer your original question,.. yes VSL can be used to do what you want to do and there are guys who work this way with VSL today.

I agree that humans are interesting and harder to get original material that works with out doing the obvious(filming girls in bikinis jumping on trampoline with highspeed camera) kind of stuff. I think it goes without saying there is more than one way to skin a cat. Money is also an issue. always will be when it comes to putting it all together in a professional way

You sound like a pretty experienced guy Frogstar. Interesting approach though, to come into a new forum and immediately start insulting the users of the forum though.

i'd like to see a link also!

I read the whole thing and I've decided that Frogstar is a better VJ than anyone else on these forums. Case closed.

Great quote A-Swift. Let me juts say that it's impossible! When Rooney G did his 15 minute set last year for a Pioneer promo he said it took him 3 months to develop it.

In my opinion the problem with spending all of this time in creating specific sets is that you WANT to keep using them...which does nothing but make parts of your show stale. My personal opinion is that I want to work on re-editing videos and then string them together different way every night....with no specific set in mind.

As to Frogstar's approach, I think that the ambient video craze in clubs about 10 years ago kinda killed off this approach...at least to a certain extent. I am experimenting with video cameras in clubs and Modul8 for those times where I play a song with no music video...but then it gets a bit hard to start deciding where to put 100% of your attention at during the night...so that part is still lagging.

If only Scratchlive has some type of auto-sync feature so I could concentrate my time of all the other stuff that I need to do besides mixing.






I am seriously kidding about that last sentence.

the best vj ive ever seen was a dragqueen with 10 vhs decks linked together,,,all broken.. and the signal was being manipulated by the bass in the room or the occasional slap on the side..
@justin allen... your absolutely right about the ambient video craze dying out 10 years ago


In general, It would seem that your quite limited to the songs you use if they only exist in a music clip format? and Everyone will have similar sets.

So how many people just use this software for pure VJing and not integrated vdj?

none. it's really not a system for VJing in that sense, although they are adding some features that would make it a workable solution in that area,.. but there are much much better dedicated systems for about the same overall cost when you factor in the cost of the laptop and other gear.

Im looking forward to those solutions whenever Serato gets them implemented. The pioneer vj mixer is just way out of my price range and will wait and see how videoSL evolves

the first 20 seconds of this clip is the kind of stuff Im making to mix with.
Watchwww.youtube.com

you really need to search these forums and look at some of the work that has been done. there are a hand full of vj's on this forum that are TOP notch.

if you were to play that at a club you would be runned out of town. besides that i'm sure your very talented.

I guess it depends on what club your playing....or? or which live act asks you to VJ for.
As for the sound used... thats made for TV. Breakcore is a very small scene and I dont think any group of humans can handle this style of music for very long. I wouldnt be suprised if this sound can kill roaches or mice hiding in the club

Viewing of it has already been disabled.

Opps embedded viewing.

Here's my take Frogstar.

You should use the best tool for the job. Can VSL help you out with your end result...sure. However you'll need to have self-contained clips ready to go. However due to the nature of live visual effects VSL would not be the best tool for you. Another program designed for this type of visual would be better. For instance, Modul8 allows pre-loading of videos into memory, real time effects and layering, full midi control over the loading of 30 videos x 8 banks plus a lot more. All of these things cannot be achieved by using VSL.

As to your initial comments about the DJ's / VJ's on this board using VSL for playing music videos...well just in case you were not sure about this...this is a DJ board, talking about DJ / VJ software...so yea, that's what the majority of people do on this board, play music and music videos.

If you want to debate should DJ's call themselves "VJ's", well that's a different story. But I actually broached this very topic over a year ago on several well-respected forums that deal with your type of video work...and they all said that a DJ calling themselves a VJ because he plays music videos is very acceptable.

Hopefully this answered some of your thoughts....from my point of view anyways.

Hey Frogstar, I'm sure that kind of seizure-inducing of stuff I saw in those 20 seconds is hard to make, but to model and animate for a song that lasts a few minutes seems like a helluva time consuming process. I could understand if you had 100+ people doing it, all sharing content. I guess it depends on your crowd too. I don't think I would want to look at a skateboard rolling around in a half-pipe more than a video that had real half naked chicks in it though....

Yes that definitely answered the questions. I enjoy djing alot more than vjing... creating the loops and stuff is where Im having the most fun for the vj part.. In the past it was too complicated for me to use a hardware vj mixer to get the audio mixed because of how im mixing with AUX/Send and fx. And never was satisfied with the feel of the hardware video mixer crossfader.
I like serato sl alot and will just see what I can come up with after preparing some loops to fit what Im trying to do.. I may just end up creating a huge library of black and white/greyscale loops to use as a chanel for lumakey and run that into a dedicated vj mixer.

It was more of an example of multiple angles being rendered from the same 3d file.
I also would not want to watch a skateboard in a halfpipe.

Almost all 3d and 2d animating packages include the ability to use MIDI as input or an audio waveform.

So you take your mp3 and can use it to control some feature... For example...

a default set up of a silicon tit using soft body dynamics could use the amplitude of the song to give it a pulse... and the tit would wobble on it own. But your right.. you wouldnt want to do it for every song.. you would make a "crate" of genre specific loops. Including video manipulation of people doing things ...filmed or taken from another source.
For people who dj 3-4 times a week... this is too much work to custimize everytrack and wont make a difference to the crowd anyways. the days of people dropping acid and actually following whats happening on the screen are long gone.

Each scene is different.... Ive been to some german hip hop parties and just saw timelapses of graffitti peices being assembled all night long.. one after the other.. and it worked ... played anywhere else.. it wouldnt.. or some of the more extreme vjs mixing hardcore porn or using it as a mask between other footage.. I think that would work anywhere... except mabey a wedding party.

+1.

en.wikipedia.org

this is a total apples and oranges conversation.

Its like a PA performance artist walking into the music DJ forum and saying they suck
because they play pre-made music and not produce it like he does.

or a Ill turntablist walking up to Joh Digweed and tell him he blows becuase he's not juggling and doin crescent flares.

its all relative to what, and where you do things.

yeah.... what he said. ^^^

+1

There's absolutely no reason you can't use VSL to straight VJ with. The way the effects keep improving and the realtime control you get from the tables/CDJs and the faders on the TTM57 let you get crazy things going, though you're limited to one-on-one layering.

I had some DJ friends ask me to fill in VJing for them last summer here in NYC. I just spent a couple hours pulling mp4s off YouTube & went for it. Everybody loved it & I got asked back (though I didn't go--if I'm gonna work that hard I wanna be heard, too).

Calling this the "lamest" way to VJ is crazy, it's just a set of tools (and some of the best tools there have ever been). If you have a vision you want to make happen, you can get it done. People used to rock parties with overhead projectors from the 1920s to the 1970s and made more interesting visuals than a lot of traditional VJs I've seen in the last 15 years.

I think most people disconnect from live visuals when they're not somehow tightly integrated with the music. VSL gives you an insanely good way to do that, and there is no one way to use it.

FYI my statement "lamest way to vj" was not about serato as a VJ tool, but more the idea of your DJ set being dictated by using Top 40 music videos.
Your absolutely right about how people rocked parties in the past using other mediums.

Ive seen set ups in germany where a custom stand is built with 4 slide projectors all calibrated to aim at the same screen... And in front of the projectors was a motor set up wih a big wheel made of lightwieght plastic. Different holes were cut to allow each projector to shine through on its own..one at a time... So the VJ would control the motor and be able to spin the wheel faster or slower allowing all 4 to literally be overlapping and create crazy movement... and the beauty of it was that each slide projector had 100 slides so the variation was total madness.
Some slides were even contrived to have multi step animation which would then create neat animated loops.

I think Frogstar might be working under the assumption that we are all using the same videos, hence, they could get boring. However, you could say the same about regular music, but obviously some djs do better then others...

I think most of us do spin with Top 40 videos, but I think the ones that are getting paid better are the ones that make their own custom edits, incorporating pop culture into their video edits...

as far as only playing top 40 videos and being limited....most of us play in clubs where all the customers want is top 40 songs over and over again and even though theres TONS of awsome audio out there thats still all they really want to hear, and they hear these top 40 songs on the radio more than they see the video so i dont see them getting bored too quick lol

good points

Let's see. I've been mixing videos in front of an audience for about a year. I do it just like I used to mix records. No need to get too fancy that it will go over the head of the customers. I play anything I have in my library if I feel it satisfies me and my crowd. I freestyle all the way AND I only use the default VSL effects which basically fade one video in as the other video is being faded out.

So, what you're saying is that I should go all out crazy and start making crazy edits and put my mix on rails? No thanks.

I'll stick to freestyling. Give me a video. I don't give a fuck if it has a intro or not. I don't give a fuck if I can loop it or not. I will mix it in so people keep dancing and they can also look at the video.

oh, thats right... I said that.

try to go into a big room and do some shit like that with 500 screaming bitches wanting lady gaga...

or better yet, book out manumission in ibiza.
go in and start rippin underground afro-centric hiphop and see how it flies.

your basically saying top40/popular/dance is the goose here,
which I think you'll find on some level we ALL agree on.

but whats what that have to do with videos... your talking about a genre of music.
the videos just happen to go with them, and its what people want to see on a visual
level... you cant play pitbull with some life-changing visual show, whats the point.

ya know... of someone came into one of our nights trying to push some obscure video performace to go with the crazy genre mashing that goes on Id point them to the elitiest edm night on tuesdays where 15 people sit around crying about the
commercialization of the scene. (this coming from an EDM DJ)

theres a few kinds of people.
perfomers who are fortunate to get booked to play EXACTLY what they want, and only that... and they are few.
and people who can take a room and whip it into a frenzy based on using thier ability to interpret what will steer the crowd in different directions.

It all boils down to this: Frogstar, if you have been in this game so long you shouldn't have to basically come into the serato forum and basically challenge everyone as to what they are using Video-SL for. You should already know the pros and cons of the program. In addition, if you are as knowledgeable in VJing as you say you are (which you SEEM to be knowledgeable in the PRODUCTION end) you should already have and be familiar with the programs and equipment one would need to bring to a gig to rock a club/party/event etc. In other words, you should already know what Video-SL can do and what you can do with this additional tool to elevate the party. I know I do.
I'm not going to beat you over the head with what other VJ's have already said but music videos are a fairly accurate representation of how the artist VISUALLY wants their song represented. Lady Gaga in an outrageous outfit rising out of a pool of water is much better than a bunch of digital skateboards, bugs and halfpipes. Especially to the 20-something year old club kitten.

After working for MTV for 12 years... I learned why music for the most part is pop and how it can be made to be liked whether its good or bad. If 50 new video tapes arrive in the TAM department (Talent and Music) For the most part the ones shot in 35mm film or HD with enough processing...It will get played. Anything not "bling" in quality even if its better music will not get played. If the cliche record label strongarm comes in, its only because mtv will get an exclusive if they put an unknown band on high rotation.
So if madona comes out with a 2 girls 1 cup video clip, the label will only give the exclusive out if they put an unknown band in on high rotation. So alot of what becomes top 40 is totally derived from a "music" channel who can make or break an artist with lots of money regardless of how wacked the music is... Play it enough.. and it will get its chance to stick or become an earworm. Same with the Mobile ringtones.
The easiest route is to use premade videos with their original music underneath. If thats what pays the bills than so be it. Doing a VDJ set is otherwise alot of work for preperation or becomes too complicated or takes too much time aways from the rocking the crowd with the actual music. Its a preference I guess to make it "automatic" by using these top 40 clips that have all this production value and at the end of the night ..works well with the ladies..never a bad thing. The selection of dance genre music videos are too few to keep a fresh set.
Im either going to dj with serato by itself, or use it just to VJ. Personally for me its music first, than video. There were some good suggestions to other VJ apps which are more for the VJ side than vdj. Im playing Dnb, jungle,dubstep,breakcore so I plan on just linking it to videos which match the sound and making my own clips for the ones I cant find.
Freestyle VJing is the simplest way to get the job done imho because your not limited.
When we did the visuals for an unknown german click hop band called funksturong.. we produced some clips and worked with other material they gave us... Every show was essentially different because of being able to slow or speed up the footage according to what they did. but if they had autosynced visuals to their sound or control track then it would have limited the whole thing...
I now understand this is a DJ board and no one uses it to do pure VJing, as someone else pointed out. I thought it would be good to support Serato and create some pure VJ mixes using the software and release generic loops for you guys to use... but honestly dont think they will work in the context everyone here seems to want. Sorry for bothering all of you with my assumptions, I do respect the people here who have made really good arguments and or contributed to the discussion...

Nice post, Frogstar.

Frogstar> hey if you havent been to VJforums yet, you may want to check that site out. I think its more what your looking for. I give you +1 on the Amiga, guessing you used the Video Toaster back in the day. There were alot of cool Visuals that groups made that were on the Amiga back in the mid to late 80's!

Video Toaster was really amazing... especially when we discovered the combination of dropping lsd at home ,,,hooking up the cam and putting in some trails and echo action on the TV. From then on out we always wanted to capture that off the wall feeling.

One memory comes to mind.. it was really evil what we did..
We were set up in the back of the venue and used an Eikey beamer which hit a hanging sheet which divided the venue. We used a pc for an input and a video camera.. On the PC we had some preselected hi res fractals being run in Fractint(oldschool fractal generator program) It had the keys from 1-9 as different soft 256 color palletes, in addition you could control the banding of the color pallettes to make it striped or smooth. the speed of the cycling was controlled with some other keys. but the ENTER key would be a total random speed and pallete.
Anyways.. so we had this running, and the video toaster was mixing chromakey blends between the pc input and the camera. Also we had the trails fx running.. So it was a double implact feedback effect when we centered and aimed the camera at the screen.
Hard to describe but when someone solo was standing in front of the screen, they could control where the feedback was going depending on how extreme we pushed the value for the echo FX.. So this one tripping raver ends up stumbling in front of the screen.. and starts dancing around... seeing his own movement and shape causing the feedback insanity... When we noticed that he noticed this... we would hit the ENTER key on the fractint everytime he pumped his fists in the air or was swinging his arms. my partner would also control the fx feedback amount. This poor raver was so deep in his trip that he looked like an orchestra conductor...He literally was doing some sort of mental overdose dance...
So he goes and gets his friends to show them his superpowers... and we then secretly took off the fx and feedback.. and he tried to get the magic to work again... and his friends just thought he was crazy because nothing was happening...
later we see him stumbling around and ends up in front of the screen... not dancing wildly at all... We quickly got our hands on the controls and waited... and then he finally threw one arm out just to see if he had one last drop of magic left...
we timed it perfectly and the screen came alive... but he then instantly turned around and saw us laughing and then he knew.... luckily he wasnt some jiu jitsu fighter or anything... so it was all good at the end..

I mix with VSL and a lava lamp. Can't beat those effects.

nice! thats what its all about...

Okay, I revoke my positive statement.

Frogstar

Perhaps this brand new device is what you are looking for www.engadget.com

lol @ opium den

Welcome to pop culture buddy!
en.wikipedia.org




in the early 90s it would have been interesting to a point... but I dont ever use "canned"
visuals. Luckily lack of creativity isnt an issue for me

Awesome!

MTV plays music videos??

I haven't seen any in years.

tell me about it...
MTV is like Mcdonalds.. almost every country in the western world has one, and they all share the same content because its free. Even if it doesnt make sense. Like Hulk Hogan in germany... wtf LOL

Watchwww.vimeo.com

MTV JAMS , MTV U, MTV HITS=Videos ---- Regular MTV=Jersey Shore Garbage & etc.

I occaisionally attach ambient visual files to certain songs that don't have a video.
I have them arranged by BPM... (so they kind of go with the music) but nothing near Edirol type of control.
I'm interested in what you do, though.
-also for the last year since I started mixing (some top 40) music videos almost exclusively, I'd have to say that every venue is impressed, and every audience seems to love it. (like when you scratch the record and the vid on the screen goes back and forth with the cut) -real crowd pleaser!
So to answer your question, Yes I think this "cheezy new style" is really catching on, regardless of the "art" you feel there is or how "pre-school" it is to you...
I spin open format nights at most clubs mixing everything under the sun, pleasing all the people all the time. (most of the time :)
I don't know if that's an art as much as a skill...

vjs hate video djs.

Well Frogstar you got me, you win, NOW WHAT?, you know alot more then me.... I guess we all go "back to our regularly scheduled programming". Are you here to teach us something, engligten us on other aspecs of VDJing? If not I missed the purpose of the insults. R Kelly said it best "What you eat dont make me shit" so your either part of the problem, or part of the solution.

i will just start another thread on screenshots of different setups.

so if i apply your philosophy then every dj should produce their own music? we shouldn't be playing out there mtv hits @ the club.

makes sense.

LOL - read the whole thing too - original content just can't compare to a bitch on a beach in a bathing suit.... (Gabrielle Union FTW!)

Watchwww.youtube.com

i guess i need 4 slide projectors for my next gig!!! thanx frogstar!!