Leaving early a.m. this morning so spent the night getting prepped and packed for Toronto. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ll be speaking at FITC and playing a couple live shows. For the live stuff I’ll be doing an all new visuals set using a new piece of software I’ve completely fallen in love with. It’s the most enjoyable app I’ve come across, maybe ever. It’s a modular video app called VDMX and it blows the doors off anything I’ve ever used for the purposes of live video. You can essentially design the way it works to your liking, you design the interface and the functionality. There’s a bit of a learning curve but once you get over that you start to realize how powerful it can be. At $300 it’s not super cheap, but considering the feature set and functionality it’s well worth it. It can do quartz composer effects and blending modes all in real-time.
I am using a Novation Remote SL and footpedals to control most of the parameters of the video portion, and a the same Novation with split parameters to control another laptop running Ableton Live. I’m also routing a set of audio outputs from Live to VDMX which then analyzes the incoming sound and modulates various parameters based on the amplitude of selected frequency ranges. Somehow VDMX is able to do this all in real time, I’m still not quite sure how.
There’s a show Saturday and Sunday night, I’m hoping to video tape the show on Sunday night at the Drake but it remains to be seen if we can track down someone to tape it on short notice. If you or anyone you know has proper video equipment and some skills to go along with it, let me know.
Hmm… Is that an HP hackintosh I spy there? 😀
I told all my torontonian friends about this show… unfortunately none with proper video equipment. I’m sure it will be a blast!
Yea, looks like a hackintosh to me. Which just goes to show that it’s the OS that makes Macs what they are, and not so much the shiny hardware.
Also, I’d love to see a video of the show, so hopefully you will find someone to record it. 😀
sharpie felt tip marker and a pacifico beer. i think you’ll do well.
Very cool of you to list your set up and how you will be playing live. At Yuri’s Night, you were so high up and far from the crowd, I had no clue what you were using as far as computers/gear/controllers. (Even standing on my tippy toes, I still couldn’t see).
Is this the same sort of set up you had running at Yuri’s Night? I thought I had seen maybe a couple laptops and some kind of controller?
P.S. Very nice meeting you there as well! 🙂
Please find someone to tape the show! I’d kill to see some proper footage of you live with the visuals. Good luck on the new setup, looks awesome : )
Wow, great to see what’s going on behind the scenes!
I hope you can find someone to tape it for you 🙂
Thanks everyone..
good eye james. it’s a stop gap measure… if you can believe it; the hp is waaaay faster than my real macbook pro so for the heavy lifting stuff, like live video, I use the hp. Why not just keep windows on it? VDMX is Mac only.
We found someone to do video, there will be 3 cameras and proper sound, so this set will find it’s way to the web or DVD soon.
Scott – would LOVE to see some video. I don’t think I’ll be seeing any of your shows or workshops Down Under… for a while 😉
What is that keyboard in the pictures? It looks really cool.
Dang, I wish I could be there to see the set up! Of course I’m sure the people you got have a WAAAAY better set up than what I had for the Minna show, haha. Can’t wait to see the footage.
Sounds great, Scott. Wish I were in Toronto! Guess I’ll just have to look forward to the video.
Thanks for the quick peek at your gear… it would be great to hear more about your Live set-up and your process for wrangling both audio AND video.
Pacifico =D
Was there any tweaking you had to do in the BIOS to get the hackintosh to work? Or did it just work straight away?
very interesting that you are using the novation sl to run this video software. So are you using the novation for both ableton AND vdmx at the same time? How do you do that? I suppose the program just switches on the leds as you jump between programs. Are you using the midi ports and usb?
I have that same keyboard so i kinda want to download vdmx beta and give it a shot. very cool!
p.s. I wanted to go to Yuris night so bad but im on the east coast and forgot about the event until two days late. Im so jealous! It looks like such a cool and unique event!
Hey Scott,
What’s the spec of your HP notebook?
Looking forward to seeing the video; until you can make it to England to do some shows, video will have to do (hint hint)
I am curious about the specs on the HP notebook as well. I am in the market for a notebook. If it’s good enough for you….
VDMX is great! And your work as well…
and well… same questions as everyone. Hp specs, bios hacks and the keyboard model. Thanks!
anyone know what type of HP notebook that is?
ea! pacifico beer
Neat setup! I just recently fell in love with VDMX… definitely blows anything else I’ve tried using… also at $300 its a lot cheaper than a lot of other options.
I also have a Remote SL 25, though I’m pretty new to the whole VDMX thing that I’ve only had a chance to setup my MPD24 with it. Curious what you’re preferred setup is with the SL.
i’m also curious to know the specs on the HP lappy in the photo.
Odd question maybe – but what’s the knife/box-cutter in the top (& bottom) picture? I think I need one of those. But totally not for killing. I *swear*.
In the first photo is a cool knife!
What brand?