Vjing!?

[Xonetacular]

@MrPopinjay I understand where you're going with that, but there is a distinct difference in doing visuals with a large budget operation, and doing something in addition to a small night at a club/bar.

While I really do appreciate those epic visual sets when I've seen them, there is something to be said for a bar/club that has SOMETHING going on in the background as well.

I think a good VJ can set an equally important part of the tone/feel of a night. People may come there for the music, but they'll keep coming back for the "overall" performance of a night.

The VJ is the red-headed stepchild of most nights.

yeah I agree with this

I don't think VJing should be dismissed unless you are putting on a huge show

It definitely adds a cool atmosphere element to a place that will keep people there or coming back

[sobi]

just for some vdj inspiration here is arguably the worlds best vdj dj Yoda. he used to use to dvj 1000 decks, a svj 5000 mixer and 2 technics running off serato. now he uses a rane 68 running the bridge with 2 technics for the video decks. the reason he said he changed was that it was alot more portable and rane gave him the mixer and he loved it

I have to agree with popinjay and say that was a little underwhelming. I don't doubt that he has the ability, but those videos seemed to be a little boring. The produced one was decent, but that wasn't a showing of what he does live. If he were cutting it up a bit more, I'd be impressed. I've seen a good friend demo the serato video plugin and cut it up DMC style with music videos. THAT was what I was expecting, and those videos were far from it. I'd def like to see some more stuff with the possibilities of video being exploited a bit farther though.

[MrPopinjay]

I think you guys are seriously overestimating how hard it is to create something like the amon tobin one. You don't need anything at all, it's just about showing up before you open and spending an hour or two cutting shapes out on the computer so only whatever you want is projected onto. And if you do wanna make something you can make any shape surface you want with a bit of stretchy cloth, some cable ties and some bamboo sticks. It could just be a bit of the booth, it could just be the bar, it could spell out a word on the wall. Maybe it could be on the logo for the night?

Either way throwing up a sheet doesn't cut it. Yoda is a badman DJ but a really shitty VJ.

Again, a good friend of mine does things just like the amon tobin setup and the cost of the installation is practically nothing.

[Xonetacular]

don't most of those production live acts have a separate person or visuals team controlling all that stuff?

[MrPopinjay]

Which ones? The ones I'm talking about? Yeah generally but the actual performance requires practically no effort. You can pretty much just turn it on and ignore it. Maybe play with some effects and change the loops when you have some free time if you want to.

All the effort is preparation. There's no reason a DJ can't do it, spesh if they are not beat matching, but it'd require them to show up earlier and actually do some work.

[Xonetacular]

Which ones? The ones I'm talking about? Yeah generally but the actual performance requires practically no effort. You can pretty much just turn it on and ignore it. Maybe play with some effects and change the loops when you have some free time if you want to.

All the effort is preparation. There's no reason a DJ can't do it, spesh if they are not beat matching, but it'd require them to show up earlier and actually do some work.

well this sounds like something I would like to do... what kind of gear would I want to look at? Do most people run visuals off a separate laptop of what? seems like it would be a lot to plug into one computer.

[MrPopinjay]

Well you could try them both on one computer and see how you like it. I mean laptops are so powerful these days I don't see why you couldn't. People are happily running traktor and ableton on one machine.

As for gear I'm not entirely sure. Why not download the resolume trial and play about with it? I believe my mate has some crazy ass external graphics card, a bunch of projectors, a midi keyboard, a lighting deck that runs midi (?) and touch os on his iphone.

[lethal_pizzle]

VJing = Veejazzling. Discuss.

[DJMM]

Virtual DJ is the best for this.

[sobi]

Which ones? The ones I'm talking about? Yeah generally but the actual performance requires practically no effort. You can pretty much just turn it on and ignore it. Maybe play with some effects and change the loops when you have some free time if you want to.

Now think of doing that while spinning music. That would make for a fairly shitty DJ and a horribly boring set. Same thing applies to VJ's.