LOS ANGELES, Califorinia -- January 18, 2005:
Software for a VJ by a VJ
written by: James Cui, AKA VJFADER
A typical VJ is someone who manipulates video to live music.
I often found this experience lacking because the projection
screen is often ignored by the audience. The audience responds
to the music, and the DJ is running the show. The lack of
connection with the audience compelled me to start creating
music as well, so I can perform audio-visual concerts. Creating
music is a completely separate process from making visuals.
As I played around with some of the music software on the
market, I felt the need to combine the two processes into
one. That’s when the concept of Vdrum came to me. With the
ability to sequence AV clips, I hope to create original music
and video and perform it live.
I have plans to make my software
commercially available later this year. As of now, Neuromixer
Pro, Single, and Vdrum are all free to download at www.neuromixer.com.
You can also find original content, online manuals, and user
forums all designed to help you familiar with the software.
Neuromixer Vdrum is software that allows you to sequence music
and edit videos at the same time. Similar to a traditional
step sequencer, you can turn on and off switches to trigger
clips. The difference here is the ability to use audio/video
clips. Along with making rhythm, you can pick which video
to see at any step. This introduces a new creative environment.
You can also use Vdrum as an AV drum machine and synthesizer.
Because it understands MIDI messages, you can trigger clips
with your MIDI keyboard, or even a music sequencer. This is
essential for live performance purposes. As a VJ, when I design
my software, I always keep the “live” aspect in mind. Neuromixer
represents a line of tools that are designed for real-time
video-audio manipulations.
My background is in illustration,
animation, and multimedia. I sort of stumbled upon programming
when I was searching for a software video mixer. I found a
piece of software called “Max/Jitter,” a visual programming
environment that gave me the power to design a video mixer
tailored for me. I have always had the “user” in mind as I
was programming my first software, Neuromixer Pro. My focus
is to design the most intuitive software so the others can
discover the joy of VJing. The ability to control video in
real-time, change the playback speed, composite, apply affects,
and even scratch the videos are very satisfying to me. So
being able to do all this in front of an audience brought
out the performer in me, which normally wouldn’t have surfaced
through the traditional visual arts medium.
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