Rooted in pre-digital tradition, the turntables and mixer here get a different kind of digital upgrade: sound-responsive visuals transform the decks.
Built by Austin, Texas-based student Mark Morris, artist E.N.S., and collaborators, this work in progress demonstrates what happens if you point the projector directly at the DJ’s rig. Cleverly, they map the platters themselves as they rotate, as well as add interface elements from the DJ software and responsive audio waveforms. From Mark:
This is a projection mapping project we’ve been working on for about a month as of uploading.
It’s a user interface for Serato Scratch Live that is vinyl rotation-reactive, as well as sound-reactive, and makes it possible to mix using Serato without having to look at your computer screen whatsoever. We have real-time waveforms streaming across our mixers, or our vinyl platters, and we have started to incorporate video effects that are controlled by [Nintendo] Wii remotes. We are also working on controlling effects with motion capturing using a camera.
Much more to come!
The Song from the video was made by one of the creators of all the cool stuff you saw in the video: Mark Morris
Music from E.N.S. is available on Facebook.
Thanks to Francis Preve (Academik Records, Keyboard Magazine), who’s fortunate to have Mark as a student and points this our way.
We’ll have more as they get further along, but this is already looking great.
Update – via comments, here’s another instance of projection mapping onto decks, by MrGeeBee, a Luzern, Switzerland-based developer moonlighting as DJ. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other examples, as well. Heck, I hope there are – go make more, folks.