Much as I’m an advocate for live visualists becoming like musicians with eye candy, the needs of the VJ just aren’t quite identical to those of someone doing music, even DJing. But here’s the upside: I think people doing live visuals have even more reason to be excited about control possibilities with devices like the iPhone and iPod touch. These tools can match perfectly with the kind of subtle parameter control visuals often require.
David Lublin of vidvox sends along some tantalizing examples of what’s possible, via the Vidvox forums. Basel-based griesgram has built pages of controls for the Mac-only, semi-modular live visual app vdmx. He writes that he can control:
- 8 Layers
- 4 Subgroups à 2 Layers (a,b,c,d)
- 2 Subgroups à 4 Layers (A/B)
- 1 MainMix A/B
- 2 Submix a/b:c/d
- MediaBin
- 2 Preview Windows
Believe it or not, this isn’t the best news in the thread. The best news is word from TouchOSC developer hexler that a visual editor is coming soon, as pictured here.
VDMX Controlled by Custom Touch OSC Interface [Vidvox User Forums]
Stay tuned for more on this topic – we’ll be watching!
I’ve also been really excited by the work Eric Redlinger is doing with mrmr; more on that soon. I can’t emphasize enough: it’s not about any one app, or one device, or even OSC. What we’re seeing is a new, more flexible approach to control, one that could spread across platforms. OSC could be the enabling technology for that – if we work hard on implementation and the art of our performance.
And visual developers, by the way, listen up: think about vector-scalable interfaces that can be adapted to fingertips. Cheap touch overlays for laptops are available now, and with Windows 7 incorporating touch controls, you can bet commodity hardware for PC and Mac alike may become more and more prevalent.
