Cornelius in LA: Visual Refreshments

I was first introduced to Cornelius in Film School, where the buddy I often shared a dark editing room would play ‘Count Five or Six’ while I attempted to count and mark 16mm frames on the tiny strips running through our moviolas. This January, I jumped on the chance to see him at the awesome […]

Livid Union 2.5: Mac/PC VJ App Does FreeFrame, Audio Response, More

Livid’s Union VJ software has been steadily adding features. The latest upgrade may be a “point-five” release, but it’s got some pretty significant additions, mostly along the lines of “stuff Union lovers were asking for.” Among what’s new: Audio-responsive tools: audio filters, audio-aware effects, and an audio waveform generator Video captioning FreeFrame plug-in support for […]

DJTT Video Review: Fisher Price DJ Controller

Yes, it’s time to see (tongue-in-cheek, anyway) just how Fisher Price stands up to the competition in the crowded DJ gear market (thanks to producer Ean Golden from DJ Tech Tools for sending this our way): The ground breaking MBRP-101 from Fisher Price is the best all in one music playback solution for mobile and […]

Highlights from Motion Graphics Festival 2008

I had the pleasure of participating in this year’s Motion Graphics Festival, and just being there provided enough inspiration for a year’s worth of projects. I’ve tried to track down and compile some of the highlights that really struck me as being innovative and interesting. The actual environments were so saturated with visual media that […]

Renoise Tracker Made Into Animation

While on the subject of hacking animation into music tools and audiovisual performance, here’s about as far out as you can get: What you’re seeing is actually the user interface for Renoise, an app in a category of music tools called “trackers”, being animated directly. The little characters you’re seeing light up are events in […]

Ableton for the DVJ: Users Hack in Scratching, Live Video, and Visual Remixing

Live brushes up its VJ kung fu: The Karate Kid live remix at the CDM NAMM Party last month, as Ableton Live gets integrated into live visuals. Photo courtesy Robin Hunicke. Audiovisual performance has a history stretching back through the decades — from the 90s Japan audiovisual scene to 60s Acid Tests and whole heck […]

Video: Volt Per Octaves Synth Duo Mooging Out Live

NAMM08: Volt Per Octave Play the Moog Music Booth from cdm tv on Vimeo. Husband-and-wife synth duo — and Moog superfans — Nick and Anna Montoya were helping out at the Moog Music booth this year and NAMM. Their greatest responsibility: making sure synthy good vibrations emanated from all that hardware through the day. We […]

AV Cutup Secrets: Using Lucifer & Live

Lucifer is a plug-in that does real-time audio slicing and repeats — as in for music. So what is this plug-in, running in Ableton Live as a host (hmm, music again), showing up on Create Digital Motion? Because our friend Momo used its MIDI output capabilities to trigger video — and got an unusual interaction […]

AV Cutup Secrets: Using Lucifer & Live

Lucifer is a plug-in that does real-time audio slicing and repeats — as in for music. So what is this plug-in, running in Ableton Live as a host (hmm, music again), showing up on Create Digital Motion? Because our friend Momo used its MIDI output capabilities to trigger video — and got an unusual interaction […]