I have a confession to make, CDMo(n)sters. I’ve been keeping things from you. There has been so much exciting stuff happening with the Vixid and Herovision over the past months that I’ve been paralyzed. In spite of my “do it fast, release it now” philosophy, I haven’t been sharing things, because they’ve been perpetually not quite done yet.
That is selfish, I apologize. Here’s some Stormtroopers playing Bowie on Rock Band.
Herovision + The Empire: David Bowie – Suffragette City from Herovision on Vimeo.
Tomorrow night will be the last Herovision performance at Game On. In honor of a hugely successful and enjoyable project, I’ll be further increasing my already frantic Game On Night workload by attempting to stream the performances live via Mogulus.
I’ve learned a huge amount about video signals, cables, power, and prototyping when putting this project together. I don’t have time to talk about that in detail yet though, so instead I’d like to share some technical and artistic impressions I’ve gained from the project.
The core of the system, the Vixid VJX16-4 (minisite | on CDM) is an utterly incredible piece of gear. In the year I’ve had it I’ve started writing a proper review half a dozen times, only to discover another amazing technique and realise that I still need to learn more before I profess to be some kind of expert, worthy of foisting opinions on you.
However, something I have known from my first Vixid moments is that having a full MIDI map is the most user-friendly action a hardware manufacturer can ever make. The VJX has so much going on, so many layer, blend and effect possibilities, that without holistic MIDI control it would never reach 10% of its capability. I’ll have more to say on the VJX soon, and apologies to those who have been waiting for a review for so long. I can however give you the shortest possible executive summary right now: Vixid = The Future.
On the human side of the project, it’s been fantastic to see how much enjoyment people gain from getting up on stage and rocking out for a couple of minutes. I’ve been a performer my whole life – a saxophonist, singer, and eventually a visualist – and have performed on hundreds of stages around the world. So the whole “performance” thing may have lost some of its youthful wonder for me, and it’s consistently amazing to see how “ordinary” people can get up there in front of strangers and have a blast. Of course Rock Band and Guitar Hero already had the power to force enjoyment on to unsuspecting humans, but adding video to the mix really brings a new level to rhythm gaming. Having cameras pointed at them makes people perform, rather than just play. Live camera feeds are extremely powerful things.
Tomorrow night, if the State Library of Queensland internet connection can handle it, I’ll try to share some of those good times with you. As well as Herovision we’ll have Flamingo Crash, Simulcast will be making his return to streaming with CDM, after a fantastic performance in my studio for NetLag.