anyone here use ARKAOS?

adhmzaiusz · Post by **adhmzaiusz** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 7:05 am

i just bought it with my friend and found that instead of buying a liscense each u can buy 6 serials for cheaper than buying two. now thats a pretty good deal, came to 375 cad as opposed to around 458 halfing it. this damn program has been on my 'just a matter of time' list for about 2 years now and ive caved at last. Im wondering if i shoulda went for livid union or something else though...

anyways, cool how you can assign video to midi, but the more i use it the more the effects make it one of those programs that someone will see and say 'oh, he used arkaos for that'. kinda like squarepusher's ultravisitor sounds just like live

whatever my friends all legally(i think) get a copy and we all get cool synced video, nice one brutha

all in all seems like it was worth it but for best performance im not looking forward to re-exporting all my source to smaller size though, sheeeyite

jamief · Post by **jamief** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 10:39 am

yes i have used it about 3 years ago.
It is agreat program and has alot of scope.
i had to do a vj music presentation for a drinks company involving extreme sports and i used Arkaos alongside cubase at the time both running on a blue G3. The mac just about was able to run a stereo track of audio and output the video to avideo mixer which also had a dvd and sony cam and video players attached for mixing.
the whole thing was output to a 3000 ansi lumens projector.

Arkaos also do a much higher level vj /professioanl application .
Havent used that and cant remeber the name but im pretty sure its used for U2 type concert work etc etc

mindlobster · Post by **mindlobster** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 1:32 pm

I use Arkaos at every gig. I used to control it and Live simultaneously from a USB keyboard, but of course now with Live 4 I can send MIDI straight to Arkaos from clips - it's COOL. If you're doing it with a laptop tho (which I am), you have to be pretty mean with your CPU/RAM use, but it can be done! I've got photos and quicktime movies on my site www.mindlobster.com, and I'm gonna be profiled on the Arkaos site soon!

adhmzaiusz · Post by **adhmzaiusz** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 5:07 pm

yo mindlobster your site is pretty sweet
watching the videos kind of reminds me of the kraftwerk concert i went to

im surprised you got audio and video out of that g3 ibook! thats crazy what resolution do you have your video at?

mindlobster · Post by **mindlobster** » Sun Jan 09, 2005 6:38 pm

Thanks! Yeah the Kraftwerk comparison does come up, but a lot of people are turning to the laptop/projection thing now. I was once invited to submit some VJ work to Karl Bartos, but I don't even know if he saw it...oh well. The iBooks? It needs to be clear: in some of the shots I'm running Live on a key lime iBook with Arkaos on a G4 PowerBook. Later I started to run Live and Arkaos together on the PowerBook, for portability, and NOW I run Arkaos and Live 4 together on a G4 iBook. I have that hack which lets you run iBooks in dual display. I work at 800x600, but of course my source video material is at various resolutions - I get stuff from all over the place.

timdrussell · Post by **timdrussell** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 7:53 pm

do you have to have a really beefy machine to run Live and Arkaos together? because i thought my pc would be able to handle it, but when i switch Arkaos to full screen, it closes Live, leaving the rewire session hanging i might add, which to me suggests that Live was crashed, not closed per se. beyond that, i did some experimenting with another VJ product, Aestesis Elektronika Live (nice analog looking vis there! puts me in the mood of some of my fave old 4AD records), and whenever i put its view screen onto my 2nd desktop at anything approaching a good size (640x480 - the res i plan to use), Live doesn't crash but still starts sputtering and dragging... the dreaded pops and clicks, etc.

i've asked the makers of Arkaos about the crashing Live thing, but no response yet. i noticed someone else posted a message here about it but has yet to receive reply. so is it my machine just not good enough for this whole audio + video thang? specs below. i'm working with Live 4.1 and the Arkaos 3.0.3 demo. much thanks. luv Live and these forums.

TimD

adhmzaiusz · Post by **adhmzaiusz** » Mon Mar 28, 2005 11:31 pm

it is possible on my powerbook to run both, though i wouldn't because it is tooooooooo slow to bother, so i just use a second pb for arkaos

but also consider the type of files you are using in arkaos because if arkaos is reading compressed video it has to decompress it in realtime too. so there is always the compromise of quality or file size when choosing your file type. if you use dv, the file size is humung but no decompression occurs, you could use cinepak for compression that is fast but quality is a little blurry. i just found that sorenson3 is pretty good, compresses decent quality picture with reasonable file size.

but i think that both programs live and arkaos use alot of system resources so it may be ideal to consider a second lap

D K · Post by **D K** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:24 am

i find the arkaos effects cheesy.
it is good for playing back clips
you create with 3rd party video editing programs.
i'm looking foreward to the new version of modul8
with rendering capabilities.
cheers

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 11:05 am

I'm using Live & Arkaos VJ in various configurations. It obvious runs with no problem on my twin 2GHz desktop G5, but chokes on my 400MHz Powerbook. I've actually had good luck running Live on my Powerbook and VJ on my PC notebook MIDIed together, although the notebook doesn't have a DVI output and can't handle XGA Quick Time movies.

I'm just writing lots of 3d animations, etc, awaiting the G5 Powerbooks before gigging. Failing arrival of G5 Powerbooks, I may just use my G5 desktop. I like to run XGA (1024 x 768).. don't like the abstract pixelated look, and XGA is the projector's native digital resolution, allegedly creating the sharpest image without any analog interpretations along the way.

I also use Live to drive DMX scanners & colour washes via a MIDI-DMX converter. I just wish Live had Bezier CC curves rather than having to use a bunch of straight-line segments for smooth pan/tilt/etc.

Arkaos VJ 3.5 is supposedly imminent.. more effects & stability, hopefully.

Cool to hear comments about people doing similar things...

corygilbert · Post by **corygilbert** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:21 pm

I've looked recently into many of these programs and their abilities with Live, I'm really liking the Grid2 program. It allows me to do my creation before the presentation using Final Cut, Image ready for animations etc. using the filters and lumen keys in something like final cut is much nicer, plus I;m not fooling with thinking too hard about on the fly creation with the video and working more with the music, plus outputting midi from live to trigger clips in Grid, as well as using say the modulation controller data to work the scrub feature on a given clip, really allows some real time sync with live clips. I run it all on a 1.67 PB with 2 Gig of ram. It works and I can do some great original projectitons without becoming a VJ to my own performance.

timdrussell · Post by **timdrussell** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 3:45 pm

thanks for the tips everyone. yeah, adhmzaiusz, running Live on one pc and VJ on another, and midi-ing between them seems to be working well, so i'm sticking with that. that'll leave me the cpu breathing room for 24-bit/96KHz audio and higher res vid, which is what i want. i feel bad about troubling everyone now. on that note, i got a response from the Arkaos team today:

Have you tried to check the "overlay" option in Edit/Preferences/Monitors? I suppose Ableton Live crashs when ArKaos change the second monitor resolution. There may be a problem in there. There is no other reason why Ableton Live would leave when ArKaos starts fullscreen. The "overlay" option makes that ArKaos doesn't have to switch the resolution any more as the hardware graphic card will resize the arKaos output itself. This may solve the problem. Please keep me up to ddate about that, I may contact Live developers to notice the problem.

i think i did try the "overlay" option. i haven't had a chance to test anymore. i'm starting to agree with you, DK, that Arkaos's fx are cheesy in a way. i mean they're high quality but i think maybe they're too tv, commercially oriented for me. personally, i really like some of what i've seen in VisualJockey, Isadora, and Elektronika Live; those are sort of more my taste, more organic and analog. but then my music is made for Joshua Light show, early Pink Floyd, 4AD looking vis. i play rock and roll, feedback, and murky electric guitar. my basic problem right now is this: i can't find VJ software that combines those fx styles, the ease of use, stability, and ReWire midi capabilities of Arkaos, and the good beat detection of Elektronika. i'm still collecting links to vj soft sites, though. there's a lot more out there than i thought there was... will look at modul8, Grid and the next gen of Arkaos fer sher.

best,
TimD

hambone1 · Post by **hambone1** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 4:55 pm

It will all come together in OSX 10.4 and Core Image. Video will be awesome and not so processor-intensive.

Don't know who will get there first, though. Hope it's Arkaos.. they've already got my cash!

My opinion only, btw!

adhmzaiusz · Post by **adhmzaiusz** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 6:39 pm

a bunch of apps you may find as an alternative

http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolshak/vjprglst.htm
http://www.audiovisualizers.com/toolsha ... ftmain.htm

computo · Post by **computo** » Tue Mar 29, 2005 10:26 pm

I am really glad this thread got started. I've been developing my own custom vj software for the past 3 months, and its really nice to see whats out there.

I use Max/MSP/Jitter, which is really indepth and customizable, in that you have to build everything yourself. Its nice because I can include or drop any feature that I dont use. Most of these other programs were built using Jitter, so you guys might be into it.

How does Grid work? does it use transitions at all? I didnt notice even a mention on the site...

-Computo

corygilbert · Post by **corygilbert** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 6:11 am

grid works like live in that you load folders and files and they are displayed in a matrix from which you can trigger. (sounds familiar)
you can set the loop, start and end points of each clip and control such functions as scrub (think, .. well like scrubbing the playhead on a tape machine, pro tools, turn table etc.) fade time and whatever. You can link these to midi imput. from live, i set a separate column just for video midi output, use a cc message like the mod wheel to send scrub data. use midi notes to control which clip is being played. sync the whole thing to live's bpm. apparently theyve got a new grid pro. I checked it out. it has some of the features that grid doesnt. like transitions, lumen keys, effects, etc. I do all that in Final Cut Pro or even imovie. i don't want to be thinking so much about the video, I want to perform music, I want the video to enhance that. Don't get me wrong, i spend a lot of time getting the clips ready and doing variations and sections that link with live songs. Great too because when you load a new song in live it just keeps rolling with the next clip till the next midi message is received. I highly reccomend.

anyone here use ARKAOS?

anyone here use ARKAOS?

Re: anyone here use ARKAOS?

Arkaos

Arkaos