Integrating Live and Video

[vgermani]

Hi, Live is the heart of my live setup with my band. We don't sync directly to tracks for songs but use scenes to set up all the synth patches, provide click and sometimes we manually trigger patterns. One thing we want to start looking into is using video behind us on our live gigs. I can create the videos for each song, no need to sync directly, however, I'm wondering if anyone has used live, in conjunction with any other video apps to trigger videos to start at the start of a song/pattern.

Here's the scenario, Live scene for each song, scene change automatically changes synth patches (already working), start scene and click starts. At scene start, I would like to trigger a specific video. I realize the video will be external to Live.

Thanks for any advice/help.

[[email protected]]

Hi there,

There are many ways to approach video and video synchronization stuff with Live.
It all depends on your requirements and technical boundaries.

If you have Live and no Max for Live, you can use MIDI in Live to trigger an external video application such as:
- Resolume (see this tutorial http://www.resolume.com/blog/6187/video ... -with-midi)
- VDMX (see this tread: http://www.vidvox.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=7053)

If you have Max for Live you can do things inside Max for Live. See for instance
- V-Module (which I developed myself, see: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/device/594/v-module
- VIZZable by Zeal (see: http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... ugin-suite and on the latest Ableton Blog http://www.ableton.com/blog/).

If you have Max for Live you can use OSC and program your own app to respond to OSC in many languages (such VVVV, Processing, QuartzComposer, Max etc.).
- See for instance Resolume being triggered by Live using OSC through these patches (http://resolume.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8717)

PS: Live has internal support for Video only in the arrangement view. But this is usefull only for scoring on top of the video. It is not that useful if you have a live performance in mind.

Good Luck!

Fabrizio

[vgermani]

Thanks for your input Fabrizio. I guess I should have put as one of my requirements that free or extremely cheap is required. I looked at Resolume and VDMX but they are expensive. I'm almost thinking all I need is a way to trigger quicktime files to play at a specific time. We're not beat syncing anything so I don't need timecode or have any need to be measure specific, just want a clip to play at an approximate time. These other tools are fantastic but overkill right now.

The second requirement would be that I want to be able to trigger video clips/files on a remote computer. I am very strict about not doing anything on my main macbook other than ableton and synth plugins. Stability is key for the sounds but video is not as critical.

Thanks again for any advice!

[chapelier fou]

i do it with a 2nd computer running max for the video.
with my music computer, i send note messages to trigger video cues. Works perfectly.

[synnack]

You guys might enjoy this interview with Ableton (with quotes by me) on this topic:

http://splicevine.com/ableton/

Cheers.

[vgermani]

OMG! That is so cool! I had no idea that was all there...though I'm still confused on how to use it. If I could give any developer 1 piece of advice, make things as user friendly as possible. I used to develop a bit in a previous live and it's easy for a developer to make things work from a programmatic perspective, it's a whole other thing to make it work so somebody who's a non-programmer use it. My biggest frustration with Live/M4L is that at this point in my life, I'm a musician, not a programmer. I want to be able to plug all of these things together and have them work in a way I can understand. We're not all touring acts with technical teams available to put all of this together. I ended up hiring somebody to program something in Max for me and it seems every time I update the OS the program works and I have no idea how to fix the program. The simpler things are to use, the more they will get used.

That being said, this looks fantastic! Thanks for sharing.