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A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:25 pm
by The Phat Conductor
Hello there, I know it's been a while since I've been around, but I was on the road for 98 days solid so what could I do?
Anyway, in preparation for The ill.Methodology Album tour I want to turn my laptop music show into a proper A/V stage show. I have VJ'd many times with Resolume and with Arkaos, but I don't feel that either of those platforms are able to give me exactly what I need.
What I need is quite simple, but I have been unable to find a platform (other than Serato) which offers this:
1. I want each song to have a dedicated video track + performance parts to lay over top.
2. I want these video parts to warp to the BPM I am playing them at.
3. I want to be able to trigger these parts from session view like normal audio clips
4. I want all of my audio FX to trigger video FX at the same time.
Surely this will not require a custom Max patch?
Any ideas?
Thanks for your time.
ill.Gates
Re: A/V LIVE with Ableton +?
Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2011 9:27 pm
by The Phat Conductor
....?
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:02 am
by The Phat Conductor
Surely I'm not alone?
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 1:52 pm
by transology
That's would be just perfect Phat Conductor !
Post back if you ever find a solution
Thanks
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:21 pm
by The Phat Conductor
i did find a couple solutions so far...
the most direct solution is to have two computers, one doing audio from session and one doing video from arrange... then put your video clips into the second computer and trigger relevant arrangement flags over a midi cable (bulky and ugly, but it works). i WOULD be able to do this on one computer, but the video window disappears on the second copy of ableton as soon as it's not the active application. SO annoying... i do NOT want to haul a second computer all over the world.
the best way seems to be by using this software (which isn't out yet) -
http://www.youtube.com/itsthejayj (the good stuff starts at about 3:10)
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 6:22 pm
by The Phat Conductor
anyone know how to hack ableton so that it displays the video window even when it's not the active application?
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 9:00 pm
by jimmynitcher
Why don't you map both arrangement flags and session clips to the same thing ? i.e when you fire a clip with "a" on the qwerty it also jumps to a video in Arrange view with "a" as its flag.
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Fri Feb 04, 2011 9:46 pm
by The Phat Conductor
jimmynitcher wrote:Why don't you map both arrangement flags and session clips to the same thing ? i.e when you fire a clip with "a" on the qwerty it also jumps to a video in Arrange view with "a" as its flag.
because cueing around in arrangement mode ALSO cues around in your session view clips

Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2011 7:47 pm
by The Phat Conductor
surely there must be a way...
?
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 7:22 pm
by The Phat Conductor
bump.
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Mon Feb 07, 2011 8:57 pm
by vicz
Easiest to use Max 4L and Jitter for stuff like that, for example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCEB32A4 ... re=related
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 10:17 pm
by The Phat Conductor
i had a go with vizzABLE and it was definitely cool, but it couldn't warp the clips and the screen kept going black all of a sudden. i don't know if
a. i would be able to get it to work reliably enough for a tour
and
b. i could get it to do what i need (warping + cueing)
super rad project though! i will definitely be keeping an eye on it.
<3
d
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:13 pm
by siliconarc
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2011 12:56 pm
by zeropoint
hey phat....if you want to stay within live (and no custom built max/jitter stuff) then, as you've discovered already JAM (just add music), was heading in the right direction and to my knowledge was currently the only option - if indeed it ever gets released.
modul8 is cool but last time I looked was limited by a media set of 128 clips. integration with live is also not nearly as straightforward as it is with resolume, which follows the live paradigm quite closely.
you say you used resolume. was that avenue in combination with live? because, if i understand you properly, i can't really see anything on your list that can't be done, with the correct programming of your templates, by using them together.
i run them both on a single 17" MBP 2.93 at home, with the video streaming from a g tech mini raid 2 over esata with no problems - especially using resolume's proprietary dxv codec which shifts the decoding work off your cpu and onto your gpu..... although to be honest if I were playing out in any serious way I'd still stick resolume on a second lappy for safety....so, painful as it is, if you did go that way and wanted to give yourself the best chance of a crash-free set a second computer is still advisable. besides, if you mirror everything between laptops, you can still carry on with your tour if one of them dies....even if it means ditching the visuals should they not prove stable running on the same 'puter as your tunes.
i'm helping another artist program his av set at the moment and the only real problem we're encountering is a 180ms output phase delay at the resolume end. i am in contact with resolume support about this but at the moment they can't reproduce the delay their end. as long as you're not banging any beats in realtime in live , this can of course be remedied by setting a negative midi delay in ableton.....but if you are, the resultant latency will obviously drive you to hell and back.....
if you were using them in combo, what issues did you have?
Re: A/V Clips in an Ableton DJ Set?
Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2011 8:14 pm
by The Phat Conductor
i was using resolume way before avenue and haven't tried avenue yet to be honest.
what i need is to BOTH dj and bang out beats live and have the a/v sync'd a la coldcut.
do you think that avenue can handle this?
i am leaning towards running the video out of ableton on another computer so that the warping and everything is all good. i don't really need to layer much. straight cuts are fine with me.
do you think that there might be a way to hijack the video window from ableton and run it into a vj software?