DA FACT introduced the Karlax at MusikMesse 2010 as the first controller for digital Arts that re-establish the artist’s body at the heart of the performance. With it’s revolutionary ergonomic design, this instrument transmits the artist’s own natural movements wireless (using radio-waves and MIDI trough USB) to a computer, giving musicians and digital Artists freedom on stage.

Yes, 10 fingers running on a MIDI keyboard can trigger many events, for more flexibility you can also use some advanced controllers especially made for audio sampling software or directly aimed at VJ’s. But as Nintendo showed to the game industry, gestures and body movement can add a whole new fantastic layer to expression and control, as an example just Google GrandVJ+Wiimote and you’ll see that there is really some interest about controlling visuals with gestures.

At ArKaos, we designed GrandVJ so that everything can be controlled by MIDI and we tried as much as possible to make it compatible with any existing or future controller thanks to the MIDI-learn mode. So the Karlax was working out of the box with GrandVJ but we’ve been in contact with DA FACT to develop a better support for their controller in GrandVJ as we did previously with other manufacturers.

In this video from MusikMesse 2010 you see the GrandVJ in mixer mode mapped to the various MIDI notes and controllers generated by the Karlax. In this first implementation we mapped five controllers to the intensity of the first five mixer layers. You can use two keys to select the next and previous layer so you can edit live the state of all layers directly from the controller and the movement is mapped to Loop speed.

The other controls are used to affect loop speed, to trigger visuals from the patch, to select effects or change parameter values, to modify the visual position, etc… The Karlax is here used to control at the same time GrandVJ and an audio application.

Now just five days later, on 15 Aug. he was already VJing live for the ZôL concert at Metamorphoses, a French Electronic music festival and it went great, check out the video below!

Okay Charlie is not a beginner when it comes to playing with video but we like to think that we succeeded in making GrandVJ a powerful but easy VJing software with a very short learning curve.

Charlie is the guy with the funny colorful hood, of course we spotted the GrandVJ software interface on his laptop, with the Korg Nano’s..

So we sent him a little message to know more about him; read the full post for his explanations below the video.

Charlie explains:

The visual mix on the Samsung LCD screen on the desk was made with GrandVJ, of course I re-embedded the mix on the screen when rendering the final video to get a better image quality than what you get when filming a screen.

It only took me two takes of live mix on the 2 minutes music track from Zôl to get the result you see on the screen and actually I bought GrandVJ just the day before! Now I really intend to continue to use it..

In the past I have used ArKaos VJ MIDI then tried some other VJing software but I’ve never been really satisfied.. But when I tested GrandVJ that was all I was looking for. It’s fun, efficient, easy to use, adaptable, perfect when you need to be reactive and play instinctively.. And most importantly, it’s stable; no sudden crash!

My usual setup is very basic, I like to play quick with raw content, I prefer spending more time to prepare my loops, to film them and invent them than to configure software and controllers..

I’m using NanoPAD and NanoKEY controllers from Korg, with 24 loops per bank. I use the NanoKEY for opacity and as for the effects I’m mainly using Zoom Bass at the moment because I found it great to give the tempo a kick when it’s getting down after a speedy one hour mix!

I’ll definitely take some more time to dig GrandVJ and its functionalities but as it is I’m really glad I found such a great tool.

If you like it, keep an eye on Charlie Mars’ creations for more stuff like this, now that he’s getting used to GrandVJ :)

He can be found on his own web site but also on Vimeo, YouTube, DailyMotion and MySpace.

Scott [amoeba], a long time ArKaos user (since 1998!!) has just published hot news on his web site theestateovcreation. If you don’t know [amoeba] yet, it’s really time to check it out and discover his very unique style.

[amoeba]‘s creation/mixing process involves a lot of different tools such as After Effects or Ableton Live and various techniques like typography and animation generally mixed an synced together whit GrandVJ.

In the video below he’s been using Ableton MIDI patterns to control and trigger micro QuickTime movies that he created with After Effects edits and constructivist motion graphics with synched audio through ArKaos software.

Fore more inspiring VJ work by [amoeba] check out the rest of this post..

3 of 10 music videos and a/v set for Politica world tour

amoeba v politica – electronic police state on Vimeo

4 burlesque films for Enamore

Creative music videos for various other clients

As a part of their creation process they make a very advanced use of ArKaos software’s blend and mask modes to map visuals on onto architecture or objects.

They have once again caught our attention with one of their latest installations, a stunning visual show in Breda’s cathedral. It’s a beautiful mix of painting projection, light sculpture, perfect mapping and great music made by a team of very experienced professionals..

But enough words, have a look at the video; it’s really worth watching to the end!

Credits goes to Yannick Jacquet (Legoman), Joanie Lemercier (crustea), Romain Tardy (Aalto) and Olivier Ratsi (Emovie) from ANTIVJ. Original music is by Thomas Vaquié, played on organ by Gerard Maters and the lighting design is by Giacinto Caponio.

Finally, we couldn’t resist adding another video to this post; the TV report from Dutch television where you can see the ANTIVJ team interviewed while setting up the show and explaining their background and how they evolved to this concept (the presentation is in Dutch but the interviews are in English). It also briefly shows some of ANTIVJ’s other very interesting realizations.

For more, be sure to check out Crustea’s YouTube Channel, ANTIVJ on Vimeo and the ANTIVJ Blog.

It features  Interviews and Footage from The Light Surgeons, D-Fuse, Hexstatic, Vj Anyone, Addictive TV, Vector Meldrew and Fatamorgana.

About V.I.A.

With over six years experience in the live events industry, the V.I.A – (Visually Impaired Artists) cultivate a range of digital disciplines for the mutual love of live performance.

With professional backgrounds in the Broadcasting, Film and Live events industries their live performances bring together a mix of Animation, Motion Graphics, 8mm, Film & Video, Video feedback, live camera work and Lighting Design.