This Release Candidate version should be the last one before the official release. It includes all the features, graphics and documentation of the official version. All the bugs found in the beta have been fixed, we have also resolved some instability issues that were affecting previous versions of GrandVJ.

ArKaos GrandVJ and Ableton Live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XR2YVjoycxU

ArKaos GrandVJ and Steinberg Cubase:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhC_T1jkepc

ArKaos Connect

ArKaos Connect allows GrandVJ to receive sound and MIDI from any audio sequencer that support VST plugins like Ableton Live or Steinberg Cubase. The audio host can run on the same machine as GrandVJ or on a different one on the same local network.

The configuration of the connection in GrandVJ is very straightforward : just select the sending VST plugin in an auto-updated list and enjoy the new possibilities open by these interactions : Live Generators can now directly react to the sound of an audio performance, MIDI can be received from everywhere..

Transitions

Transitions, already presented in the last GrandVJ Dev version, have been finalized and can now be used with their full creative potential. As a reminder, transitions provide automated smooth changes between two video clips. They can be activated and parametrized for each cell and/or each deck in mixer mode.

A large collection of transitions effects has been added to the browser library. The choice of the transition is therefore as simple as choosing a normal effect. Each transition can be personalized using up to four controllable parameters plus an extra transition time parameter.

Browser Preview

Video clips, effects and transitions can handily be previewed in a small window below the browser panel. It makes the content browsing more efficient, allowing you to decide which visual, effect, transition, etc. you will use before first applying it to a cell in GrandVJ.

Multi-monitors support on windows

GrandVJ now fully supports multi-screen output in Windows Vista & 7 for Multi-head graphics cards. This means you can connect several displays to one graphic card and GrandVJ will spread the output across those connected displays.

Bidirectional support for Akai APC20

Just in time for the release, we’ve added bidirectional support for Akai’s new MIDI controller, the APC20! It works the same as for the APC40, checkout the doc for more info.

Download the RC2 version:

• GrandVJ 1.5 final has been released, you can get the latest version from the GrandVJ download page

How to install?:

Just run the installer and follow the steps.

However, in order to use ArKaos Connect with a sequencer in Windows, please do the following step:

• Windows: copy “ArKaos Connect VST plugin/ArKaosConnect.dll” into your VST folder (i.e : “C:\Program Files\Steinberg\Cubase 6\VSTPlugins”)

Documentation:

As usual, documentation is provided as PDF in the “Documentation” folder:

• ArKaos_GrandVJ_1_5_ReleaseNotes.pdf (Changes from GrandVJ 1.2 to 1.5)
• ArKaos_Connect_quickstart.pdf (QuickStart guide for ArKaos Connect)

Important:

This is not yet the final release version, it still needs some testing, remember that before using it in front of an audience. We don’t have a release date for the final version yet, it will depend on your precious feedback..

Happy testing!

At ArKaos, it’s now many years we’re developing software that drives LEDs in a way or another: our media server software MediaMaster and our VJ software GrandVJ are used every day to drive LED fixtures or LED walls, and of course we have the LED Mapper extension which, combined with MediaMaster, creates a very easy solution to map visuals on complex setups of DMX driven LED walls.

However there is still something that makes it too complicated and / or too expensive for anyone to display visuals on LED devices: setup…

Simple LED fixtures rely on the DMX or ArtNet protocol to work, which means many magic numbers to type, multiplying chances that something goes wrong and prevents your little pixels to blink.. On the other hand, big LED wall components come with hardware interfaces facilitating the setup but they are most of the time so expensive that they’re not an option for most performers and clubs.

We’re in 2010 and it should not be science fiction to have a LED device with an Ethernet port that automatically ”says hello” when connected to a media server and then sends its description so the server can immediately use it without any setup. The device would contact MediaMaster and configure itself automagically by explaining its capacities like “I am a LED device with 48 x 12 pixels in 5 bits format of red green blue”.. In other words: Plug’n Play.

And of course, this should be operated by an affordable processor because you don’t want to add a PC behind each device..

Well that’s exactly what our Kling-Net protocol does. The prototype you can see on the video above is built with an inexpensive open-source electronics prototyping platform called Arduino, and as you can see, it just works.. We’ll now fine-tune it some more and decide what we’ll do with this baby.

If you want more technical info about Kling-Net, we have started to document it on a dedicated Wiki.

All the new features will be announced with the release but here’s already a video tutorial demonstrating the new support in MediaMaster 1.1 for grandMA’s MA-eDMX protocol.  This allows a much better networking between grandMA lighting consoles and a media server running MediaMaster.

They have setup a very creative system to trigger visuals involving a NuVJ, a video camera, a MediaMaster controlled from a GrandMA console and.. a custom controller made of a simple plexiglass panel with duct tape, the so-called “PixelFucker controller”..

Philipp from LoopLight explains his creation:

Installation schema

I have setup ArKaos MediaMaster, ArKaos NuVJ and grandMA ultralight in one network session. The headlights were Jarag-5 in a matrix with par30 and 52 Movinglights with CMY. I made a led mapping patch in MediaMaster to control both the Jarags and the CMY of the movinglights.

MediaMaster was fed with two input streams:

The first input came from a camera filming a plexiglass panel divided in two areas, the left side was for Jarag and the right side for the CMY.

The second input was fed with the output of a NuVJ that I used to trigger SD Clips.

In MediaMaster I scaled my live input from the camera to match only the left part of the plexiglass and configured different effects like Edge detect, Greyscale and Contrast so that, by moving my hand vertically and horizontally in front of the camera (behind the left part of the plexiglass that I was using as guide), I could dynamically create visuals in combination with the SD Clips played by the NuVJ.

For the CMY, I prepared four large Colourwheels in different bright colours so just by moving them in the right half of the plexiglass I could change all CMY in the moving lights.

As you can see it’s a great example of creative processing involving video, lighting and a good dose of creativity.. And that’s exactly what the guys from LoopLight are known for!

Here is the result:

Ok there is a black frame when switching queues but hey, it’s a prototype :)

It’s fully multithreaded so development is moving forward carefully. There are threads for the network synchronization, video decompression, OpenGL rendering and status update to the server