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GrandVJ and Livid’s Ohm64.. Even better

polanri — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:18:09 +0000

Back in October we blogged about the guys from Livid blogging about GrandVJ 1.2 beta natively supporting their Ohm64 controller out of the box through Generic MIDI Feedback. Since then, we have been exchanging ideas with them by e-mail and we even met them at the NAMM a few days ago, and indeed we share the same view about how our products should be: open and expandable.

Meanwhile we have released GrandVJ 1.2 and we took the time to include a special template for the Ohm64 in this release. As we did for the Akai APC40, this new dedicated template allows even more bidirectional communication between both products and takes advantage of all the control and feedback possibilities offered by the device.
It’s just like if your GrandVJ was made for your Ohm64.. and vice-versa :)

And thus, below is a new video from Livid showing their controller in action with GrandVJ:

GrandVJ 1.2b1 supports Flash AS3, Quartz Composer, APC40 and more

FraKtus — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:48:05 +0000

We just released a new beta version of GrandVJ, you can download it from our forums:

http://www.arkaos.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=6828

This version has many new cool things which are detailed in the forum post, here is a recap:

New ultra smooth engine
Support for Akai APC40 & Generic midi feedback
(also for Behringer BCR2000/BCF2000, Livid OHM, ..)
Quartz composer player (Mac OS X)
Support for Flash Actionscript 3
Cell layer assignment
Mixer state saving
Added master blackout button
New enhanced soft-edging algorithm
Added vertical/horizontal position presets for TripleHead2Go
Several Bug fixes.
New fullscreen option (PC)

We plan to ship the final version at the end of this month so we encourage you to check if this new version is working fine and to report any problems or suggestions by creating a topic in the GrandVJ forum.

Happy testing, we hope you will have as much fun using this version as we had to code it!

Create a clip with GrandVJ and Tenori-ON

Gorgull — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:45:07 +0000

Blindskunk, an ArKaos GrandVJ user from Australia we found on Twitter has made an interesting experience about creating an audio/visual clip using GrandVJ and Yamaha’s Tenori-ON.

The interest of this experience is that Blindskunk uses the musical instrument capabilities from the Tenori-ON to produce the music and at the same time its MIDI controller capabilities to trigger GrandVJ visuals in sync. To do so, he has linked every channel and button from the Tenori-ON to a visual in GrandVJ, and got that visual to play in time to the changes.

He has kindly shared with us a detailed log of his experimentation further below, including a MIDI template to use the Tenori-ON with GrandVJ.

But before you read any further, for those of you who don’t know about the Tenori-ON, here’s another clip from Blindskunk where you can see him using it as controller for GrandVJ:

1. Record Audio and Midi

Yamaha Tenori-On

Blindskunk composed the piece entirely on the Tenori-ON and recorded it internally using the original sounds.

Steinberg Cubase Studio 4

Then, he exported the whole piece using Steinberg Cubase Studio 4 to record the output as MIDI then splited the MIDI into its 10 individual MIDI channels (with Cubase MIDI dissolve option)

Propellerhead Reason 4

Blindskunk remixed the audio output in Propellerhead Reason 4 to produce a better sounding and mixed track which he saved as a WAV.

That WAV was introduced as a track of Audio in Cubase and aligned to the MIDI, in order to get a proper synchronization while previewing in GrandVJ.

2. Produce a midi-synchronized Video track using ArKaos GrandVJ:

ArKaos GrandVJ

In GrandVJ every MIDI channel and all 16 buttons were linked to a 16×16 matrix.

Various visuals including some presets and various sources from around the web were attached to the 16×16 grid (however, not all of the cells were filled with visuals). The spinning Tenori in the background was recorded playing the actual piece and the video mapped to a cube inside GrandVJ.

Playing the piece in Cubase produced the Video output, by sending MIDI notes to GrandVJ through Rewire.

Here’s a link to download Blindskunk’s GrandVJ MIDI template file: Download VJT file Zipped

3. Create the final sequence

ACA Capture Pro & Morgan MJPEG Codec

Blindskunk then recorded a 640×480 resolution video (30fps) straight from the GrandVJ Master window using the screen capture program ACA Capture Pro (with Morgan M-JPEG codec). The resulting file size was 1000Mb

VirtualDUB & DivX

He converted the file using VirtualDUB to a high quality DivX (smaller in size than Morgan M-JPEG Codec) – The reason for this process is that while the DivX is fast, it cant keep up on high quality in real-time. The resulting file was then 70 Mb

Sony Vegas Pro

Blindskunk finally synchronized the DivX and the WAV file from earlier with Sony Vegas Pro, added his intro and extro Graphics.

4. Upload to YouTube

The final result is the video below:

About Blindskunk:

Home of Light Hearted Electronic Music

Sharing MIDI templates in GrandVJ

nostromo — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:30:17 +0000

With GrandVJ, it is possible to import and export template and share controller mappings with your friends.

Since it’s a handy feature but that the process is not totally obvious (although documented :), we’ll recap quickly here how to do:

Create a template for the controller of your choice
Save the template by choosing the ‘File/Save Mapping Template…‘ menu.
Give it a name and a description.
Hit ‘OK‘.
Now choose ‘File/Load Mapping Template‘. The dialog will show you all the available templates, including the one you just saved.
Select your template and right click on it. Choose ‘Export…‘
Enter a file name and save it.

At this point, you will end up with a .vjt file that you can take with you / send by email to the person you want to share it with.

On the other computer, fire GrandVJ and select ‘Load Mapping Template…‘. At the bottom of the dialog, there’s an ‘Import...’ button. Click it.

Select the file you exported and the template will be loaded into the library.

Happy sharing.