In this tutorial we will demonstrate how to add your own Quartz-Composer Effects in MediaMaster.

Remark:

Check out the article “How to: Create audio-reactive effects for GrandVJ using Quartz-Composer” for more details about the creation of Quartz-Composer effects. You will also find lots of resources and how-to’s for Quartz Composer on the web or in the Reference Library from the Mac Dev Center.

Simple Mode (MediaMaster Express and Pro) and Fixture Mode (MediaMaster Pro)

It’s easy to add Quartz effects in MediaMaster 2.0 when in Simple Mode, but in Fixture Mode effect presets are defined within the layer fixture and these fixture files shouldn’t be modified in any circumstances. As a consequence, to make use of new effects we have to add a new custom layer fixture that will include new effect presets..

In order to do so, we will first copy some new files to the user’s local MediaMaster resources, where the MediaMaster Library is located:

1. Download the following file “MediaMasterQuartzComposerEffectsResources.zip“, then copy it to “/Users/MyAccount/Library/Application Support/ArKaos/MediaMaster/”.
2. Decompress the zip file by double clicking on it. Two new directories should have been added:
   • “MMFixtures/Layer/” contains a custom layer fixture file.
   • “Quartz-Composer/Effects/” contains two new Quartz-Composer effect files: “MyBassZoomBlur.qtz” and “MyKaleidoscope.qtz”

At this point, those new Quartz effects will be available from the menus in MediaMaster 2.0 when in Simple Mode, continue reading further to learn how to use them with MediaMaster in Fixture Mode.

Adding a new custom layer fixture

Open the file “MMFixtures/Layer/MyCustomLayerFixture.xml” using any text editing software, we will look at how it is made in order to understand how to add new effect presets in a custom fixture. This file is a slightly modified version of the original MediaMaster Pro “Layer Fixture 1.1″, it contains some extra effect presets.

This files defines the DMX channel assignments and the effect presets libraries that we’ll focus on.

The first line of the file defines the name of the fixture, as it will appear in MediaMaster Pro preferences dialog. This name must be different from the other fixtures.

At the very bottom of the XML document, fixture effect library 11 contains four new effect presets.

You may have noticed that the Quartz-Composer effect “MyKaleidoscope.qtz” appears in three presets with different parameters.

An effect preset is basically defined by an index, a name, an effect and a set of effect parameters. An effect can be used in several different presets and even different libraries with different parameters setup.

In a preset, each effect parameter can be either a fixed value or a variable that corresponds to one of the four effect controllers available in MediaMaster Pro.

Based on this small example, add your own Quartz-Composer effects and create your custom fixtures to extend the possibilities of MediaMaster.

Now let’s try this new fixture

Start MediaMaster Pro, and in “Preferences –> DMX –> Patch” choose “My Custom Layer Fixture” as the “Layers fixture”.

Back in the main window, on any layer, select a visual, push the dimmer to the max to start it, and finally select an Effect between 1 and 4 in Effect Library 11.

Now it’s your turn to create your very own Quartz-Composer effects and use them to leverage the visual quality of your show, be creative!

Quartz Composer is a free graphics and imaging tool on the Mac platform which is available as an optional install that can be found on your Mac OS X DVD since version 10.4.

It allows very easy creation of complex audio-reactive animations or effects which can now be played in GrandVJ (read the previous article about GrandVJ and Quartz Composer). As I’m writing these lines, the last version of Quartz-Composer is 4.0 on Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

In this article we will demonstrate how to quickly create a bass-reactive Zoom/Blur effect like the one you can see below:

Important: This tutorial requires that you have some basic knowledge of Quartz Composer: if you have never used it, you really should first go through the “Getting Started”. You will also find some helpful readings at the Apple Developer Connection web site about Quartz Composer.

To create our effect we will simply edit Quartz-Composer’s default template named “Image Filter” to make it audio reactive. Basically, we will connect bass levels of the computer’s audio input signal to the “Amount” parameter of our Zoom/Blur filter. (Read more below..)

• Start the Quartz-Composer.app which is located in /Developer/Applications/

• From the menus, choose (File –> New from Template –>) Image Filter :
  

• Here’s the patch that will open:

• In the menus choose Editor –> Edit Protocol Conformance

• We will now tell the ArKaos software what inputs must be transmitted to the Composition. The ArKaos engine can send visuals or sound for processing by the Composition but only if he knows that these feeds will be accepted.
  To enable this you must check “Music Visualizer” and click “Done”

• You’re back to the Composition and several input modules have been added on the left:

• Remove every unnecessary input modules, so they won’t be listed as input parameters in GrandVJ‘s effect parameter panel:

• Quartz composer can hide blocks inside blocks, it’s called macros. It’s very powerful and in this case it holds the most important part of our composition: the processing part, which will affect the visual before copying it to the output.
  Double click on the “Process Image” macro to open it, Quartz Composer details each block contained in the macro:

• We want to connect the audio volume to the “Amount” input of the “Zoom Blur” filter contained in this macro. To do that we need to make the “Amount” parameter available in the macro block so that it can be accessed from the top level, it’s called publishing an input.
  Publish the “Amount” input as in this screenshot:

• When it’s done, we can go back at the top level to add some processing.
  In the top bar, click the “Edit Parent” button to go back the parent patch:

• Now we will add a processing block to create a value from the sound input.
  From the Library, add an “Audio Processor” module:

• You’re back to the patch with the “Audio Processor” module added. The magical thing about Quartz Composer is that you can connect the modules in many different ways, when you add a module you just have to tell Quartz Composer how to feed the inputs and connect the outputs.

• First we want to process the audio received from the ArKaos engine. To do that we connect together the “Audio Spectrum” and the “Audio Processor” module:

• Now the audio processor will create three values from the audio we are feeding, Lows, Mids and Highs. For this effect we just want to use the lower value which is the one reflecting the bass volume. So we connect the Lows output from the “Audio Processor” module to the “Amount” input we just published in the “Process the Image” macro:

At this point we need to get an audio signal so we can test our effect within Quartz Composer. For this purpose we will add an “Audio Input” that we will disconnect in the end so GrandVJ can input its own audio signal into the “Audio Processor” module.

• From the Library, add an “Audio Input“ module..

• ..and connect its “Audio Spectrum” output to the input from “Audio Processor”

Now we can see the image reacting to the audio input signal, but the effect is definitely too low, so we need to boost the audio signal values. A simple way to do that is to add a new processing module, specifically a math module:

• From the Library, add a “Math Module”..

• ..and configure it to operator Multiply, set Operand #1 to value 100:

• Connect the Lows output from “Audio Processor” to “Multiply” then connect “Multiply” to the “Amount” input from “Process the Image”

• You can now disconnect the “Audio Input” from the “Audio Spectrum” so that, once this composition is loaded in GrandVJ, the software will automatically send the audio input signal directly to “Audio Spectrum”.

• Finally save the composition as “MyBassZoomBlur.qtz” in /Users/MyAccount/Library/Application Support/ArKaos/GrandVJ/Quartz Composer/Effects/

Now is time to start GrandVJ and find your hard work rewarded by playing with your very own brand new effect. You will find it located in the Effects panel under the “Quartz-Composer (User)” effect category.

Notice how GrandVJ has made available the X and Y effect parameters from the Composition in the Effect parameter panel so you can use them to control the behavior of your effect in real time.

Now, that wasn’t hard, was it? If you want to go further, a good start will be to create new effects based on this Composition by replacing the “Zoom Blur” effect by another filter.

Don’t hesitate to share your creations on the forums :)

In mixer mode, you could always assign a black image and assign it to layer 8 but people using the synth mode (or if you simply don’t wanna waste an additional layer) have to use some tricks to acheive it.

The key is to use the master brightness and contrast on the master:  If you pull the brightness to zero and the contrast to the maximum, all output will be blackened.

So we want to go from the “normal state”:

To the “black out state”:

Using a single controller or key.

In this tutorial, we’ll suppose you want to use a midi controller to go gradually from one to the other, providing a master fade functionality.

Let’s start by mapping the brightness control. Right click it and choose “Midi mapping…”. This will bring the MIDI mapping dialog:

Click on “learn” and start moving the knob you want to assign to the master fade out. By default, it will control the brightness to it’s full extent (0-100%) over the controller range. However, our “normal state” needs the brightness to be at 50 percent so we’ll tweak the range so that the Max. Value is 50.

Close the dialog. Now moving your controller will move the brightness slider from 0 to the default position.

Now let’s tweak the Contrast. Right click it and select again “Midi mapping…”

Click “Learn” again and move the same controller you assigned to the Brightness. GrandVJ allows you to map the same controller to multiple functionalities, so that not an issue.

Now you want that when the brightness is full (the controller is to its maximum value), the contrast is to zero and that when the brightness is zero, the contrast is full. That means you want to invert the behaviour of the contrast. To do so, it’s very easy, simply put 100.0 as Min. Value and 0.0 as Max. Value.

Now press ok on the dialog and you will have a dedicated control to fade the master output.

Of course, you can also assign this to a note event or a key and you will have a black out switch instead of a gradual fade…

As promised, here’s the first in a series of tutorials showing how to take advantage of the Flash capabilities within ArKaos GrandVJ. Note that it will also work for NuVJ and MediaMaster since the variables are the same.

In this tutorial I’ll explain how to tap into the EQ data to create some simple audio-reactive animations. We’ll be using some basic ActionScript 2.0 for the inexperienced Flash programmer. I won’t go into much detail on the how the code works but it should be enough of an introduction to allow some experimentation in creating new content for your VJ arsenal.

You can download the final .fla and .swf files here or follow along the video tutorial below.

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.

Last couple of month, we’ve been working very intensively on the new release of MediaMaster (version 1.1 – which should be out very soon). One of our goals for this release was to improve radically our engine to be able to run a couple of movies at monitor rate with no frame drops.

60 fps that is.

And we did it.

This means that you will be able – of course depending on the computer and the movies you are displaying – to run movies perfectly locked to the monitor sync.

The result is brilliant – even for movies at 30 fps – because your eye directly catches the smoothness of the playback.

But let’s go back to the beginning of our article. How do you show that ? If we want to show you a smooth 60fps stream, every step of the chain needs to be perfect.

The first step is to be able to capture the stream. We have a couple of BlackMagic cards that allow us to record the dvi output from one computer to another, but it’s always a bit of a bummer to setup since we don’t do that on a regular bases.

Enter Fraps. Fraps is the essence of programs I love. They’re simple, possibly ugly, but work like a charm. It’s been originally mentioned on our forum by Blindskunk and I have to say I’m deeply impressed.

Fraps is a Windows-only program. It hooks to directX and records full screen output. It’s fast, and it works. Just what you want.

So here we are, on a fairely beefed up machine, running at the same time MediaMaster who’s pumping movie pixels at 60 fps (1024×768) and fraps which catches it – also at 60 fps – and we don’t loose one single frame. How amazing ?

The next step is of course how do we display this to you guys ? We’ve tried a couple of flash-based solution and none of them worked. We tried YouTube, Vimeo, standelone player and they all failed miserably… so in the end we decide to use good ol’QuickTime.  Click on the image below to view a reduced version of the file.

For people that don’t have an efficient QuickTime Player, or want to see the thing in all of it’s glory, you can download a full size (22 mb) version in flv format. We recommend you to play it with VLC, it’s really smooth with it.

This movie is running two layers. The first one (the speakers) is a 30 FPS 1920×1080 movie loop from our friends at MotionLoops. The second one is a relatively lightwheight curtain swipe running at 60 FPS. The thing is that with that swipe, if you loose one frame, you see it directly.

Note also that if your monitor frequency isn’t at 60 fps, you will see glitches. At that rate, ALL the elements have to be perfectly tuned.

As you can see, the output is as smooth as the pie for which that town was named after…

Thanks Fraps people !

There is no specific hardware necessary to convert the video signal for the LED Panels, ArKaos MediaMaster outputs the signal in ArtNet through an Ethernet cable that goes to a network switch connecting the 6 C100 panels together.

The total surface is 6 sq. meters (3x2m) and 18 DMX universes are used to drive the 2400 LEDs.

This is due to the fact that on a PC, the internal QuickTime decoding routines are not capable of multi-threading, which makes it impossible to decode frames in parallel. So even if one layer can run properly using QuickTime libraries, the more layer you pile up, the more the decoding bottleneck will show up.

On Mac OSX, QuickTime is now mostly multi-threaded decoding so it’s not such an issue but we recommend to try to use codec supported by our FFMPEG player in any case.

Important: make sure you understand we refer to the internal QuickTime player and NOT to QuickTime files in general. Some QuickTime files (for example, files based on mpeg/mpeg2/mpeg4/PhotoJPEG/Motion JPEG/H.264 codec) are played through the FFMPEG player.

To know what internal player is used for what file, use the information shown in the visual library:

Visuals library

In this case, both movies are QuickTime files. The first one is read through QuickTime because the Cinepak Codec is not handled by FFMPEG.It will play but it is not optimal.

The second is read through FFMPEG because it’s using H.264 codec, it is therefore better for performances.

Note:

Huge thanks to Modemasters for having done such a clear Tutorial!

This tutorial involves using an Akai MPD24 Drum Controller in conjunction with Ableton Live as a host sequencer and ArKaos GrandVJ as a ReWire slave for MIDI synchronised video clip launching.

It is assumed that you are familiar with the basic operation of an MPD24, including edit presets and controller parameters, and basic MIDI mapping within Ableton Live.

Ableton Live + GrandVJ + MPD24

Arkaos GrandVJ has limitations when it comes to synchronizing with MIDI, so in this tutorial we are going to focus on using Ableton Live to expand our options with precise clip triggering by making it control GrandVJ. Added to this we will control the recording and triggering of the clips with an Akai MDP24.

Akai MPD24 Firmware upgrading & preset editing with Vyzex

To start off with, let’s get our MPD24 set up just how we want it.

Preset editing and general pad/slider/knob assignments and adjustments are usually made through the built-in LCD screen and onboard buttons. This is, however, a very tedious method, multiple edits take a very long time. We are going to use Vyzex by Psicraft to update the firmware and edit the MPD24 to suit our needs.

If you haven’t already, download the latest Firmware for your MPD24 and a copy of Vyzex by Psicraft. Find them here.

Vysex has comprehensive documentation included, which fully covers the Firmware updating procedure, so i won’t go over it here. As of writing the current version is 1.10.

As you can see below, Vyzex is a very straight forward graphical interface for the MPD24 whic allows easy editing of all control surface parameters.

We are going to use it to copy some presets to a new location and begin editing them. In this example I am using the factory preset number 5 “Live” and copying it to empty presets 15 & 16 for further editing, thus keeping the original intact. I recommend backing up the current configuration of your MPD before continuing.

In this example we are only going to change the pads in presets 15 & 16 to a different MIDI channel instead of the common channel (CC). You may also like to map different musical notes or values for knobs/sliders.

For more about the common channel consult the MPD24 manual

It is not essential to make 2 copies, nor change MIDI channels at all. We are making 2 copies is because I would like to demonstrate more advanced multi-channel MIDI mapping from Ableton Live into Arkaos. For a more simplified use, just stick to Common Channels setting for now (it is the default) and use just one preset.

Open Vyzex and press the BANK button. Right-click preset 5 “Live” and copy. Paste it down onto presets 15 & 16. While still in BANK mode, select preset 5 again. You can see that each pad in the preset is set to “Common”. This means it responds to the MIDI Common Channel (set in Global mode on your MPD). The default is channel 1A. Go back to preset 15 and rename it to something like LIVE CH1. Switch to PRESET mode in Vyzex. Now select the 1st pad and double click where it says “CC” in the VDU. (see below). Input 1A and press enter. It helps to copy this to your clipboard so you can paste it down over and over, as we are going to repeat this process for all pads. Remember there are 4 banks (A,B,C & D), so there are 64 pads to change. As you can imagine this part would take forever if doing the editing directly on the MPD itself.

Now switch to preset 16 and rename it LIVE CH2 and repeat the process above to change the pad assignments, but this time input 2A into the MIDI channel field for all pads.

Now change to DATA mode in Vyzex and “Put set to MPD24″. Wait a moment while the data is uploaded to your MPD

.

You now have 2 presets with pads on different MIDI channels. We are going to exploit that in Ableton Live shortly.

The good stuff: Ableton Live and GrandVJ

Fire up Ableton Live and check your preferences to make sure the MPD24 is active. If using external MIDI clock source, ensure your MIDI preferences are correct for the type of input you are receiving. Once preferences are set enable the EXT option at the top left of the Ableton Live interface.

Use the metronome in Live to check if your timing is correct with your source. If not, use the MIDI Clock Sync Delay in the preferences panel to skew the clock to get it on time.

Now that our MIDI is correct, fire up Arkaos GrandVJ. Back in Ableton Live set the Midi Track 1 input to USB Audio Device (MPD24) and output to GrandVJ. Arm the track at the bottom.

Press some pads on the MPD24 and you will trigger cells (or clips) in GrandVJ. Use the ACB&D buttons on your MPD24 to increase octave.

We are now jamming with GrandVJ through Live, but our video clips are not MIDI sync’ed yet, we are merely playing them live. Play around until you find some sequences that you like and then record them into Ableton Live as clips. Roughly record a hand ful of sequences, basic through to layered.

Quantise the notes that you have recorded so that the video clips trigger on time. When in clip view in Live the keyboard shortcut for this is CTRL-U (make sure the all the notes you want to quantise are selected first!).

Once you have a few loops made you can play them as an arrangement, whilst still jamming along with the MPD24 for extra action! You may also wish to de-activate the MIDI input from the MPD24 at this stage so it doesnt interfere with what you have recorded

**HOT TIP** Make sure OVR is turned off at the top of the Live window, this prevents overwriting of the current clip. Alternatively you can leave it on while repeatedly playing over the same loop to build up variations.

Stepping it up: GrandVJ‘s bank switching

All this MIDI recording and sync is great, but what about switching banks of loops or effects?

GrandVJ has a handy feature for mapping bank changes, you can map them to keyboard or MIDI signals. Press CTRL-M (for MIDI) or CTRL-K (for keyboard) and you will see some extras appear in the interface. These boxes/sliders and arrows let you map bank changes (both the keyboard and matrix banks) to MIDI inputs.

Select the slider on the Keyboard layer bank above the numbers 01 to 16. Move a knob or slider on the MPD24. Press CTRL-M to turn MIDI mapping off again.

Moving the slider on the MPD24 now changes through the different banks in GrandVJ!!!!!

The same can be done for the matrix banks above.

I want more!: Advanced MIDI with Live

Now we are getting the hang of syncronised video clip/fx triggering in Live lets open it up some more by triggering multiple video clips or sending clip information to 2 destinations at once.

This technique is less for VJ’s, more for AVJ’s who are producing the sound as well as the vision. Remember we made 2 presets in the MPD24 before and set them to different MIDI channels? Well now we are going to use them!

I use this method mainly for triggering different musical clips in Live, but it can be adapted to trigger multiple video clips or a combination of both! It’s up to your imagination. I have been experimenting with AVJ shows at home and hope to use this on stage soon.

It relies on a feature that goes un-noticed by many Live users who use MIDI keyboards for inputting notes. By default when you have one MIDI channel active for input and you select another channel for input, it deselects the first one. BUT WAIT! By holding CTRL down when making channels active you can make multiple channel selections! This is great for sending the output of one MIDI device to several inputs at once.

But what if you just want to be able to switch MIDI channels quickly?

By assigning different channel numbers to the input of each MIDI track we associate each track to a MIDI channel of it’s own.

In Live, create a second MIDI track. Change the inputs on both MIDI channels to reflect a specific channel (eg. Ch1 & Ch2). Hold CTRL and make both tracks active. Now on the MPD24 when you are on preset 15 (Live CH1) you send MIDI input to Ableton Live channel 1, and when on MPD24 preset 16 (Live CH2) you send to Ableton Live channel 2!!! This is great for input switching without having to actually see of navigate the Ableton Live interface.

Why do this you say? Well, firstly you could send the second input anywhere, to a synth or external hardware. Alternatively, it gives you tracks to act as “layers” for GrandVJ. you can build up you show with a greater degree of granularity, instead of relying on a more linear or “one trigger clip at a time” method. Live can play “scenes”, or in other words a whole row of clips at once. Organising your clips into scenes allows for great flexibility of pre-programmed art. You can still jam along with the MPD in addition to this.

I hope this tutorial has been helpful to owners of Ableton Live/GrandVJ and the Akai MPD24.