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I have a long term goal to link up Ableton Live, Quartz Composer, my Edirol V4 video mixer and Grid Pro to form a synchronised AV Set, both for DJ Sets performed using Ableton Live and for collaboration with music producers. This is going to be a complicated and involved task but I’ve made a good start on it already. Here is how it breaks down….
The first stage is to lock all your video sources to an external BPM source, which could be a tap function or a midi clock signal. It’s also possible to extract BPM automatically from an audio input using various tools like Audiobox or a Red Sound Micro Sync BPM Extractor. I’ve already succeeded in this and details will be in the next of this series of articles.
The second stage is to use an external sequencer to control simple triggering and effects of the visuals, either the same sequencer which is controlling the music such as when a DJ Set is played out of Ableton Live or by using midi notes from something like Reason or Cubase to trigger sequences in an “interpreter sequencer”.
Third stage is to prepare all your visuals as BPM synced loops with the correct tempo and length so every loop will stay in perfect sync to the incoming BPM signal either from Ableton or any other source. This enables the perfect “AVMashup” effect pioneered by Coldcut’s Mattblack and Juxta from the VJamm Allstars who perform together under the name ZenTV. ZenTV’s technique is done using VJammPro and Pioneer DVJ-X1 pitch control DVD players. This is an expensive rig but there’s is no reason the same technique can’t be done using mac based tools.
Here is a partial list of tools and resources I’m using to attempt to replicate the same effect using Ableton Live, Quartz Composer and Grid Pro.
Ableton Live. The revolutionary music composition tool, dj mixer with unlimited decks and live performance sequencer.
Numerology. Light weight cheap Mac OS X only sequencer.
Midiclock from Granted SW. Free tool to generate midi clock from Tap or midi controller and retransmit it locally via loopback and out via midi.
Audiobox. A free program to analyse audio and output midi clock signals (PC Only).
Red Sound Micro BPM. Hardware box that listens to an audio line input and puts out a midi clock signal… Unfortunately they are now out of production, try ebay…
PixnMIX Zen TV Master Class. Description of ZenTV’s setup and instructions for linking Ableton Live to VJamm Pro.
Thread on linking Live to Resolume from VJ Central.
How to Enable “Midi Note Feedback” in Ableton Live from VJForums discussion.
Ableton Live tutorial on using follow actions.
Discussion on linking Live to Grid Pro on Vidvox user forums. Currently being attempted by Toby from Sparkav.
