I hope I've got you right and you are a DJ m8, if not disregard this dribble :D

My m8 recently bought a night club, its a reasonably sized affair and he's had in quite a few of the bigger names to DJ, cant mind any off the top of my head as I'm not really clued up on the dance scene.

Anyhow, atm they have this, in his words, crappy projector setup firing onto a large screen (think he said only 1 screen). Apparently from what I can gather some DJ's bring their own AV/lighting effects discs to play through this setup, and the resident DJ also has his own stuff. Now I havent seen any of this, Im supposed to go up and look at it this WE, but according to my m8 the AV is garbage, its just a few mediocre effects playing over and over again.

Anyhow my conversation with him came about when he heard Operation Blade playing on my Hi-Fi along with Media Player visualisations on my widescreen telly in the living room and was bowled over (easily pleased he is :)). What really cought his eye was the fact that the visulisations changed so much and kept pace with the beats so well.

The question is can PC powered or similar visulisations be replicated easily in a club, or do DJ's etc have some sort of propriotary kit that can do similar effects while changing with the beats, and if so what should he buy and where?

Cheers and if your not a DJ soz m8 :D

Hello mate,

You got the DJ bit right, but I'm afraid its been a while since I've been involved in any rig setup stuff. Not since the days of World Dance at Lydd Airport I'm afraid. Don't think they stil use Atari ST's ;) :D

Freak, druddle or Dan (can't remember his username) are the ones if they're around. They're a bit more 'out there' in the scene at the moment and probably better placed to answer your questions.

I would think it would be pretty easy to setup with a PC. Something like Winamp with using the line-in plugin would do the trick nicely, you'd just need to take a low-level line from the sound system and put it through the sound card. Loads of cool visualisations for download on the website and they are infinately configurable in WinAmp too :)

I would imagine if DJ's are bringing in theire own discs then there is a common price of software in use now.

Sorry can't be of much more help, but I'm pretty sure Winamp would do it nicely.

Cheers Dunk, I keep lookin m8 ;)

Hi mate

I have been involved with production companies that do this sort of thing (Southport and Tribal Gathering Weekenders to name a couple). They used a PC and took an input from the sound desk, through a PC with a meaty graphics card and out to a video mixer desk.

They had it run thru Winamp and showed a bird dancing to the music on multiple large screens. That was mixed on the video mixer with standard video/DVD.

I will see if I can get hold of some of the guys to get some more info, but it might take a bit of time as they are all out on events at the mo as its Xmas Do season.

Dave

[Edited by druddle - 12/5/2003 9:59:17 AM]

Right just spoken to a man. Winamp and Media Player are very crude in what they do for sound-activation. Think of old disco lights that were "sound to light". In reality all they did was flash 1...2...3...4 at a rate, and go faster if the controller detected some more bass frequencies. Thats really what the Winamp/Media Player plugins do. The rest of the movement is random, but so frequentr that it usually looks like its in time to the music.

Hardware wise you need a low level sound input from the sound desk to a sound card and a video out that can go to a video mixer/sound desk via S-Video or CoAx.

Dave (brother-in-law owns his own sound/lighting company ;) )

Cool. Thought it'd be easy enough to rig it up like that :) If you're not using a Video Mixer then just go straight to the projector from your PC VGA connection in the usual fasion :) Should look :cool:

I think Winamp is a little more sophisticated than the old sound-to-light though. It can be adjusted to alter the pattern depending on changes in selected fewquencies now :)

Cheers Dave, thats given me a few ideas to start with. At least I know its entirely possible to use winamp even if its not exactly state of the art :)

I found a few sites of interest this morning, namely:

www.vjforums.com

www.arkaos.net

www.resolume.com

The last two sites are for some sort of VJ software, have you or your BL any experience of either Arkaos or Resolume or any of this kind of software, and do you think they would be better than Winamp?

When you say take a low level sound input from the sound desk to a sound card is this something that will already be present on the club/DK's deck? And do I really need a video mixer to get started, if so why?

Sorry for being a pain but I'm now supposed to go up today after work to have a look at the kind of kit they are usuing just now.

Ah, Dunk just answered one of my questions, damn my slow typing :D :D

Thanks both :)

hi
im a dj too
what style of music is your m8 having on and where is it
id love to ge ta booking
i play right across the board from souldful garage to ahrder more percussive house
let me know and ill forward a cd and some dj charts etc
ps
im 32 and have been doing this for years, im not a pimply teenager fiddling about
hehe

Jye

As Dunk says, you dont need to output from the PC to a video mixer, you can go straight to a projector.

As for the sound input, most mixers (certainly decent ones in clubs) have 0db or 4db outputs to go to amps/preamps and then record (DAT, tape, CDR) outputs that can be 0db, but also could be -4db. They are a lower strength signal as some of this equipment can be sensitive to a higher strength signal. This is the one you want to go to your sound card.

Dave

Try Winamp 5. Absolutely awesome :D Much better than V3 and the visualisations are superb.

im still useing winamp 2.8 lol

theres no shoutcast support for anything over version 2 is there :(

Cheers for the help Druddle :)

I have managed to suss out the low level bit so thats no problem. I have started a new thread for any info on VJing as I have a few VJ related questions, namely if Im doing a live show and the laptop/pc crashes its going to be a blue screen job. I guess I need some sort of video mixer to quickly switch over to another input source like a digicam or dvd etc should this happen.

I have managed a mock up in my house with an NEC digi projector and laptop which is taking a line in from a DAT player and DVD for the sound atm and everything looks great, the only think is that any visualisations I have used have looked a bit boring tbo and I've ended up buying dedicated sortware, i.e. Visualjockey.

Other question I have are regarding Visualjockey as the learning curve is pretty steep imo and there is only the most basic of manuals for it, so I guess I'm going to have to find someone who has used it live.

One thing I can ask you Druddle is whether you think people or clubs in general in the UK prefer dancing with or without visuals as Ive heard froma few people that they prefer no visuals so they can get more into the music without distractions. By visuals I mean more exotic visuals rather than lights and lasers etc. It looks like VJing is big in Europe but Im not sure how big this is in the UK.

It seems to me VJing would go down well in chill out rooms rather than the dance floor.

Any comments you have from a DJ perspective will be appreciated m8 :)

Frankthetank, the club is in Glenrothes in Scotland, so Im not sure how far you like to travel, I cant really tell you too much about the DJ's or music they play as I havent heard it yet. If you want I will give you my address and I will pass your sounds on np.

Dunk I'll have a look at Winamp 5 but tbo I need something that will offer more control, I need to control changes of visuals that will last for a full DJ set without boring people with the same stuff and afaik winamp wont switch visualisations by itself when the song/set changes. I guess it can be done with a video mixer and another source but I doubt people would want to see a PC desktop or blue screen so I'll need to suss that bit out. I guess winamp could be used for some stuff merged with another source.

Cheers again everyone.

John

Winamp 5 can randomly switch visualisations to keep it varied :)

N1 Dunk, I'll have a look.

Hmm, dont think it has a line in plugin yet, oh well :)

DJ Dunk is available for weddings,funerals,barmitzvas etc ;)

S.B. Cheers mate :p Any chance you could squeeze an advert in for me somewhere on your motor ? :D :p

I realise advertising space on your vehicle is at a premium. Maybe there's some room on the tyres ? :D

[Edited by DJ Dunk - 12/8/2003 4:23:58 PM]

id deffo travel for sure
if it was a good club
by all means pas on my info to your friend
i love driving anyway and it would give me the chance to escape from her indoors

:p

:D

Frank u have mail :)