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[Laffer]

Hi all,
Couldn't find a thread to put this in so thought I would create this one  

Now first let me point out that I am a pro DJ and my views and opinions are often
misconstrued or taken the wrong way.  However I am direct and to the point.
I read these boards whenever I can for background info, just to see whats happening
& issues with MC etc.  As a pro DJ my requirements are largely different than most
others on here, however there are a number of crossover points.

Really I am asking JimH if there is any possibility for a 'PRO' edition of MC.....

Visualisations:
My take - not really good enough for a 'modern' media player.  Don't really
understand the 3D vis's unless you want the MC logo permanently (why is that?).  So
don't used 3D vis within MC at all.

Having said that I have spent many (unhappy) hours (urm... literally hundreds)
playing in the visual studio creating new visuals.   I now have a pretty decent
library (before you ask I will not upload them.... becuase why should some other DJ
with aspirations of using visuals have my work for nothing?)

Point is if you play enough with it you will be amazed at what you can produce!  
Conversely I have heard muted of documentation for the vis studio, I have never
seen any (which made 'playing' with it all the more difficult) - if anyone knows
where such a document exists please post the link in this thread.  Anyway if just a
little more (development) time was spent on the existing one it could be way cool.  

Just one example of this is, it took me a helluva long time to work out how to do
my own colour cycling (hex values! things like {2, 7}
[[0xFF0000,0x000000][0x0FF701,0x000000][0x00FFFF,0x000000][0x000FF0,0x000000][0x600
FFF,0x000000][0xFF40FF,0x000000][0xFF0000,0x000000]] - hmmmm very user friendly -
NOT!  Now why couldnt they have implement something like "Cycle
Blue(5,3):Green(7,3):Yellow(4,3):Red(5,3)"  Where "cycle" is the type (could also
have random, impact, mix, solid) The colours are self explanatory the two
parameters are intensity (1 to 10 for example going from dark to light, 0 for
automated colour sweep from dark to light within that colour & 11 for Light to
dark) and Duration (how many seconds that colour is displayed for).

I understand JimH's comments about other fucntionality is more important, I can
also understand all the users that want better visualisations.

SO..... There are a number of choices open to both developer and users alike.  For
the developer why not look at a visualiser already on the market that you could A)
buy a license for and integrate it into MC.  B) Persuade the visualiser Developer
for an MC version that would be discounted on price for MC users C) take your
existing visualiser core, get it revamped/improved externally.  You know, something
along those lines.....?

From the user perspective - you don't HAVE to use the internal visualiser!  You can
use an external one  (as I currently do along with the internal vis's) one such
example is Dreamrender (www.dreamrender.com) appears to be a great program but is
lacking in certain areas.  One such area is developer feedback (quite the oppposite
of JRiver) plus it seems the current version 2.19 is quite old now (more than a
year) and the next increment is nowhere to be seen alpha, beta or otherwise.  I
have emailed the developer several times, as yet with no response.

Another that I am really looking forward to is VSX Ultra (http://vovoid.com/) but
that does not exist as yet - expected release is mid year 2004 (VSX - a freeware
one, is impressive, but only two vis's)

Yet more on visualisations?  Well yes, but with a different twist which leads to
the pro edition question.  I also play music promo video's at my gigs but the way
in which they are handled within MC is lacking.  Lacking?  Well yes but let me
state that the actual playback is fine. (btw I use DivX5 enccoded AVI's typical
file sizes of 30MB to 70MB).

What I could really do with (and perhaps other users too) is the same type of
playback facilities with video that we have with MP3's within MC.  1) audio
crossfade.  2) Video crossfade (various types like : video crossfade, fade to
[colour] etc.)  Also the fact that BPM and replay gain do not work with video is a
great shame and I am sure would not be too difficult to implement (but failing that
being manually able to alter the replay gain field would come in extremely handy)
Last thing on vids/vis's - it would be great to be able to 'superimpose'
visualisations over the top of videos (y'know stuff like graphic equalisers,
ocilloscopes, plasma bolts etc.)

Advanced audio crossfades (and again one perhaps for the pro edition) : is a beat
matching crossfade facility.  Simply add a new database field (per song) that would
hold crossfade preference (by default blank and takes the MC crossfade setting).

Holding info such as '8 bpm, 9 Seconds' (each param configurable)  Translating to
"if the next song is within 8 BPM's of the one playing, adjust the BPM of the song
playing up 4 BPM's within the last 30 seconds to the next one and execute a 9
Second Beat Match crossfade starting the next track 4 BPM's down at the beat start
of the track".  Urm.... did you get that?

Optionally you could implement more 'complex' crossfades (like a number of other
'DJ' packages) where the user has to select queue points (but I favour the more
automated version).

Preview facility : Sometimes I would dearly like to be able to play a track through
a seperate output (headphones or maybe via mixer & headphones) to 'preview'
it.  Maybe I could already 'hack' this through zoned output (I haven't tried) but a
simple preview facility would be great.  Perhaps one better would be a preview of
the mix (coming back to beat mixing, mentioned above).

If the pro edition were to exist right now - I would be willing to pay at least
$150 for it (prolly up to $350).

Anyways sorry for babbling (and hope it makes some sort of sense), meant for this
to be a short post!

Laffer.

[JustinChase]

I am not a DJ, and don't 'need' some of the things mentioned above, although they woud certainly add to the 'cool factor' for parties, but I DO want better visualizations.

I spent about 3 hours last night 'creating' a new visualization.  I am actually proud of what I was able to produce, considering I had no

• documentation
• experience
• or artistic talent

I have given it to a couple of friends, and they both loved it.  I would love to do more of this, it is pretty entertaining, but it's really hard to 'figure it out', as far as what each type of transform, or effect in the different transforms, or what order they are in, equations, etc.  I pretty much just messed around until I could determine what each option did to the vis, then made a few notes, so I didn't forget what I liked (lots of choices).  I know I could have done better, but, it's pretty good for a first timer.

I would like to have the option to have the oscilliscopes 'rainbow cycle' independently from each other.  When both set to this value, they change colors simultaneously, which defeats the point of having them change colors.

Anyway, I would love to post my 'work' up somewhere so others could check it out and tell me what they think.  Is there any way/place to do this?

[Laffer]

Justin,
In the editor just click on the "display data in friendly format" box at the bottom (so it is not ticked).  This gives the hex values of the colours and will allow you to 'play' (and get different colour cycles)

Laffer.

[JustinChase]

Cool.  If I only knew how to use those hex values ?

I'll keep pluggin away.

Any ideas where/how to host visualizations?  I remember a post about a week back where Jom and Matt said it was pretty much up to us to come up with some visualizations, because they are too busy with other stuff right now.  Totally understandable, but maybe they could help us out with a way to post what we have created, so others can share and build upon others' work.  That would be cool.