A report from the Los Angeles VJ party LAVA:

• VJ Fader introduced the video drum machine VDrum, as reported here earlier this week. (Windows now and OS X soon, free)
• Bizarre video screenings: Syncrosect and 4 Get Who U R
• Ableton Live (audio) and Isadora (video) controlled by a PlayStation 2 dance pad!

Check out the report for more.

Exclusive! Returning to our regular programming of geeky stories
that appeal to a tiny fraction of the population (PowerBook G5 rumors?
What was it, sweeps week?) and ill-conceived puns (see above), I bring
you: MetaSynth 4.

MetaSynth
is a graphic sound design and music creation environment that lets you
paint with sound, using color imagery for high-quality synthesis,
filtering, and effects. Creator Eric Wenger is beloved by Mac fans for
giving us the ground-breaking (excuse the pun) 3D landscape app Bryce.
If you haven't heard of MetaSynth, it's probably because the program
has been languishing in a Mac OS 9-only version for years.

No more. I've seen screens and other details from an upcoming upgrade,
and while U&I made me promise not to say more, I will tell you the
new version will bring Mac OS X support and will keep pace with modern
music software. It should again give Mac users the ability to create
wild soundscapes and far-out rhythmic loops that sound like no other.
It's great that, in the world of mega-corporate developers, individual
developers are still making software art. (U&I is basically two
people — Edward couldn't talk long because he was busy writing
documentation for this release)

Stay tuned; I'll finally be able to talk details soon.

VJ Fader, creator of Max/MSP/Jitter-powered Neuromixer (an excellent
video mixer with lots of support for controllers), now introduces a
first: VDrum is a step sequencer not only for audio, but video, too. The first version was released today with the following features:

• Sequence AV clips using on/off switches, via numeric pad or MIDI input
• Record video and audio to hard drive
• Multiple resolution support (as in Jitter)
• Audio and video effects
• Midi support

VJ Fader is looking for sample content to include, so contact him if you're interested.

Windows XP only for now, but the other software is cross-platform so this may be, too, very soon.

For those of you in San Francisco for Macworld, three events two watch for:

• Tonight (Tuesday): Drinks are on Discreet at the BAMG meetup — featuring red-hot visual effects artist Culley Bunker (Black Eyed Peas, Spiderman 2)
• Thursday: Edirol is sponsoring the Iron VJ battle at 9:30 PM, presented by the Video Salon (one of the country's hottest VJ events)
• Friday: iThink has a huge lineup of the Bay Area's coolest electronic musicians, plus digital art and video

Going to any of these events? Let us know what goes down: send photos,
text, impressions, whatever (hit contact me on the top link on the
site). Look forward to hearing from you!