We’ve seen terrific iPhone / iPod Touch apps for MIDI and OpenSoundControl, including Mrmr running VJ apps, i3L outputing to MIDI, and free, cross-platform Pd tools. With these, you can run visual, music, and other apps. But the latest addition is a very polished-looking app dedicated entirely to DMX, the protocol of choice for automated lighting and certain motorized projectors we love so much.

Luminar is a DMX lighting control app for iPhone and Touch, running control data for DMX rigs over wifi. There’s a touch-enabled mixer, precise, per-channel control, and color manipulation with a Color Changer channel layout. It’s definitely geared for lights in a way that general-purpose control software is not. I feel slightly icky talking about “lights” on this site. (Hey, aren’t those the things that blow out our projections?) But on the other hand, this kind of control and better software is just the kind of tool that can help give us better control over live rigs – and it’ll certainly work for DMX-controlled visuals, too, or (if you’re lucky enough to be doing this) synced projected visuals and lights, not to mention the kind of lights we very much enjoy (like LED arrays).

I’ve just posted a video to Vixid.Noisepages investigating the VJX’s Crop effect.

Vixid Crop Effect Automation from Create Digital Media on Vimeo. Music by pornophonique.

The movements in this video were controlled via VDMX (site | CDMo tag). I’ve been really enjoying VDMX’s modular interface as a method for quickly prototyping and testing midi control routings. The ability to create Waveforms, Oscillators and Sliders, and then link them together with Behaviour chains.

This all allows me to try out complex control routing and to switch parameters around quickly, without the hassle associated with patching environments such as PD or Max/MSP. VDMX isn’t the silver bullet for creating your own software midi interface - Max was needed to generate the discrete, precisely timed messages for my VJX Bullet Time tests - but it does give you the ability to quickly put together systems using audio reactivity, tempo, step-sequencing, and complex math-driven slider interactions.

If you’re already using VDMX, I’ve uploaded the above project (.zip file) for others to take for a spin, and hopefully modify.

If you haven’t given VDMX a spin, you can get the demo from Vixvox, and still load my project file.