I got to run a feature yesterday on Create Digital Music with tips for getting good gigs, written by musician and Chicago electronica scenester Liz “Quantazelle.” That story has in turn generated a lot of discussion on CDM and elsewhere.

This raises an interesting question, though: how much of this advice applies to visualists and, specifically, standard VJ gigs? We face even more challenges: needing projection surfaces and (in some cases) projectors, having to “accompany” music, and having a new medium that most people still don’t quite “get.” My own gigs have often been nontraditional (modern dance) or mixed with music performance. But I’m curious what you think. And what would you want in an advice list if we could get the community here on CDMo to put one together?

Comment here, and feel free to join the chatter on Create Digital Noise; I’ve set up a new thread there:

Getting good music/visual gigs — let’s share advice

It doesn’t surprise me that so many discussions of technology have to do with tools rather than “art.” Odds are, you know what art you want to make — it’s the tools that may or may not help you get there. On that note, I want to point to an interesting chat I’ve been having with subbasshead on the forums:

Best tool for QT random frame playback/output?

Jitter is an excellent tool for doing what he wants to do here; it’s perfect for creating custom video patches that do what you like. My focus lately has been on building all my VJ apps in Jitter, not to impress anyone, necessarily, but because even for simple playback they do everything I want and nothing else.

Subbasshead comes across one of my favorite sets of Jitter sample patches to play with, the “Jitter Recipes” by Andrew Benson. Andrew’s name is all over the Jitter example content, too. (Speaking of which, I find a lot of people don’t actually know how much example content is included in the Jitter install. Aside from the tutorials, there are folders full of example patches in the [Max folder] > examples > jitter-examples folder. Many of these cover topics you won’t find elsewhere in the documentation. I wish some of them had better contents or were more simplified, but they’re useful nonetheless. Andrew has been taking these the extra mile in updated recipes online:

Jitter Recipes Book 1
Book 2
Book 3

If you haven’t checked book 3 since May (I hadn’t), you’ve missed two new patches, including an homage to the legendary Video Toaster. (Ah, Video Toaster.) Some of Andrew’s crazy results are pictured above.

I promise we’ll have some ready-made video tools covered here on CDMo, too, but for those of you adventuring into Jitter, we’re here to help you make sure those escapades are rewarding.

In advance of the launch of Create Digital Music’s sister site for interactive visuals and visual performance / VJing, we proudly present, by popular demand:

Create Digital Motion Forums

Note that this forum will be shared with the Create Digital Music forum, because we feel strongly that for many people, these two fields are overlapping in performance. If you’re doing anything visual — be it VJing, video mixing, music videos, visual stuff in Jitter, Processing, and Pd/GEM — now you have a place to talk about it. As always, let us know if you feel there’s a topic we missed or if something isn’t working right for you.

Now, go get those first posts in. (Thanks to Nat as always for his graphic talents.) And stay tuned for the Create Digital Motion launch later this month.

Among the many “best of” lists spontaneously appearing on the CDM forums, contributors and readers have compiled a fantastic list of inspirational music videos from a variety of acts. One thing that strikes me is the breadth of aesthetics; whereas once electronica had very strong connotations (and the videos with it), these are really high-art experimental filmmaking with a range of styles. And they’re a pleasure to watch, too, like the fanciful Sigur Rós video pictured here. (Thanks, Jaymis!)