Our friend MoRpH (whose work you’ve seen previously posted to archive.org and on the intro to our VMS video) was lucky enough to get his hands on an Edirol V8 - sequel to the venerable V4 - and followed it up by being awesome enough to send us this review.

A few years back Roland rocked the VJ world by giving us the first ever VJ specific video mixer, the V4. Over time, other areas such as small AV companies and churches have adopted the wonderfully small and low cost (but full featured) unit as a workhorse in many environments. But taking one look at the unit you can see it was designed for VJs. Now with the release of the V8, Roland is back to up the ante again with a feature set that builds on the success of the V4, without bogging the unit down with hidden features or a large price tag. I was lucky enough to get some hands on time with the first one to touch down in Australia recently, much to my delight.

The most striking things that first hit you about the new V8 have to be the inclusion of 8 inputs (a god send on large multi source rigs) and the change to faders, instead of pots/knobs from the old V4. Clearly on this front Roland have been listening to their users, with the inputs now being BNC plugs on the rear of the unit with individual monitor outs and the faders being excellent quality. You can see that this is an evolution of the V4 design, which often caused problems with the top mounted RCA inputs and the Pots on the FX and White/Black fade needing to be replaced. A very well placed tweak to the White/Black output fade system means that - instead of having to keep the knob centered - we now get 100% signal on the fader all the way up and 100% white or black, selectable on a separate switch, with the fader all the way down.

Also on the fading front, we have individual bus fades, so at the press of a button your FX fader becomes a video level for the channel, which combined with the new Mix modes I’ll cover later makes this a perfect scratch video tool.

We’ve got some additional details on the Edirol V-8 mixer. Pricing will be set at US$1995 list. For comparison, the V-4 lists for US$1029, but has a street price pretty close to that — perhaps due to the unit’s popularity rather than any minimum advertised pricing restrictions.

The V-8 is shipping within a month. I’ll make sure CDMotion is high on the list as far as evaluation units. While I hear the criticisms — and some of you have moved beyond hardware mixing or now rely on high definition signal — there’s very little that can outclass the V-8 for what it is in the same price range. If it delivers, it could easily remove the justification for buying a V-4, even at half the price. Watch for our hands-on report.

Edirol V-8 Mixer [Worldwide product page]

Edirol V-8 Preview on CDMotion (with a little pro-HD trolling, to boot!)

The Edirol V-4 has been the standard mixer for years, leaving people desperately wanting a sequel. Korg tried with the KrossFour, but what they came up with was mainly a V-4 wannabe — a welcome DJ-style crossfader couldn’t make up for the lack of differentiating features, and the V-4’s elegant layout. And Edirol’s own HD-resolution V-440HD wasn’t priced for mortals.

The Edirol V-8 promises to change all of that.

First, Edirol has wisely copied the satisfying control layout of the V-4. Hate on the V-4 if you like, but I think we take for granted how cleanly-designed and intuitive that layout is. The V-4 isn’t a perfect mixer by any means, but by encouraging mixing flow, and creating an affordable mixer that worked well for a broad audience, they did create a major hit.

What’s great is that the V-8 adds what the V-4 lacked:

• Computer inputs: two “RGB” inputs with standard D-Sub 15-pin inputs (what most people call VGA jacks, even if that’s not strictly correct); a switcher for selection
• More inputs all around: 7 composite ins, 4 S-Video jacks, for a total of 8 simultaneous input channels (i.e., you can use up to 4x composite and 4x S-Video simultaneously)  … oh, yeah, and BNC jacks
• More outputs: 3 output channels, and monitors for inputs 1-7, channel B (monitoring either S-Video or RGB computer in), and the main preview output jack
• Independent, DJ-style vertical faders instead of those inconvenient V-4 knobs, plus better preset buttons — and an output fader, not a knob (finally!)
• Internal scan converter and time base correction

In case you haven’t noticed, a theme has been emerging on CDMotion: alternative interfaces geared for performance, software that expands the range of expression, and projection that gets visuals out of the 4:3-ratio box. There’s no one solution, and the expense involved in the tools covers quite the gamut. (I may have to personally start the “ghetto” guide to this stuff.)

But bringing together these elements is still essential to raising the impact of visuals. I still hear the “but the visuals aren’t as important” over and over again from people outside our field, and I think it’s a phrase that is — mercifully — doomed to extinction as visualists expand their craft.

So, one artist collective we’ve been covering is Turkey-based artificialeyes.tv. We’ve seen the Video Moving System, the automated mirror system for projection, the Vixid mixer with its matrix and multiple blend mode features (among other things), and the eyeball-scorching interface of 3L (”Thrill”) now in beta.

To see it all put together, of course, we’d really like to hit the club in Istanbul. Barring that, though, Michael from artificialeyes.tv has directed us at some images and video.

It’s really clear to me from these images how little you need lights. And in motion, with architectural effects amplifying the imagery, the projector itself can be more than just lighting effect (especially with these in motion, something you don’t get from the stills).

DJs are spoiled for choice when it comes to melding vinyl turntablism skills with digital mixing. But visualists have had no real mature option. Serato’s VIDEO-SL plug-in promises to change that, when coupled with their Scratch LIVE software and the Rane TTM-57SL mixer. To give the results a real shakedown, we turned to dj rndm and Robotkid, an audio-visual duo out of Boston who had already been frustrated with existing alternatives. Is the VIDEO-SL the breakthrough product visualists have waited for? -PK

Scratch LIVE v1.8 and Video-SL 1.0 boast the ability to not only mix video alongside your digital audio tracks but to give it groundbreaking control via Rane’s TTM-57SL mixer (required). After several anxious months of anticipation, we recently got our hands on the fader of Rane’s newest DJ gear to see how well it lived up to the demo shown at last year’s NAMM event. This progression of audio/ video integration seemed too good to be true, especially for those of us wrangling with the likes of Virtual DJ and Ms. Pinky. 

When the Video-SL plugin ran for the first time, we knew there was no going back.

Video demos

dj rndm takes the full VIDEO-SL setup for a spin, mixing:

… and scratching:

Effects, transitions

The Video-SL interface blends seamlessly into the Scratch LIVE window and functions with the same ease and readability known from previous iterations. The plugin includes over two dozen video effects and sixteen different transitions to layer and transform your video content in real-time. Most of the effects and transitions are fairly standard. While Serato has no immediate plans to allow for user-custom transitions and effects, they did tell us that adding new ones is relatively easy, and they say they hope to add new content based on feedback from the Scratch LIVE forums.

Ed.: DVJing sometimes seems more a dream of hardware manufacturers than something in the real world — until you get a talented DVJ going. We’re a bit late on posting this as it got lost in the shuffle of drafts, but well worth checking out, anyway. -PK

Jonny Wilson from Eclectic Method has got his hands on a brand new Pioneer SVM audio/video mixer. Some may poo-poo its SD-only output, but watch what a talented DVJ can do with it in the videos below. Click the button to the right of the fast-forward button to see the playlist.

Update: I disagree with PK — DVJing (or simultaneous audio-visual performance) is a very real thing that just hasn’t yet made it to the United States in a high-profile way.

Addendum: I’d like to point out that Jonny shot this video after experimenting with the mixer for only a day or two. Thus, this video is more of a “let’s see what this thing can do” than a “i love every single effect and wipe this thing has and will use them 4EVUR”. Seems like a pretty intuitive machine once you’ve read the manual a bit and practiced.

Watch it full size

After twenty years or so of music software, you’ll often find that what you need to do is creatively satisfied by what’s available in pre-built tools. But video is often another matter: even if a VJ tool does what you need some of the time, there are times when you need something that doesn’t exist (or even something simpler, to perform a specific task). You might not be ready to invest hundreds of dollars in Max/MSP/Jitter to do that, of course. Enter Pure Data, Max’s free, open-source cousin. Like Max, it lets you quickly build custom tools by visually “patching” objects on-screen — ideal for modular video tools. But unlike Max, it costs nothing, it runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux, and because of the rich Pd community and a good relationship with the Max community, it has some tricks of its own.

Beau, aka DJCypod, writes to share his excellent video tutorial on building a simple 2-way mixer in Pd. Beau, if you ever need a second career, I think you could do relaxation recordings; I felt my blood pressure dropping. Next time I have students getting nervous about Pd or patching, I’m sending them to this video. (Well, and also because it’s really easy to follow.)

Totally beginner-friendly, so newbies will get rolling fast. And as a long-time Max user, it served as a nice introduction for me, too.

Pure Data Video Mixer: YouTube, Internet Archive

You’ll also need the Pd Extended Release; see our previous story

I’ll be building some Pd software mixers this month, so I’ll be sure to report back! (Any requests, or tips from those of you who know Pd better than I do?) Now, if only I could easily integrate Processing with Pd, as you can with Max. (At least Pd does have Java support of its own.)

Pioneer have broken new ground in overstatement with the announcement of their upcoming Video/Audio mixer, the US$6000 SVM-1000.

World’s first mixer for 4-channel audio and video.

I guess they completely missed the AVM02 then? I’m not sure how, it’s rather big and heavy.

Does anybody actually believe marketing people? Do they even believe themselves when they open their mouths? A conversation between two marketing people must be like facing two TVs towards each other, tuning one to MTV and the other to MTV Europe. But I digress. Specifications can’t lie (much), so:

No doubt you are aware of Apples updated iPod line, with the new flagship iPod Touch bringing the iPhone’s touch screen interface to more affordable waters. However, what I find interesting is that every iPod now supports 640×480 video playback and output, and component video output via the new Universal Dock and AV Cables*.

While compressed video with component cables seem like conflicting ideas**, the iPods support fairly high bitrate h.264 and MP4 video. With the new iPod Classics sporting up to 160GB of storage, thats a serious VJ Clip library in your pocket. Add on something like Karl Klomps Dirty Video Mixer and you have an incredibly porable rig. And with two iPod Nanos you might very well have the worlds smallest VJ Mixing rig?

Karl Klomps Dirty & Cheap Non-Sync Video Mixer. Awesome.

While not the most versatile setup, it seems a rather tempting solution just for novelties sake. What seems more fun, two iPod Nanos and a tiny homebrew glitch video mixer in your pocket or a V4, two laptops and a camera, and maybe a triggering midi device. Hm.. The Component video also gives you access to the RGB (or possibly YUV) color information, allowing for some interesting mixing should you feel the urge to get creative. Speculation aside, Portable Media Players are looking quite intriguing for VJs lately. That iPod Touch is looking awfully tempting, especially with homebrew applications and OpenGL acceleration.

Are any Create Digital Motion readers currently using some sort of Personal Media Player or Video iPod for clip triggering in sets, or other similar creative solutions?

*sans shuffle, but, its never really counted now has it?
** Component video cables output a cleaner signal, while highly compressed video is not pristine. If you have highly compressed video, you probably aren’t worried about quality.

“It’s … alive! ALIIIIVEEE!!! They said I couldn’t do it. They said I was mad. They said I couldn’t cram an entire “broadcast workstation” into a laptop, with jog wheel and faders! But my creation liiiiives!”

Yes, this one’s truly a monster. It’s a Windows laptop. It’s a video controller, with buttons and jog wheel. And it’s a mixer: four video channels video plus six channels audio. At the very least, it’d solve Jaymis’ gig rig troubles. This one box does it all. Of course, you’ll have to go to Korea to buy it, and part with 10,000,000(KRW). Wait a second. I have no idea how much that is. (Hang on, currency conversion … US$10,786.78, which actually isn’t all that bad if it works. Yeah, enough with that $100 laptop, one laptop per child, whatever. Let’s talk $10,000 laptop — one laptop per visualist.)

XENO Website (look for CCTOP in the bottom right corner, if it’s still there)

Via: AVING USA: All-in-one broadcasting equipment ‘UCCTOP Xeno’

Naturally, the internal mixing capabilities mean this little workstation can be an all-in-one video studio, on location. (Sony has done something similar, as mentioned in comments.) XENO is pushing the Internet broadcasting angle, as in this diagram.

I’m embarrassed not to know any more about this beautiful beast. If our South Korea-connected readers could clue us in, it’d be much appreciated.

Thanks to Joshua Ellis for the tip!