New VJ hardware tends to be few and far between, so we’ve been closely watching the P-10, now officially the “P-10 Visual Sampler.” (The “P” stands for “presenter,” but Edirol has changed from “visual presenter” to “visual sampler” to emphasize the P-10’s sampling features — smart move.) First spotted earlier this spring, the P-10 boasts a built-in display and pads, the ability to play straight from memory cards, and sampling from a live analog video/audio source.

Specs:

• MJPEG movie and still JPEG support
• Slide show capabilities
• Playback and recording from SD(HC) memory cards
• Capture from live video input (onboard composite, S-Video, and even audio in and out)
• Internal color display, 12 trigger pads, dedicated effects dials

About those effects — we now know what they are, and they should look pretty familiar to Edirol owners:

• Movie: Repeat A<>B
• Reverse
• Strobe
• Speed
• Color
• Output Fade
• Still Image: Slide Show, Strobe, Color, Output Fade

There’s also V-LINK support for integration with other Edirol products, though I would imagine you’d mostly want to use the onboard controls.

I think Edirol might be going a bit far when they say this is “a faster, more elegant and reliable alternative to using a laptop on stage.” I’m not sure what they mean by “faster,” and the main problem is that this really isn’t a laptop alternative — laptops just do more. But that said, if I had the cash I’d love to have one of these units alongside a laptop and mixer, and imagine gigging VJs will find the quick SD card capture to be just invaluable, especially if they pick up a camera that saves MJPEGs.

The deal killer for many is likely to be price, but to put this in perspective, this is a lot more compact and flexible than the Korg Kaptivator, which cost about twice as much.
I hope to get a look at the P-10 when it arrives stateside. Speaking of which…

The Edirol V-8 mixer is the big story as far as new VJ gear at Messe, but the P-10 “Visual Presenter” is an interesting piece, too. It’s a video sampler, basically, as was the now-discontinued Korg Kaptivator. The P-10 has a number of advantages over the Kaptivator that could make it a big hit for sampling. First, it’s more compact: you get 12 pads and a tidy control layout in a small space that you could easily pack with a laptop. Second, while Roland hasn’t announced official pricing, we expect it to cost less than the Korg. But most importantly, the P-10 uses a standard video format (MJPEG, or JPEG stills) stored on removable SD media. That means you could shoot video and stills on a portable camera that supports MJPEG and JPEG and drop the card straight into the P-10 — hot stuff.

Basic features:

• MJPEG video, JPEG stills
• Built-in display
• Capture audio and video live via onboard inputs
• 12 triggers, effects dials

Edirol P-10 Product Page [ Worldwide Site]

There’s also V-LINK support and a slide-show function. But for me, sampling + removable MJPEG is the real story. The image we’ve got is a prototype and is expected to change by production time. Price and ship date TBD; stay tuned.

While we wait, I may have to whip up a little applet that automatically loads and catalogs stuff I shoot on my Canon digicam, along the same lines… I can see getting through some paid gigs this way.

Korg has formally unveiled the Korg Kaptivator, as seen here on CDM this spring. Unlike Edirol’s new VJ hardware, the “priced-like-a-car” CG-8, the Kaptivator is in the reach of mortals with a US$2500 list.

What’s cool about the Kaptivator is that it’s the first full-featured hardware sampler for video. You can record from analog video input or a DV camera, with storage of up to 800 clips / 106 minutes (40 GB hard drive). Clips are triggered from an Akai MPC-style 4×4 grid of pads. You can add effects, individually or via saved styles (essentially macros of specific routings and effects settings), cross-fade, and trigger to tempo via a tap tempo or even an audio input trigger. There’s MIDI I/O, too, so you’ll be able to jam with this thing while playing keyboards, etc.

I got a chance to sit down and play with the Kaptivator last week while visiting Korg headquarters on Long Island, NY. The video output looks great, and having LCD previews really helps out. Korg has packed a lot of details into how the sampler works, too: you can easily change sample length a beat at a time according to the master tempo, add to a sample so that it gets progressively longer, and even set it up for time-lapse sampling. (That last feature is particularly fun.) Real-time control is definitely the focus: you can record controller motions, map anything to MIDI, and in addition to the pads and crossfader there’s a touch-controller, too, for controlling effects. (A full X/Y/Z touchpad a la the Kaoss Pad would have been nice, but the single touchpad keeps the unit very svelte.) You could fit this into even the most cramped VJ setup, and take advantage of the LCD screens for previewing, or with more space, output to monitors.

With a street price expected around $2300, you’ll have to be a serious VJ to make the investment, but there’s certainly some reliability and ease to hardware — not to mention, for sampling capabilities (software’s one main weakness), this could be the perfect complement to your laptop.

If you haven’t seen it yet, The History of Sampling by Jesse Kriss lets you interactively navigate the links between sampled songs and samplers. Jesse’s site pulls data from the-breaks, a huge collection of sampling rap music.

The real story, though, is how this site, and many other nifty new sites making rounds on the blogosphere, were built: they use Processing, a completely open-source development environment (Mac/Windows/Linux). Processing should interest CDM readers for several reasons: it’s at home on the Web (there’s even a Google interface!), it’s comfortable with multimedia and graphics, it works with Java, and (perhaps most importantly) it’s designed to be easy-to-learn for those new to programming.

Processing is moving along fast: beta 90 was released today, following the first public beta release April 20. New learning materials are being added regularly for those ready to try it. It’s even been used in a Papa Roach video (check the exhibition page). And don’t forget Chris O’Shea’s Sonicforms, the open-source repository for alternative/tabletop musical interfaces, which uses Processing for part of its software interface, along with Pure Data — another free tool for interactivity.

None of these tools may be for total newbies, but they’re free and can be a great way of entering the world of programming. Readers working on this, let me know, and we’ll keep track of your projects and progress (and exchange tips). If nothing else, some readers will certainly enjoy seeing what you’re doing!

While Edirol takes the synthesis approach with its new video box (at least from a marketing standpoint), VJ gear rival Korg is going the sampler route.

As reported here earlier,
the Kaptivator is a video sampler with a 4×4 Akai-style drum pad grid.
Now that we're not reading in Japanese, we've got some more details:

• It's a sampler for video: Here's the stunningly-cool bit:
  sample up to 800 clips, up to 10 minutes in length (though shorter will
  be more interesting) and play them back on the sixteen pads.
• It's a 2-channel mixer: Mix clips or (as expected) external video input and even DV camera connections.
• Watch the action on dual LCDs
• Create "style" routings and automation: Effects are
  bundled into routings called "styles," with 15 presets and 100 user
  settings, for everything from coloring to beat-synchronization. And of
  course, you can record and reproduce movements.
• Make it musical: Use MIDI, audio triggers, tap tempo, and even auto-detection of BPM for rhythm-synced effects.

All in a 5-lb. box with a 40 GB hard disk. What we don't know: price or
availability. A representative for Korg USA tells CDM simply that
products at Messe aren't yet announced in the US market, and even the
European models appear to be unreleased. Stay tuned; let me know if you
hear anything!

How does this differ from the Edirol CG-8? Some of those details will
become clear, but the emphasis of the Korg appears to be on longer
video clips (the CG-8 appears to be focused on short clips and stills),
and higher specs like the included LCD displays. We should know more
once we see these in person within the next few months.