We recently got an email from user Boaz van den Ban asking if he could use a second Code in his setup that already included an Ohm64 and Code. I was really interested in seeing what his setup looked like and he send me some pictures. It was pretty obvious that he had a very specific vision for his creation and his website is all in Dutch, so I put together a little interview for him to see how he uses it. You can see from the pictures that there is a lot that went into the design and execution of his controller from the case design to the mass amounts of tool in his workshop.

The build quality on your custom creation looks really thought out, can you tell us what exactly you use it for?
The computer is meant for light control via dmx. I use it as a light artist at al kinds of events, mainly parties and club nights. The case design and choice of hardware was made based on the demand for high reliability, small size, and safety in transport and adaptability for different purposes.

What is your background in?
Originally I am a theatre light and scenery technician. A few years ago a friend of mine ask me if I was interested in helping him with lights at a party. One thing led to an other. Now I run a small company which organizes lights and decorations for interesting and challenging events. I design, build and operate the sets.

Why did you decide to put it into one case?
The fact that my setup is prefab in the case saves me time, inside are more than fifteen connections and eleven devices. It makes a more complex setup possible. The case protects the valuable gear and is great in transport together with my lights which are also in flight cases.

It looks like a totally custom build, did you do all the work yourself?
Yes, I made the entire case. I did use some standard issue elements like the connector panel on the back. And in the non visible division, I had help with a max patch on the mac inside.

Why did you choose the Ohm64 and Code?
This is not the first custom light controller I’ve build. Before I used a kaos pad and a separate faderbank from different brands. The ohm64 gave me the possibility to put the two machines into one and the build quality is significantly better. The merge saves me space and makes changing of the controllers more intuitive. And off course it looks much better. The code gives me a lot of extra control. I use it as an auxiliary fader bank and to control an audio filter patch to isolate sounds in the spectrum to control chases.

I usually find after I am done building anything, I want to make revisions and create version 2. Is there anything you’d like to add or change in this unit?
This is version 2! Off course there are always more dreams. In the future I would like to add a second code controller so I don’t have to switch between the aux faders and the sound module during an event. Also I would use it to have direct control over as much dmx as possible for programming purposes. Furthermore I would like to ad an Ipad as a remote.

Where can we see you using it?
My next gig is dnb rave the 21st may in Amsterdam. In may and June there are some festivals and in July I go to Berlin for a three day gig in a big club. Keep track on my website:www.boazconstructies.nl, soon also available in english.

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interviews by Jay

Luminair has added support for the Ohm64, and made this awesome video showing how it works.

Luminair for iPad is an advanced DMX lighting control app, which works by transmitting DMX over Wi-Fi to compatible Art-Net and sACN DMX interfaces, lighting fixtures, and media servers. Luminair has a refined, configurable user interface that features wide fader controls, large trigger buttons, RGB and CMY color pickers, XY grid controls, and simple touch-based channel assignment. In addition, Luminair has an advanced cue playback system, capable of continuously and seamlessly transitioning between hundreds of different lighting “scenes”.

Luminair was recently updated(v1.1) to support external MIDI control, among other notable new features such as remote control via OSC. The new MIDI implementation features an easy to use MIDI-learn mode, along with full mapping save and load capabilities. Users can assign external MIDI controls to faders, cue trigger buttons, playback controls and much more. Luminair works with CoreMIDI via Apple’s USB iPad Camera connection Kit, as well as Line 6′s MIDI Mobilizer dock accessory for iOS devices.

The variety of control types on the Ohm64 makes it perfect for using as an external MIDI surface for Luminair. The configurability of both the hardware and software give users a lot of flexibility in setting things up to their liking. The Ohm 64′s knobs can be assigned as RGB and XY encoders, buttons to Cue triggers and other actions, while sliders can mapped to Luminair’s control and playback faders. Also worth noting is the great design of the Ohm64 hardware being the perfect compliment to Luminair’s UI, making for a very enjoyable user experience. Like many other USB MIDI controllers, using the Ohm64 with Apple’s iPad USB Camera Connection kit currently requires a “powered” USB hub, due to the iPad not supplying enough power. Other than that, it works great. Take a look at http://synthe-fx.com/

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news by Jay

Johnny Dekam and I go way back…on the internet. While we’ve only met in person maybe three times in the past decade, we’ve been pursuing a lot of the same things in our professional lives by trying to get the most out of live computer video. He’s released a number of computer video programs, starting with VIDVOX Prophet in around 1998, which has taken a few twists and turns, and resulted in the live video software VDMX. He’s also worked in immersive video environments with Eluminati, released his own audio and video CDs and DVDs, and has been doing live video tours with artists such as Thomas Dolby and Dream Theater.

Johnny just finished up a tour doing video for the Glitch Mob, so last month I drove over the hills and through the woods (true: that’s what’s between San Jose and Santa Cruz!) to one of the last stops on the tour at the Catalyst Club in Santa Cruz, California. It was great to catch up and get some insights into his video performance system. I really appreciate how he takes full advantage of his programming expertise to use the Ohm64′s flexibility to create a show control system that incorporates VDMX video mixing software, the Vixid video mixer, and a Max patch to tie everything together. We chatted before the show started, so here’s some of the interview in text, video, and pictures. You can learn more about Johnny DeKam at his website.

PART 1: HISTORY AND SETUP

PETER: I guess I wanted to start with a bit of history. I was doing Yow* and you were doing…what was it at the time?
JOHNNY DEKAM: Well, the first product I ever put out was Prophet, which was before I started doing anything with (Cycling 74′s Max) , so that would be before we even met.
P: What (enviroment) did you program Prophet with?
JDK: That was written in C. I collaborated with a guy in Australia, who now works for Microsoft. He had a shareware QuickTime movie player that had a scrub/jog wheel in an inspector window, and I was like, “Do you you think you could take the OMS SDK and add MIDI control to THAT? That would be AWESOME!” Over about 6 months, we banged out a MIDI-enabled, DV-enabled video player.
P: Did it have crossfading or compositing?
JDK: No, it was straight playback, you could assign clips to keys, and you could jog and scrub. And then I started to play with nato, and I quickly had my first mixer in that, which got so good, I thought I could release that, which became VDMX 1.
P: Yeah, you get the bug.
JDK: Yeah, I got the bug. Then came 2,3,and 4 which mapped nato to softVNS at some point. At 4, I left the company, and gave to my employees, took the title of “Founder” and they re-wrote everything in Cocoa (for OS X). I still use VDMX as my main video server, and I don’t have to program it anymore!
P: Were you doing video editing before you started Prophet, or what got you into the idea of live video?
JDK: No, I was in grad school (at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) and my theses was about agents-based art making for media. The end result was a performance with audio sampling and video sampling, married, running on separate machines, with a Max brain controlling everything. Arkaos was running on one for the video, and Lisa from STEIM (sampling software) on the other. That’s was where I said “I hate Arkaos and I’d really like to write my own video software.” I was always was doing computer music and video together, and that was inspired forming VIDVOX.
P: I had the same reaction to Arkaos. I thought, yeah, I can trigger clips with MIDI, but this is such a pain in the ass, I just need to make my own.
One thing I realized is that we keep crossing paths. You did (Thomas) Dolby’s tour (visuals), and just before that I had worked with him on a project for TED, and also set him up with the software for his tour.
JDK: Right, he was using your patch for that tour, and I had made him a custom (video) mixer that I was rocking for that tour.
P: And now we are both using the Ohm64! What shows have you been touring in the past few years. I know you did Dolby, now you are doing Glitch Mob.
JDK: Dream Theater was the biggest one – I did two world tours with them. Sasha and Digweed was the first one I ever did, back in the day.
Dream Theater was a major, major commitment – a year long each time, and I did that twice. I used the Ohm for the second half of the second tour. I was using a Lemur for the first half. The Lemur was great, I had programmed all the custom interfaces for that. The basic goal was to control the (Vixid) hardware mixer and the (VDMX) software mixer from one place, and the Lemur functioned just great for that, EXCEPT you had to look at the (Lemur) screen to make sure your fingers are in the right place. After I got back from the American leg, I got the Ohm64.
P: That is an interesting point – with visuals, you can’t get away with looking at your control surface. You can do it with music, but you pretty much have to be able to see your video.
JDK: Yeah, I still look down, but when it comes to rocking faders and knobs, I can just feel it, it’s a lot more tactile.
P: So what is your setup?
JDK: In the background, I’m running Max. This started with your basic editor, and I tore it apart and rebuilt it. What’s left are the interface elements and the sysex engine.
P: Good. There WAS a good reason to make it open source!
JDK: Yeah! It worked out really well. I basically needed to do was to divide up the (grid) into different functionality. The Ohm is really well suited to control the Vixid because this is a four track video mixer, so everything lines up really well. The grid is divided into four 4x4s. The upper left quadrant controls the inputs – the vixid has 4 inputs per track. For Dream Theater, I had eight cameras, so it was really good to have that many inputs and i needed to be able to select different cameras on different tracks.
P: Are you doing camera work with the Glitch Mob?
JDK: There’s three cameras, and I use it in a very limited way – there’s some solos that I bring them in, and there’s a time I bring in all 3 at once in a split screen. For Dream Theater I needed to do four cameras at once – quadrants.

At this point, Johnny dives into a detailed explanation of his setup. Rather than try to transcribe it, I’ll let you just watch the videos on how he uses the Ohm64 and his Max patch to control the Vixid hardware’s inputs, outputs, and effects, along with VDMX’s video clips and effects. (apologies for the quick start, end, and middle cuts-there was a LOT of setup noise that interfered)

continue to part 2…

Filed under:
interviews by Peter

PART TWO: CREATING CONTENT AND WORKING THE SHOW
(in case you missed part 1, you can find it here)
PETER: How do you manage content and structure for the tour?
JOHNNY DEKAM: In this case, I did nearly all the songs in the studio to the point where I can press play or press play with embellishment with effects on top.
P: So you pretty much have the sequence setup and then play around with effects
JDK: Some of them I don’t even need to do anything
P: Life on the road!
JDK: This one, the only thing I do is use a mirror in the middle of it a couple times, if I feel like it….I’ve got hue shift, too.
P: Do you use any audio input?
JDK: No, all that I did in the studio – I had all the music in advance so I did a lot of stuff with audio. This is all audio reactive content, but from their tracks. They told me upfront that the music would be very close to the album especially in timing. They play all the parts live, but they will be the same duration, measures are all set. So I can do BPM based effects.
P: You don’t really have a problem with a venue wanting to go longer or shorter?
JDK: No, sometimes they’ll change the order of the set list. They do improv….but it’s all in the context of the same structure. They might do a different synth line or effect or filter. I improvise effects with that. Some songs are full on vj improv, others, I could just press play.
P: On long tours, you can’t work too hard, because it’s so much hard work already!
JDK: I have to be here every night, so I might as well make it interesting! Some nights if I’m really tired, I can let it run, and that’s ok, because I invested all that time in the studio.
P: Did you work closely with them on the visuals, or did they just say “do your thing?”
JDK: I always try to collaborate as much as I can with the artist. They started out saying “you have creative freedom,” then I got to work, then they said “we’d love to see what you have” then I got feedback. We had 3 or 4 sessions like that. We had an initial meeting and talked about what the songs were about, and what inspired (a certain) song. They don’t have any lyrics, just titles.
P: So you have to come up with visualization? Like, where does the song take place in [the Glitch Mob's] mind?
JDK: Definitely. I had to be pretty creative in a lot of cases.
P: How long did it take from the first brainstorm meeting to actually finishing the content?
JDK: I guess I spent about 3 months on it in the studio getting it ready. Nearly full time. That includes building the rack, and getting everything together hardware-wise. By the time we walked into rehearsals, all I had to do was polish off some mixes, and a couple songs I left till the end that we built in rehearsals, and had to tweak some things at the start of the tour if things weren’t working.
A lot of these songs are setup where there’s a two channel system. There are projectors aimed across their bodies as a light, knowing there would be a lot of venues that would just have bar can (lights). Sometimes it’s separate content, or color mixed differently, so it might be red on the screen but green on their bodies.
P: That’s a nice way to think about it, “video as lighting.”
JDK: Yes, a lot of people have reacted well to that, and it helps add a nice effect to the stage.

Finally, I wanted to give you a taste of what the show is like. I have a crappy video that’s not worth embedding, but you can look at it on our vimeo site if you must. Johnny will be sending a more professional excerpt shot on a good camera that we’ll post in the near future (hint: follow us on twitter and you’ll know when it’s up!). For more about the Glitch Mob, check out their website. Also, Mike Abb, one of our product specialists, did the camera for this great interview with the Glitch Mob.

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interviews by Peter

Steve at http://www.sjlighting.net/ contacted me because he wanted to control lighting software with the Ohm64. GrandMA on PC is odd, however, in that it doesn’t listen to MIDI CC messages, only notes. So I whipped up a simple CC-to-note converter so he could run the software with his Ohm64. He’s really happy now, and here’s his document that tells you how you can do it http://lividserver.com/dl/temp/GrandMA_Ohm64.pdf
(even though it is labled “confidential,” I have permission from Steve to post this!)

This post was submitted by Peter.

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projects by Peter