I was chatting with Andreas Apelqvist from Starstladd who just came back from the Mapping Festival in Geneva. We had heard rumors previous to the festival about a new VJ geared Midi controller from Codanova that was supposed to have controls similar to the first iPod. This funny teaser movie premiered during the Mapping festival and was uploaded to Vimeo earlier today. Andreas says he heard further rumors that Codanova are planing to release the controller in a month, “but they’re French, so I don’t trust ‘em”, Andreas added. I’ve contacted Codanova about this and they say that they will release it in September. No word on pricing yet.

It looks like it’s somewhere between a touch interface like the Lemur or iPad and a traditional controller with regular buttons, knobs and faders. The only similar product I can think of is Stanton’s SCS 3 system. The layout of the VMX Activ8 is made specifically for the Modul8 VJ software but I’m pretty sure that it will work with most VJ programs. I’m not sure if this controller is as tactile as I want it to be, but hey it’s beer proof god damn it and I’ll probably buy it, or as Andreas said, “you’d buy anything with a midi logo on it”.

Andreas will write about their Mapping Festival adventures within the next few days, stay tuned!

This is a program I’ve used a lot in the past to connect different game controllers to the computer so that I could control my VJ softwares. JunXion translates the game controler’s signals to MIDI. One of my favorite projects was running the video projections with a dance matte.

I haven’t used the software for quite a while, but today I got an email from Steim saying that JunXion has been updated to version 4 and that they have added support for a lot of techniques: MIDI, OSC, HID (joysticks, mice, touch screens), audio, Arduino and video tracking. It seems like a program that could kick OSCulator’s ass.

For me this is an early christmas gift. I’ll get back after trying the new functions. Read more about JunXion V4 here.

On wednesday december 3 the Interactive Institute celebrated their 10 year anniversary with a big party at Enskilda Galleriet that I had the honor to produce. Together with a party committee from the institute we created a really successful evening. The people of the committee were Tina Finnäs, Tomas Rydell (who also is one of the producers behind NMM in Norrköping), Erik Sjödin, Aurora & Alice (interns from Italy who among other great things did a neat UV installation). We also got great help from CJ Rosén (from TII and VJ Union) and Kristoffer Karlsson (fLiM). Here are some clips from the performan

Lights
Our friends from Physical Interaction Lab did a fine tuned perfomance with their latest project, “Lights” held by Patrik Axelsson. “Lights” is build on music and light bulbs that are turned on and foo. The project includes Ableton Live, Open Frameworks , a DMX dimmer and some hanging light bulbs. You can read a more detailed description on Pysical Interaction Lab’s blog.

Carl-Johan Rosén
CJ was VJing with his survailance cameras. He had rigged three cameras in the facilities. To pick camera source, CJ uses a video switch that he controls via serial data from a program that he has written in Open Framworks. The music was mixed by DJ Dust.

DadaLife
Great to finally see this live. I’ve done Dada Life’s tour visuals but since they never performed this set live in Sweden, I never had the possibility to see it. The whole project depended on having a pre made automized VJ set that they could travel with since they can’t afford traveling with a VJ. I have created a set in Modul8, that runs on MIDI data from Abelton Live. I also programmed representations of effects the boys uses in Abelton Live. The concept was to have a very minimal amount of graphics, only a few sound has graphical representation. A pretty good concept considering I had very little time to create. In retrospect I wish I had some more time to put on the graphics but it is very effective. The simple naive style went well with Dada Life’s happy go lucky style with dadaistic under tones. The MIDI reactive elements turned out really well in a way that wouldn’t be possible to obtain as a live VJ.

Bete Rum
Once again we were featuring our friend from Brazil who ended the evening to music mixed by Adrian Lux & Oscar Wedrén.
The evening also included visuals from Bertrand Gondouin to the tunes of DJ Kristoffer Karlsson and a performance by Yoshi Akai who was playing his Lego sequencer.

Stanton will soon be releasing the SCS.3d, a muti-touch MIDI controller at the wallet frienly price of $299. It would be nice to see what this control could do for a VJ. We will see if we can can get our hands on a SCS.3d for testing.

There is a good report at Future Music (I really recommend to subscribe to their news letter if you want to get the latest news about new midi controllers), so it feels unnecessary to write more here. There is also more info at Stanton.

There are more products within the same SCS range: The midi dj mixer SCS.1m and the player SCS.1d which are also looking delicious. For people making music, the SCS.1m also has a built in FireWire sound card. But what makes me happy as a VJ is that both units seems to have 4 endless encoders. But I don’t believe it until I see it with my own eyes.

Yesterday iTouch Midi released some updates in their range of midi applications for the iPod and iPod Touch. They have improved the xy-pad app and changed the name to iTM Pad and they have also released a new app called iTM Tilt that is using the gyro.

I tried iTM Tilt together with Modul8 but I thought it resulted in jerky motions. iTM Pad, on the other hand, works perfectly. It has preset functions where you can set different start points. It has a spring function that will let the object return to the start point when you stop dragging it around. Finally, there are tree function keys that also sends MIDI to your computer. They are good for switching graphics in your VJ software.