AKAI APC40 mk2 - MIDI and Lights setup questions

[sourcegate]

Hi guys, I'm brand new to Resolume and just picked up an APC40 mk2. I've spent the better part of a few hours googling around trying to find easy setups that can get me MIDI mappings and Light control for a fast tutorial or setup.

As you can imagine I'd rather be spending time making great stuff I can share with all of you instead of getting in the weeds with MIDI and all that.

I should share a few things first:

1) I'm running a newer model Macbook pro, so MIDI YOKE or another program won't work for me.
2) I've searched around these forums, googled, binged, etc and haven't found a straight-forward tutorial for getting this setup. I'd love to not have to buy and configure Bomes and a bunch of other software since I just shelled out a ton of money on the controller, modern loop libraries, software, etc
3) I'm aware of how to hand-map using the in-program edit MIDI map, but I'd really love and appreciate a fast approach to get this working

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Joris]

First of all, let me say that there certainly are a few things that can be improved in Resolume's midi output and we have plans to do so in the future.

In general, it's a shame that some users are very quick to recommend Bomes with the APC40, because we have great support for both the original and the Mk2, without the need for Bomes. Resolume supports all three modes the controller has, sends out playing clip data, rotary position, supports the two endless rotaries, can even support all rotaries in both endless and absolute mode, sends out state data for all buttons, reads out the physical fader states on start-up. Only if you want to do spiffy things like make the controller do different things based on what buttons you have pressed or mess around with specific colors, will you need to use Bomes.

There's nothing you can do with the APC40 control wise that is not supported in Resolume out of the box. For a basic mapping, there really is no need for Bomes. Making a basic APC setup for clip triggers, layer opacity control and a few effects shouldn't take you more than a few minutes, half hour tops.

Having different color feedback on the leds is great and like I said, it's coming. We don't think the lack of color feedback stands in the way of getting creative with realtime video and making great stuff. And making that more fun and easier is where we are focussing our efforts at the moment.

[sourcegate]

Thanks for your fast reply Joris, I've gone ahead and done some of the mapping inside of the program and aside from the color LED's I'm pretty happy so far with what I'm able to do and will not be going the Bomes route, like you said having LEDS is pretty good so far.

A few questions I do have are unrelated to this thread and I was wondering if you might offer up some thoughts or point me in the right direction on them:

Overall deeper reading - The manual is great, experimenting the past week or two has been super useful for discovering new things. I've been through all of DocOptic and your tutorials and Google is likely sick of all the queries I've been sending it trying to soak up everything and anything I can find on Avenue/Arena. Do you have any other places/blogs/ebooks/etc you might know of that can give someone a deeper sense of things in the VJ context as it pertains to Resolume?


MIDI setup - In your reply you mention some MIDI setup, would you recommend doing the configurations inside of Avenue/Arena, so far I'm using the built-in "mapping" and it seems to work great (thanks for that) but being new to MIDI as a format sometimes has my head a bit messed up. Understanding things like Channels/Modes and CC have confused me a bit despite going through the manual and google quite a bit.

Blending Modes Control - Do you have any additional documentation you can recommend as for how the blending modes work. I'm a long-time Adobe user (motion graphics artist) but new to the VJ and Resolume world so I'm having some trouble understanding things on a more deeper level. The manual that comes with Avenue/Arena is great I'm just looking for more information on these topics. This is likely why having a toggle for blending modes was something I mentioned here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11979&p=50318#p50318 I was able to map a key toggle to them on my keyboard/apc but that's per layer but it would be ideal if I could have it be for the active layer selected.

Compositing in Preview Monitor - I asked this here - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11979&p=50318#p50318 and should probably start by saying that I haven't used a projector or live-gig yet, so far I've just been using Output to a second large screen to test things out. I was wondering if you can composite and test things prior to having it output.


Apologies in advance for all the questions, I find that being inquisitive can not only help me but others that might be searching out similar solutions that others are afraid to ask

[Joris]

Happy to hear you got your APC40 up and running.

I've replied to your questions about blending and previewing in the thread you made for that.

As to deeper reading, both Resolume and VJ'ing are relatively new as an art form and software. The last few years we've seen a bit of development towards what is done and not done. For the most part though, in the past, whoever could connect a projector, download a crack VJ software and rip Koyaanisqatsi would be considered a VJ.

So there's no real sources for this type of reading that I know of. We have the Live Performance workshop at our HQ, where we go over what we think are good ways to use Resolume. But perhaps other users have good links to share?

As to midi setup, Resolume wise, it's very important to read the Keyboard Mapping chapter in the manual, as this explains the different focus levels.

Overall, don't be discouraged by midi terminology. We've done all this stuff for you already, all you need to do is figure out which physical controls to link to controls in Resolume.

My advice to people with a new controller is *not* to try to map each and every button and fader to do something. First do a show with just the mouse. As soon as you find yourself doing the same action with the mouse a few times, you know that that is a feature you'll want to assign to your controller. Then take a look at your controller, and ask yourself where you would like that control to be.

For instance, mapping the crossfader of the APC to Resolume's crossfader may seem an obvious choice when you first look at it. Personally I never use the crossfader in Resolume at all. Instead I really like to control a single global distortion effect with the APC's crossfader, because it's really easy to find without having to look down.

[dsquareddan]

Here's some good links for you to look into

http://vdmx.vidvox.net/tutorials/video- ... dmx-part-1
http://vdmx.vidvox.net/tutorials/video- ... dmx-part-2
http://vdmx.vidvox.net/tutorials/video- ... -visual-fx

http://www.visionz.fr/portfolio-types/vjtutorial/

[Joris]

Personally I don't like the Vidvox tutorials, because they are very 'this-button-does-that' oriented. They don't really go into why and when you should use certain type effects during a performance. Nothing against VDMX itself btw, it's an amazing piece of software.

I prefer the Zyper ones. He covers less techniques and tends to be kind of long-winded. I love that he talks more about *why* he does what he does.

Because VJ'ing is so open-ended, it's easy to get carried away all the options you have available and before you know it, your show is a mish-mash of 101 effects, none of which you are able to find in time during show. Structure yourself and focus on having well composed content and a handful of good effects for accents. This lets you get used to improvising with the right looks at the right time.

[sourcegate]

Joris, Thank you so much for your fast and in-depth replies they are inspiring me to keep pushing forward.

I suppose when I finally do figure all this stuff out I'll need to start writing tutorials or something to help others out!

Thanks to your help, awesome software, and some determination I was able to configure my APC to do some pretty nice effects and mixed up this "double exposure" effect.

I hooked up one of the blending modes to a button for toggling, and had other effects mapped to faders and knobs. Pretty exciting stuff started happening then.

*Video was created using Syphon Recorder http://syphon.v002.info/recorder/ and then re-rendered for file size correction with Adobe Media Encoder for anyone that was wondering

phpBB [video]

[Deleechious]

Hello all,

I have been writing a standalone interface for the Akai APC mkii to work more robustly with Arena. I will be posting a demo video shortly. Bomes is a great tool but it is expensive, a little intimidating and it uses up a lot of the computers resources. My software is very lightweight, everything is preprogrammed and comes with a config file. Colors are customizable directly from the app. You can save your preset colors. The clip triggers are set to CUE and TRIGGER clips. Please stay tuned for a video demonstration. If you are interested in the app or if you have any suggestions please reply.

[EpicVisuals]

Hello all,

I have been writing a standalone interface for the Akai APC mkii to work more robustly with Arena. I will be posting a demo video shortly. Bomes is a great tool but it is expensive, a little intimidating and it uses up a lot of the computers resources. My software is very lightweight, everything is preprogrammed and comes with a config file. Colors are customizable directly from the app. You can save your preset colors. The clip triggers are set to CUE and TRIGGER clips. Please stay tuned for a video demonstration. If you are interested in the app or if you have any suggestions please reply.

This is exactly what APC40mkii users need! Please keep us posted, or let me know if you open a new forum post regarding the software Really interested in it!

[KidVector]

Hello all,

I have been writing a standalone interface for the Akai APC mkii to work more robustly with Arena. I will be posting a demo video shortly. Bomes is a great tool but it is expensive, a little intimidating and it uses up a lot of the computers resources. My software is very lightweight, everything is preprogrammed and comes with a config file. Colors are customizable directly from the app. You can save your preset colors. The clip triggers are set to CUE and TRIGGER clips. Please stay tuned for a video demonstration. If you are interested in the app or if you have any suggestions please reply.

this sounds great Deleechious, I'd love to see what you've done when you've got a demo ready. In fact, I'm a graphic designer and would be more than willing to help out with working up midi-mapping/instructional graphics for you, or help with a webpage for you to host the software. Let me know if this sounds like something that would be useful.