Not that we want to tell you what to do, but we prepared a premade composition that is now available to download at the purchase of Hands and VJSurvivalKit6.

In addition, we released Machine, a pack of 30 stand alone full screen, mad loops. Each loop has it's own charisma and they fit any type of music. We approve.

Hands by Rohan Gopalan


VJSurvivalKit6 by Laak


Machine by Catmac

We're again growing rapidly here at Resolume HQ because of the release of version 7 and a very exciting new product coming up. We're looking to expand our team and hire a new Product Manager, UI/UX Designer and a Senior C++ Developer. Have a look at our open positions below and apply if you qualify or forward this to anyone who you might think is a good match for our team.
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UI/UX Designer
Are you a UI/UX designer by day and VJ by night? We have the dream job for you. Join us and design how VJ’s interact with their visuals.

Resolume is an interface-first company. This means that when we think about a new feature in our software we first see how it will be integrated into the Avenue or Arena interface. If a new feature fits well into the current interface and “feels right” only then we start writing code.

As a UI/UX designer for Resolume you need to understand our audience and their environment. Resolume is a live instrument so the interface needs to be very fast and clear to work with. Yet at the same time live shows are becoming more and more complex as stages become bigger. We need to walk the line between complexity and “easy-to-use” every single day.

Responsibilities

• Create mockups and prototypes of new features before development is started
  
• Improve usability of Resolume
  
• Modernize UI design of Resolume
  
• Score at least 3 goals everyday in our (very passionate) table football matches
  
• Expand our Adobe XD design system to quickly create prototypes and deliver the final design

Requirements

• Experience designing desktop applications
  
• Experience as a VJ, DJ or Light Jockey is not required but a huge benefit
  
• Fluid in Adobe XD, Photoshop & Illustrator
  
• An eye for detail to craft pixel perfect interfaces
  
• Full-time (4 or 5 days per week) position
  
• Dutch or English speaking
  
• Location: The Hague (EU applications only)
  
• Salary indication: ~40-52k

Senior C++ Developer
We’re looking to expand our team of 7 C++ developers here at Resolume HQ. We have a lot of ideas for new features in Resolume and we need extra hands and brains to actually build all this cool new stuff. Our team here at Resolume HQ is very diverse with experience ranging from 2 to 20 years in cross-platform software development. This means we can all learn from each other and together come up with the best solution to implement new features and maintain our code.

Are you a team player and you want to join a small and friendly team of developers then contact us, we’d love to have a chat.

Requirements

• 5+ years experience in developing software using C/C++ on Mac OS X & Windows
  
• Experience with JUCE Framework (not required but a very big plus)
  
• Experience with OpenGL && Vulkan (not required but a big plus)
  
• Full-time (4 or 5 days per week) position
  
• Dutch or English speaking
  
• Location: The Hague (EU applications only)
  
• Salary indication: ~40-52k

Product Manager
Developing software requires much more than writing code. Software needs to look good. It needs to work well. It needs to do what it's users want. It needs to be self explanatory yet well documented. It needs to be promoted.

This requires a lot of different disciplines; developers, testers, support, translators, marketeers and they all need to somehow work together on one product.

Do you know how to juggle all these balls in the air? Come join our team!

You'll be working in our team and our community to determine what we can do to make Resolume even better. What issues need to be addressed first and what features need to be implemented. You’ll be responsible to make sure all those disciplines work together towards one goal; a better Resolume.

Requirements

• Proven experience in software product management, preferably in the visual design or music production industry
  
• Full-time (4 or 5 days per week) position
  
• Dutch or English speaking
  
• Location: The Hague (EU applications only)
  
• Salary indication: ~40-52k

About Resolume
The idea for Resolume was born in 1998. We wanted to VJ with software instead of VHS players because that would allow us to improvise and match our visuals to the music much better. Now, more than 20 years later Resolume has become the industry standard for performing live visuals. We never imagined this would happen when we started and we're very grateful that our long term commitment and determination has brought us this.

Because we have been doing this for so long we are not a start-up anymore. We have so many customers who perform with our software in front of a large crowd. We feel the responsibility to only release new features and updates when they are truly well implemented and tested.

We do not do any contract work, we only work on our own products so we determine our own (realistic) dead-lines. This greatly reduces the stress involved in our work. We're also not a start-up anymore, this means we have no pressure to "bring new stuff to market" as soon as possible. We work on improving Resolume everyday and make long term decisions with quality in mind.

Here at Resolume HQ in The Hague we work in a small (10+) team where everybody is treated equal and your opinion is respected. This way we learn from each other and find solutions for problems together.

We have a very friendly community of Resolume users who gather on our forum and on Facebook. Experienced users share their knowledge here and new users are welcomed and educated. Our development is very much driven by our community. By participating every day we learn about issues very quickly and can respond to user requests.

Apply
To apply please email your motivation, resume and portfolio to [email=bart@resolume.com]Bart van der Ploeg[/email].
Please do not contact us if you are a recruiter.

We're in full on maintenance mode here at Resolume HQ to make sure v7 becomes just as stable as v6 as soon as possible. Unfortunately a new major release (like 6.0.0 and 7.0.0) usually comes with a few bugs because they contain a lot of new code and have not yet been road-tested as much. Please keep sending us your feedback on mail@resolume.com and send in crash reports so we can fix them as soon as possible. This is our top priority right now.


Resolume 7.0.3
Resolume 7.0.3 fixes a lot of bugs and some crashes that were occurring, especially when switching decks. Denon StageLinQ network connection is now much more robust and compatible with the Prime 4. This version is compatible with FFGL 2.1 plugins which has a few improvements so plugins can be made more user friendly. All our macOS installers are now notarised by Apple to ensure a smooth installation on macOS 10.15 Catalina.

Resolume 6.1.4
While working on bug fixes for v7 some bug fixes were easy to transfer to v6. So here is an even better version of good old v6: 6.1.4

Download
Checkout the download page or select "Check for Updates..." in the Avenue or Arena menu and it will self-update.

Hotfix Monday Sept 30th
If Resolume could not startup on your Windows computer with an AMD video card then please download again. This issue is fixed in Arena 7.0.3 rev66005 and Avenue 7.0.3 rev 65698.
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Resolume 7.0.3 Bug Fixes
#13243 Random crashes switching decks
#13171 Crash trying to load jpeg image which is larger than your GPU max texture size
#12376 Possible crash in Advanced Screen setup doing undo-redo
#13142 Crash trying to load extra effect which has gone missing since load
#13144 Crash opening media manager with a deck named with non english characters
#13244 Stop motion effect on a layer crashes on clip launch
#11475 AJA io 4k not showing up as output
#12100 AJA Kona losing input can make Resolume freeze
#13161 Player index selection not working properly with Denon prime 4
#13162 Player 3 and 4 on the prime 4 are not updating the play position
#13183 Loading same track on another Denon player takes over the clip already playing
#13276 Denon Players with their clip targets set to "Composition Determined" don't actually do that
#12767 Arena does not always pick up playing Denon tracks on Windows
#13290 Stagelinq connection to Resolume can make Prime 4 player lag
#12233 Midi output is sent twice on Windows
#12359 File browser not updating correctly when renaming files & folders on the filesystem
#12409 Show in Finder/Explorer & Show in File Browser disabled for Persistent clips
#12423 File order is wrong when dragging from Explorer
#12459 Panning while dragging a slice leaves slice in original place
#12512 Renaming deck to empty name, makes other deck disappear from list
#12553 Clips without alpha have Alpha button enabled and Alpha type showing in video track properties
#12575 Loading 'Default' effect preset sets effect blend to B&W
#12747 Recordings don't show up in Files panel if you have recording folder selected
#12804 Update NDI dll to latest patch release
#13111 FFT input needs a 6 dB boost to get the same level as in version 6
#13134 Spinners in Advanced Output Edit points mode no worky
#13135 Default keyboard shortcut preset gets overwritten on every startup
#13137 Selecting a persistent clip with an underlying clip, the underlying clip is selected on second click
#13143 VST plugins are not loaded form Extra effects folder
#13147 Edge detect on Mode=1 behaves differently on windows than on V6 and mac
#13157 Layer auto pilot selection is not showing when importing an R6 composition
#13160 Parameter display value is not visible properly in 7
#13168 Strobe effect behaves differently than in R6
#13170 connectSpecific Shortcuts are no worky after import from V6
#13172 Clip alpha type is not remembered on composition re-open
#13173 Slice background and outline draw at different positions when zoomed in
#13175 Re-ordering decks can fail if you have closed decks
#13178 Moving reveal effect from clip to Group breaks External audio input Seed source
#13180 Parameter set to play once and hold doesn't resume animation when loading a preset with loop
#13186 Clips with SMPTE and Denon don't reset the clip duration when the video track is replaced.
#13191 Can't set position, rotation and Anchor back to 0 (default) via 1 DMX channel
#13199 Changing Spiral Direction can make the spiral angle jump
#13210 Opening composition on another machine that supports different texture sizes, changes the composition resolution.
#13214 Playing DXV HQ with Alpha and NDI output in ASS, makes DXV clip flash
#13216 Group # becomes visible when hiding crossfader
#13220 Opening media manager with specific compositions can crash Resolume
#13221 Basic slider with Envelope activated does not display correct value in textbox
#13245 OSC /composition/layers/1/clips/1/transport/position/in and out no worky
#13250 Column names and colours not reset when creating a new deck
#13302 SMPTE input numbering mixed up in French UI translation
#12146 Do not recursively search FFGL .bundle folders

FFGL 2.1 in Resolume 7.0.3
We've made some improvements to the FFGL plugin SDK so plugin developers can make their effects more user friendly. Full details and sample code are on GitHub. https://github.com/resolume/ffgl
+ Added support for embedding a thumbnail inside the plugin. See the "CustomThumbnail" example on how to expose your thumbnail.
+ Added support for File parameters. The plugin can create a file param and specify what extensions it supports, the host then has enough information to show a file chooser dialog with active extension filtering.
+ Added support for toggling parameter visibility.
+ Added support for parameter visibility events. (A plugin can now toggle visibility of a parameter on the fly)
+ Reintroduction of Scoped bindings. (Removed unsafe resetOpenGLState function, use the ScopedBinding classes instead)
+ The Module Definition File is no longer required on Windows.
+ The SDK no longer adjusts any textures to use GL_CLAMP_TO_BORDER.
+ Renamed CFreeFrameGLPlugin class to CFFGLPlugin. Plugins now need to inherit from the CFFGLPlugin class.
+ Fixed param value being normalized when ranges are involved. Values going between host and plugins are now the actual values, not the phase within that parameter's range.
+ Fixed some internal SDK warnings, convoluted implementations and inconsistencies in namings. (Most notably the quickstart module now uses the same conventions as the ffgl and ffglex modules)

Alley 2.1.3 Bug Files
#13122 Possible crash on shutdown
#13271 Convert Audio checkbox not working when multiple files are selected
#13138 Removing a conversion item from 1 source and multiple outputs, removes all conversion processes for file

Resolume 6.1.4 Bug Fixes
#11475 AJA io 4k not showing up as output
#12100 AJA Kona losing input can make Resolume freeze
#12374 BlackMagic Decklink outputs freeze after 10 days
#13171 Crash trying to load jpeg image which is larger than your GPU max texture size
#13161 Player index selection not working properly with Denon prime 4
#13162 Player 3 and 4 on the prime 4 are not updating the play position
#13183 Loading same track on another Denon player takes over the clip already playing
#13276 Denon Players with their clip targets set to "Composition Determined" don't actually do that
#12767 Arena does not always pick up playing Denon tracks on Windows
#13290 StageLinQ connection to Resolume can make Prime 4 player lag
#11892 Clip effects are bypassed on layers with width or height set to 0, layer plays with full size
#12233 Midi output is sent twice on Windows
#12359 File browser not updating correctly when renaming files & folders on the filesystem
#12409 Show in Finder/Explorer & Show in File Browser disabled for Persistent clips
#12423 File order is wrong when dragging from Explorer
#12445 Disabling/enabling Spout leaks GPU memory, eventually Resolume stops responding
#12446 Setting a cue point again doesn't work
#12459 Panning while dragging a slice leaves slice in original place
#12496 Recolour effect does not respect alpha
#12512 Renaming deck to empty name, makes other deck disappear from list
#12553 Clips without alpha have Alpha button enabled and Alpha type showing in video track properties
#12575 Loading 'Default' effect preset sets effect blend to BW
#12747 Recordings don't show up in Files panel if you have recording folder selected
#12804 Update NDI dll to latest patch release
#13018 'By position' target Deck shortcut opens closed deck's clips
#13082 Play/pause on group layers doesn't work
#13302 SMPTE input numbering mixed up in French UI translation

We welcome to the label: Machina Infinitum. These guys are taking us to the beginning, when glass was not a lens and a pixel was not yet an image with their first release PainterlyGlass. With WildStyles Laak has the perfect pack for when you need to get weird and wild. Visual Delight brings you sacred loops and perfect animations in PyramidOrbs.

PainterlyGlass by Machina Infinitum


WildStyles by Laak


PyramidOrbs by Visual Delight

Here are 3 new footage releases to keep the endless festival season going.

BattleWeapon by Laak is a tank, a craft, a walker, a killer! The invisible is finally being made visible in RedCode by Ican Agoesdjam. GeoStripes by Albertus Luki is flavoured like a pack of bubble gum. Yummy!

Get RedCode by Ican Agoesdjam


Get BattleWeapon by Laak


Get GeoStripes by Albertus Luki

This update fixes an issue, where using a Dongle, the watermark can still appear after 30 days.
#13151 Dongle registration can show watermark after 30 days

We also fixed these other issues:
#13081 Resolume freezes connecting two Launch Pad Pro-s
#13093 OSC int commands no worky for 2 state buttons and checkboxes
#13105 Slice Bypass/solo is ignored if a Video router is playing in the layer.
#12975 Alley's conversion count is off
#12145 Pre-select width, height numbers in Alley conversion settings, when entering the
#13096 Auto pilot with clip on bounce doesn't fire properly
#13080 OSC: /composition/crossfader/phase no worky to control crossfader
#13125 Reveal effect external audio seed - audio analysis broken
#13102 DropShadow Distance param behaves weird
#12897 Slice transform slice bypass stops working in mask mode when toggling half of the sliceswith the same shortcut
#12917 Make Alley do a multiselect when dragging in a folder
#12631 Stripping illegal characters can result in hidden files
#13038 Prores file synced to Denon and SMPTE plays choppy on mac
#13154 Crash on startup with missing midi shortcut target, and controller plugged in

Click on "Check for Updates" in the Avenue or Arena menu and it will update itself or download here.

Right after a major release we always hope we can chill for a bit and maybe have time to shave and take a shower again. But that is never the case, when many people start using a major new version some issues always pop up that we want to fix as soon as possible.

This version fixes a few crashes. Improves importing version 6 compositions. And on some computers with AMD video cards it could not start-up, this is all fixed with this 7.0.1 release.

Click on "Check for Updates" in the Avenue or Arena menu and it will update itself or hit the download here.

Fix List
#13078 Stuck on splash screen on some machines with Radeon GPU
#13069 Crash when setting a cue point
#12976 Removing a clip makes resolume freeze for a few second (with lots of clip in composition)
#13001 Dropping an AV file to the Video track of an AV clip replaces also the Audio track of the clip
#13017 Can't move a clip that is "overlapped" by a persistent clip
#13053 Line Width not imported correctly
#13054 Envelope not imported from v6 to v7 composition correctly
#13055 Composition Beat Snap not imported from v6 to v7 composition correctly
#13068 Moving clip play position on a paused clip, then playing clip, doesn't update clip audio position
#13073 Cue Points UI does not update when setting Cue Points for Clip that isn't playing
#13070 Crash loading an advanced output preset with fixtures that are not available
#13072 Clip Position Label not updated when Clip is not playing or previewed
#13074 Duration for SMPTE and Denon clips is set to 5 seconds going from v6 to v7 composition
#13057 Some parameter values wrong after importing composition from 6 to 7
#13074 Duration for SMPTE and Denon clips is set to 5 seconds going from 6 to 7
#13092 OSC deck/select int 0 switches decks

This may come as a surprise to you. Usually it takes us 3 or 4 years to release a new major version. Now it's only been a little under 2 years since we announced Resolume 6. The reason for this change of pace is we have big changes and even bigger plans. We think you'll like them so read on for all the juicy deets.

UNDO



When someone asked us why there is no undo in Resolume we usually said something like “Resolume is a live instrument! There is no undo on a piano either!?” or we joked “Resolume is about doing, not undoing”. We do not have to hide behind these jokes anymore. We did it, Resolume now has undo & redo.

When an application is not built from scratch with an undo system then implementing it at a later stage, when it has hundreds of thousands of lines of code is a lot of tedious, error prone and boring work. This is why we delayed implementing undo for a long time. We just focussed on fun and exciting features. Meanwhile, our problem only became bigger and bigger, with every new line of code we wrote.

We realised that we had to rip of this band-aid hard and quickly or it would haunt us for ever. The longer we waited, the bigger our problem would become. So we sat down, put on our headphones, enabled crunch mode and did it. We modified thousands of lines of code, broke the whole system to add two very unsexy but very important keyboard shortcuts: CTRL + Z & CTRL + SHIFT + Z. UNDO & REDO.

So now you have a little guardian angel watching over your shoulder. Made a mistake? Just hit undo and you're back to where you were. Removed a deck instead of renamed it? CTRL + Z and all your clips are back.

Undo is also a great design tool. Feel free to experiment with the look of your clips, apply effects, change the colors and if you do not like what you see you can always just go back with undo.

Resolume is still very much about doing, but now your doing does not have to be disastrous anymore. You can undo your way back to safety. If we were to redo this (pun intended) from scratch we would have done it a lot earlier. So if we’re ever going to release a new app, we’ll make sure it has undo from the very beginning. Promised.

A New License Model

We never want to do major releases any more, they’re painful. We want to innovate faster. Days before the release of version 5 we felt bad it “only” had improvements to the Advanced Output. The release of version 6 was production hell because it contained too many new features. When we’re releasing a new major version we always feel uncertain if it’s good enough. Does it contain enough new features that would get you all excited? Does all of that new stuff actually work? Did we test everything enough? A lot of things need to come together for a major release. It’s a lot of work and we’re a small team so we always drop the ball one way or the other.

With a major version we need to save up on new features. Which means we build something and then we can not immediately release it because we have to wait for all the other features to be done, to make sure the major release is worth the upgrade price. This means we often have exciting new stuff that will improve your VJ-ing, but it has to sit on our virtual shelves for months, over a year sometimes. We want to work in smaller, more manageable iterations. Bring you updates and respond to the changing live visuals market quicker.

We’re changing our license model so we can innovate faster and release new or improved features more often. We will no longer charge an upgrade fee to a major version anymore. Instead, now when you buy Resolume 7, you’ll get a full year of updates, bug fixes, new features, improvements, everything and all of it. When your 12 months of free updates are over you can simply renew your license if you want to continue using the latest & greatest versions. Or you can wait, your latest eligible version will always work.

This is not a subscription

You do not have to continue paying just to use Resolume, you can use it forever. You do not have to renew your license every year, the last update before your license expires will be yours forever.
So from now on we’ll be working in smaller iterations so we can make sure a new feature is fully tested, documented, translated & ready for release. This way you’ll get to see less bugs & more new features.

USB License Dongle Option



With the Resolume USB Dongle you have a very flexible way to manage your Resolume Avenue 7 and Arena 7 license. Register your dongle once and then insert it into any computer you like, start Resolume and it's registered. A dongle does not require online verification after registration, so it's perfect for use on computers that are kept offline. Available in the shop for 79 Euro.

Of course, the dongle is optional. You can still use the online registration system if you prefer.

Color Eye Dropper



Pick a color from anywhere on your screen and apply it in your composition.

Multiple MIDI Devices



What's better than an APC40? Two APC40's!

Connecting multiple MIDI devices was always possible but their MIDI signals would get mixed. Resolume can now distinguish MIDI coming from different devices making them work nicely together almost magically.

Improved Random Playback



Random playback was always a bit too ... well ... random. But you now have a lot more control over random playback. You determine how often it will jump to a new random position and how far it is allowed to jump.

Color Palette Animation



Pink Green Pink Green Pink Green Pink Green

Animate your favorite colors in a color palette.

Autopilot Loops



You can now determine how often a clip should loop before advancing to the next.

MetaBalls, Sine Wave, Spiral



They say it's more sustainable to buy local produce. So we worked together with The Hague based artist Darien Brito to create a few versatile generators so you can create even more visuals right within Resolume.

Improved Media Manager

Clip reconnecting in the Media Manager is simplified to make it faster and more robust.

FFGL 2.0 Plugins

The FFGL plugin standard is updated to version 2.0. Plugins can now receive Audio FFT input to create audio visualizers. Parameters can be spinners or drop-downs. Parameter ranges can be customised and are not limited to always 0.0 - 1.0 anymore. The documentation & examples are also improved on the GitHub repository.

FFGL 2.0 now requires OpenGL 4.1 so plugins that work in version 6 will not work in version 7, those plugins will need to be updated by the developer who created them.

Native ProRes Playback

Resolume can now play ProRes video on both macOS & Windows. Alley 2.1.0 can convert ProRes to DXV.

Upgrade Pricing

Upgrade Arena for 1 computer to version 7 is 219 Euro. (upgrade to version 6 was 319 Euro)
Upgrade Avenue for 1 computer to version 7 is 79 Euro. (upgrade to version 6 was 119)

Log in to your account to purchase your appropriate upgrade.

Version 7 is the last major version upgrade you'll ever be able to buy from us, from version 7 on you can (optionally) renew your license every year.

Renewal Pricing

Arena 12 Months License Renewal is 219 Euro.
Avenue 12 Months License Renewal is 79 Euro.

Grace Period

If you have purchased a Resolume 6 license in the past 30 days we’ll be happy to upgrade you for free. Please contact us: mail@resolume.com

Download

Hit the downloads page to download Avenue and Arena 7 now. Take it for a spin and kick its tires. Let us know your feedback on the forum.

Choose your loops like you would choose an avocado.
Touch them, smell them, imagine them being yours.
Do not settle for anything less than what you deserve.
Do not go gentle into that night.

Get CyberSpace by Kev Zhu


Get FloatingPolygons by Data Ghost


Get EastMandala by Kongfoo Motion

No show, these days, is about just the artist or the music or the visuals or the lights. What defines a great show is how all these different facets tie up together. It’s about skillfully intertwining the audio with the visuals, the lights with the sounds, the music with the mood. I like to imagine it as blurring the lines. In the most subtle and tasteful way. Presenting a full and complete piece to the audience. And what better way to do this, than with sync?



Ah sync. An artist’s sweetest dream & worst nightmare. Get it right and the lines are skillfully indistinct. Get it wrong and the lines are all you see.
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Now, you must know that not a day goes by when the elves at the Resolume HQ don’t think about sync. You see, Resolume is not just an enabler for VJs to perform cool tricks. The bigger picture is constantly at the back of everyone’s mind. And then somewhere along the road, good people like Leggy come along. And make it all worth it. When you use MIDI & SMPTE & ArtNet Merge at the same time, in the same show, its gotta be real juicy. We're thinking, “Dinner is served” :)



Kyle Roberts (aka Leggy aka mushpongo ) has been working hard at creating content, making edits & running all the video related stuff for Koan Sound and their latest project “Polychrome”. Apart from having the coolest nick name ever, we really like him coz he introduced Jim & Will (Koan Sound) to Resolume. And, before we knew it, their whole new show depended on it.



We caught up with Leggy & Jim + Will to talk to us about their new show.



First things first, tell us how you got into this world of visuals, Leggy.

My dad is an avid photographer/videographer so I was lucky enough to have access to a camcorder when I was young. I ended up making short films with whatever I could find round the house and then editing them on a single VHS deck.

After that I focused on music studying Music Technology at University; that’s where I was first introduced to After Effects which reignited my interest in visuals. During that time period both ‘WarpVision’ and ‘The Work of Director Chris Cunningham’ DVD’s were watched in heavy rotation so videos like Gantz Graf and Monkey Drummer influenced me. Regularly visiting Bristol also had a major impact as it’s where I first witnessed projection mapping within the context of club via the ANTIVJ collective.

I knew mapping/lighting was something I wanted to focus on and over the years I’ve thankfully landed work at various festivals including Glastonbury and Boomtown where I could explore this.



Working with KOAN Sound was a pleasure as I’ve been a fan of theirs for some time. As soon as I heard Polychrome it was clear they had put a massive amount of effort in to all aspects of the album including artwork so I was ecstatic to be asked to help out with content dedicated for the Live show.

Awesome. Tell us about Polychrome and how is it different from what you have done in the past.

KOAN:
In the past we’d displayed visuals whilst we were performing, but they were never linked to the music in any meaningful way. This show was all about showcasing visuals that were very closely tied to the music.



We’d been exploring macro photography to create all of the artwork for the album, and we wanted to take that one step further and experiment with creating visuals using the same technique.



From there we assembled a small team of visual artists and animators, and began to create a video for each of the audio tracks. It was a very hands-on process, and really fun to be involved so heavily with both the creative and technical side of the show.

It’s interesting how you’re from a music production background & so find many similarities between Ableton & Resolume. What are the similarities do you see & what makes Resolume so easy to use by producers?

LEGGY:
Anyone who’s looked at the Session view within Ableton will recognize the layout of Resolume. Coupled with the drag and drop nature of both bits of software I think the learning curve compared to other visual software is rather gentle. In more ‘traditional’ DAW’s you would go through sub menus on each channel to allocate effects etc, within Ableton and Resolume you just drag them wherever you need them which encourages experimentation straight away. Also, the envelopes you can allocate to parameters introduced in Resolume 6 are visually similar to LFOs/Envelopes within popular workstation synths such as Massive and Serum, anyone familiar with them will quickly work out how they can be used.





KOAN:
We very quickly found parallels between Ableton and Resolume, in their ease of use, flexibility and workflow. Using Ableton’s MIDI envelopes to control Resolume was a revelation to us, and being able to program everything in real-time felt a lot like making music. Having the ability to tweak any number of visual parameters using automation inside Ableton is very powerful, and is similar to our process when working with just audio.



Let’s talk about Koan Sound’s new setup- from design to reality.

LEGGY:
The setup used for the live performance was conceived and designed by Tim Smith. When the team first met up to discuss plans it became apparent that KOAN wanted to be ‘surrounded’ by the visuals so Tim drew up some ideas for curved/angled LED screens that sat behind the performers and we all agreed it was the right direction to go in.

Using Grandma2 OnPC, Ma3d and a simple video to CITP converter, we were able to pre vis the designs and collaborate on the final piece.



Lighting wise we wanted to be able to have an either-or situation, video only or lights only so the entire show wasn’t solely content focused.

Tim picked GLP X4 Bar 20s that sat above and below the video wall, Robe Pointes placed in between the gaps of the LED screen and stage right and left in order to highlight KOAN and finally SGM RGB strobes placed on and behind the structure to add some depth.



Regarding touring the plan is to have three tiers of stage design all based on Tims original setup that we can alter depending on the venue but FOH and routing will stay the same.

Tell us about the routing & the hardware for the show.



You have a FOH (Resolume) Laptop, a stage laptop and a playback laptop?

KOAN:
The stage laptop is sending MIDI note and CC data to the FOH laptop over network, in addition to MIDI from the instruments on stage.



LEGGY:
The stage laptop is responsible for MIDI both in terms of VST playback in Ableton and sending data to alter parameters/trigger layers in the dedicated Resolume laptop at FOH. As KOAN could ‘play’ the visuals alongside their instruments it made sense to have a separate playback laptop to ensure a smooth show in case anything went awry, something Jon Savage, our experienced production and tour manager made sure of.



In terms of the hardware:

Stage: Macbook
Playback: Macbook
Resolume: GTX1080 MaxQ equipped W10 laptop

All of these laptops (alongside the GrandMA2) where connected via a network switch sending MIDI over LAN with the playback sending a separate LTC track over a stage box to the GrandMA2.

I hear that you are big on masks. I, personally, love the endless potential they provide. Tell us how you use them in your show.



KOAN:
When we were putting together the Arena composition it seemed like the easiest way to lay everything out was to use one deck per song, so that each track in the set had its own specific overlay and effect clips that could be independently adjusted.

In addition to selecting the deck with a note message at the start of each song, MIDI data is used to trigger masks and effects, as well as control a variety of parameters such as opacity, clip speed and start point.
The masks were also a way for us to showcase animations we’d made ourselves. Jim used Max/MSP/Jitter and Processing to create the overlays, rendering out lots of longer generative clips in high contrast. To make the show different every time, our generative masks run in the background, and by using a video router clip on a layer above, we found a way to trigger an opacity envelope on the mask without re-triggering the clip itself.



You also work with Artnet merge? It is such a great tool. It’s great to see more people use it to achieve sync between lighting & video.

LEGGY:
We actually tested the Artnet merge last but it proved one of the easiest things to get going!
I created the X4’s within the fixture editor:



And, placed them along the top and bottom of the main output (around 20 pix in height) matching their position on stage.

The merge was done at the Artnet node using a HTP setup and a trigger channel on the MA to activate/deactivate the merge. This meant Tim could control brightness, pan, tilt and zoom of the X4’s whilst Resolume dealt with the mapping. We essentially extended the screen upwards and it added so much depth to the content.

We did hit some rather large delay when activating the merge but we put that down to the Artnet Node used.

Good to know that ArtNet Merge is not that complex.
Let’s talk about all that juicy content now. Obviously, you had multiple visual artists working on the show?




KOAN:
Yes we did. The team at KōLAB Studios (Sarah Koury, Alastair Brookes and Khali Ackford) used watercolor paints with various other fluids and materials to create abstract forms and movement. We used a Sony a7R III with a 90mm 2.8 macro lens to film everything at 120fps, and experimented with different lighting setups. Our friend Loz Blackwell then used this footage to map displacement of the album artwork. After Effects was used to synchronously time remap and transform a host of macro shots, using this as a displacement map to then apply to the artwork stills. Working with such high resolution photographs enabled the cropping and selection of different sections to match the motion of the underlying visuals.



In addition, the team at BEAMA Visuals (Ben Leonard, Leigh Powless and Logan Anderson) played a big role in the content generation. They come from a range of arts backgrounds (animation, painting, graphic design respectively) and each brought their unique take to the project.

Ben wanted to recreate the complexities of natural systems in a digital space, using Cinema 4D and X-Particles in order to achieve organic growth and fluid dynamics.



For Leigh the project offered the perfect opportunity to merge digital with analog, and she crafted much of her content by hand, mixing different pigments and additives to create organic patterns of color which were then brought into After Effects to be digitally manipulated and finished. "I was trying to create visuals that were sort of living, breathing paintings, playing with symmetry and rorschach style imagery to invoke a dreamy, surreal response in the audience."



LEGGY:
My main duty content wise were visuals for the non-Polychrome songs that showcased KOANs back catalog so I wanted to create visuals that sat apart from the albums dedicated content but didn’t appear jarring.



Some of KOANs earlier work is more dancefloor focused so it gave me a chance to use some bold colours and quick edits.



The whole team shared a spreadsheet where we divided up the workload and decided what colour schemes each track should adhere to, this workflow meant we could maintain fluidity throughout the whole show.Visuals were mainly created within After Effects using the sound to keyframe tool to trigger effect parameters and layer opacities. KOAN rendered out separate stems (Bass Drum, Snare and Bass) to allocate different parameter changes to each resulting in tight visuals.



I also used C4D and Octane to create loops which were then manipulated in After Effects to create this bright warped shapes which KOAN liked the look of and I used this technique on a few songs.



So cool. We love it. The content is beautiful.
Tell us your favorite bits of the show. What do you love, what didn’t really work out?

KOAN:
We’d been relying on master tempo automation as a way of keeping everything on the grid in our onstage Ableton project, and using the Link protocol to sync the clocks of the two laptops. It had proven stable in the lead-up to the shows, but during one of the final rehearsals we discovered that these changes in tempo were causing the playback and LTC audio tracks to glitch.

We weren’t fully sure about the technical reasons for this, but thought it might have been because of the playback cursor on the synced laptop not moving smoothly through the changes in tempo, therefore causing the LTC being read by the media server and lighting desk to jump around. We had to completely scrap the tempo automation and manually move everything off of the grid in Ableton, which took ages!

LEGGY:
The crowd at the show were so energetic, definitely a pleasure to watch people react to all the hard work the team put in.



The main issue for me was the dreaded ‘Optimus’ that cropped up on our Resolume laptop due to the inability to turn it off via BIOS. I had to use the workaround of creating the external display (in this case our LED wall) as the main display and everything ran smoothly after that.

Finally, we love how you’ve used all the different features Resolume has to offer to make your show. Talk to us about your favorite features. Is there anything you would like to see developed/worked upon?

KOAN:
The envelopes inside Resolume are amazing. It’s great being able to finely control any number of parameters, plus all of the different easing functions are really cool. Also how easy it is to repurpose content, by adding effects and quickly mirroring and inverting clips, as well as changing things like speed and scale.

LEGGY:
The updates in 6 have been a pleasure to explore, mainly the envelopes and modular re-design to be able to alter your workspace. I’ve also used the DMX output intensely over the years running full lighting and visual shows from a single laptop; using simple animations you can come up with bpm synced chases that would take an age to program! In terms of future updates I would love to see the inclusion of basic 3D modeling and lighting.

Thank you for doing this interview, you guys.



Polychrome looks beautiful and we can’t wait to catch it live.

Meanwhile, give the album a listen here.

CREDITS:

All photo credits: "Sarah Koury / KōLAB Studios"
BEAMA
KōLAB Studios
Loz Visuals
Mushpongo