Kaoss for scratching controller, or?

renode · Post by **renode** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 02:50

Hello all. First post here.

I thought I would see perhaps what other people were using for scratching and perhaps describe my ideal setup, what I am trying to do, and ask for the opinions of you seasoned veterans.

First off, I have two projectors. I would more than likely be running Resolume on my dedicated machine, with two screen outputs and syncing this with the other pc running Ableton. Most of the stuff would be just sync'd up but not having audio that particularly goes with the shots, but anything I would be scratching, I would want the audio of the clip to be underneath it. (IE. scratching a clip of Captain Kirk saying "SPOCK!" and having "S-S-S-SP-SPOCK!" underneath the video, not just the beats from Ableton.) From what I've read in the manual and here in the forums, I would apparently need to export audio of these video clips to wav, mp3 or whatever, and have them loaded up in Ableton, and send midi signals to both Ableton and Resolume with whatever controller to begin playback at the same time, right?

Well, with that in mind, my ideal setup would be with something like a Kaoss pad and some other midi controller with a crossfader, so that I could tap/trace on the Kaoss pad to stutter/scratch and obviously crossfade with the other. I don't actually own a Kaoss pad, so I don't know if i could set this up. I was inspired for this type of setup when I saw Meat Beat Manifesto in '05, as I noticed Jack Dangers was using a Kaoss pad and tapping on it to skip and stutter to different parts of the samples for gated effects and tracing on it for scratches. Obviously, they weren't using Resolume, they were using Xovox... but could something like this be done? Like for example setting X on the pad to be the position of the playback scrubber, and perhaps even setting the volume of the sample to Y? I have no idea here, as I'm completely new to this, but if this were possible I'd buy the gear, and buy Resolume, too.

Any suggestions for other setups would be nice, as well!

Manwell · Post by **Manwell** » Thu Nov 30, 2006 15:29

I have been using Ableton and Resolume for a while but never at the same time, but I have a feeling that it might be the single most enjoyable experience of all time. Being able to scratch audio and video would be incredible but I dont think it is possible with Live + Res. To start with it is not possible to jog or scratch in Live without a plugin to load samples into and even then the results are not convincing. You can stutter samples with the Kaoss pad but this means controlling Live + Kaoss at the same time sending both into a mixer. Then im not not sure if the pad can send midi from the x and y positions into Res to simulate scratch movements. I did some research into a cheap(ish) way of A/V scratching after seeing DJ Yoda using Pioneer DVD decks and there are a few options. The best of these would be to use a dedicated computer for A/V scratching alongside 1 running Live and 1 running Res. With software like Ms Pinky audio and video can be controlled from timecode vinyl on standard turntables. With the audio from Ms Pinky mixed with Live's output and the video from Ms Pinky videomixed with Resolume's output you can achieve the effect you are after. The only problem is the extra equipment needed but still far cheaper than a single DVD scratch deck. Then all you have to do is learn to scratch like Yoda and its going to be the best show ever!

renode · Post by **renode** » Thu Dec 07, 2006 20:38

thanks for the input. actually i have some virtual turntable vst plugins i can use inside live, as well as traktor. ive the means to scratch samples as far as audio is concerned there....

actually to lighten the cpu load as much as possible i think i will buy the kaoss kp3 pad and use the memory card to store ripped audio from the clips to cut up and scratch, and send the midi simultaneously to scrub the clips in res. if i rip the samples directly from the vids and dont change the time at all, they should (theoretically) stay in sync, and meanwhile the load will be a little lighter on ableton. ill have two comps in this setup with the load split evenly between res and ableton, and id like to keep it as simple as possible.

i know i wont be able to get the precision scratches im after, so eventually ill buy a dvj 1000, and insert the video feed into res. but thats of course after ive the 2k to throw on something like that. hehehe

Manwell · Post by **Manwell** » Thu Dec 21, 2006 15:38

I would be interested to know how you get on with the kaoss pad, live and resolume and what the results are like controlling resolume's playback with the pad. Could you post some feedback when you have it working? Good luck should be incredible if it works.