Resolume Forum

To turn Res Ave into a full-fledged Video DJ application, it really needs to offer shutting off the audio pitch.
If you want to drop a vocal line into any beat regardless of the BPM, you don't want them coming in sounding like the chipmunks.
Yeah, I know, you're gonna say, "Why don't you take the clip into a video editing program and re-edit it to the new bpm?"
Well, because when you're free-styling sets live, you don't want to constrict yourself to a static BPM, you want to go with the flow or the vibe.
This would add so much versatility to the program.
I'm thinking more of a club experience and not so much of an experimental one.

- dBom
Chipmunks equals death!

Macbook Pro 2.16GHz, 3GB Ram

You can turn-off 'Audio-Pitch'.
When an audio clip is loaded it's default set to be synced to the bpm. If you don't want this use the dropdownlistbox above the transport controls and change it from Bpm sync to timeline.
Now it will play in it's original speed and you can still change it's tempo by changing the pitch.

Edwin, I understand your explanation. But I'm not sure I was clear on my question. I think this is not only an important feature, it may be THE most important feature on any future Video DJ program! Period!
The video DJ market hasn't even peaked yet, and if you implement this feature you will see a significant chunk of it. And I'm dedicated to helping you make Resolume Avenue a serious Video DJ program that can compete in a larger arena by clarifying my suggestion for this feature.

Example of the Problem:
If i have clip A @ 120 BPM and in the key of G
and clip B is 123 BPM in key of G
One of those clips will no longer be in the key of G when it is slightly pitch/tempo changed to beat match the other clip. Res Av does a stellar job matching the BPM, but pitch, not at this time.
Short of re-editing the video in video editing software to another BPM and maintaining the key, there is nothing currently you can do. For now, you're stuck in that BPM in Res Av and you have to reedit every clip to match. I would spend so much time re-editing videos for a fixed set that I'd never play any gigs, nor have any room for improvisation live. It doesn't give you that flexibility you feel as a VJ.
So pitch and tempo have to be independent of each other to achieve musical precision.

As far as I know, of all DJ software software I've tested, I can change the tempo without changing the pitch. So it's not like it hasn't been done. Of course, most of the DJ software out there uses mp3s, so I'm not sure if the wav files are handled differently and that could be an impediment to implementing this feature.
I understand that we're only in the Beta phase of Avenue. I'd like to know if this is on the plan/agenda for future updates/upgrades.

I spend a lot of time preparing mashups, and one thing that is useful in audio is to see how one track juxtaposes against another. Those 2 tracks have to be in complete harmonic tune with each other through tempo changes and effects processing. Sometimes portions are stretched or compressed but still in key. Ableton Live is one program that achieves this quite well.

Importantly, when a person makes mash-ups it's hard to predict the results, but pleasant surprises emerge in the process and ideas come quite quickly when you're moving through lots of audio clips and trying various combinations.

Now what I imagined in the video DJ world was something similar. If I can move through lots of clips quite quickly and juxtapose them the way I do with audio in Ableton Live, then I can find those combinations, transitions and blends I want to extrapolate on quite quickly. No need to do the audio in one program, then re-edit the video in another, then export it for Avenue.

This way a music VJ/video DJ can spend more time in Avenue creating in the program they will be performing on. I easily spend about 40 hrs now preparing for a 40 minute set using many programs. If I want to get gigs where I could quit having to work another 40 hr job, then I need to add at least 5-10 hours of fresh music video content to pull from every month.

If anyone wants me to upload some audio or video examples, I will.

- dBom

Hi dBom,
Thanx for your more in-depth explanation, i guess what you want is time-stretching. So the clip length is adjusted without changing the pitch.
At the moment time-strecthing doesn't have our priority but is certainly on our list, time-streching is hard to build yourself but there are libraries out there which we can use, but those are quite expensive.
We will implement a feature that will let you beat-snap a clip without having it to be set to bpm-sync.
So you can trigger a clip in sync without it's tempo being adjusted.
Right now clips set to timeline mode (play at their own tempo) can't be triggered in sync, that will be changed.

And yes please send us some files (it's allways good to have some specific test material).
Send it to mail AT resolume.com