The introduction of Pioneers DVD player for djs had everyone, including myself, drooling over the possibilities. It fast became apparent that moving MTV from the boob tube to the club was not exactly going to be the most revolutionary thing on the planet. Instead, guys like Mike Realm have shown how a little video editing can produce some really fun results that are totally original.
The very capable team behind Serato Scratch has made that goal even easier to achieve by rolling video into their ubiquitous DVS system. Dj Mei-Lwun, the face behind our now infamous Fisher Price review, gives us a quick run through and demonstrates a very cheeky home made video combo.
By Dj Mei lwun
Hold the presses, Serato now offers VIDEO. Video SL is a plug-in that is used with Scratch Live 1.8 and the TTM 57SL mixer to mix video along with your audio. It offers the standard laptop video mixer set of effects and transitions including exclusion, difference and chroma key, my personal all time rave fav. They’ve managed to mate the software quite well with 57SL mixer. The up faders and cross faders are linked to each channels respective video output and are exactly in sync with cuts and fades. The “P” knobs can be used to select and control video effects. The Joysticks and function buttons are used to quick cut the video independently of the audio. With a bit of pre production its possible to craft a VJ set that is compelling on both levels. Still it all makes me wish I could grow a set of chest hands to fully take advantage of what VIDEOSL can do.
I never thought about being a VJ until the first version Serato released peaked my interest enough to start playing with it and finding video content. In fact, after that- I couldn’t stop playing with it as it took me back to my rave days when all parties had visuals. The creative potential of this gear is awesome. You can use traditional music videos and you can also assign video loops to tracks in your library. By combining these two options its actually not as difficult as I initially imagined to create a compelling VJ set. After a few short hours assigning and organizing videos I was off mixing. When I mixed stock footage of some graphiti for a hip hop track and mixing it into a classic house track accompanied by oil and water style hippy visuals I was sold on the concept. I’m looking fwd to trying it out live and gauging the crowd response.
Here is a short combo I did that shows music videos are not the only way to match cool images to your audio set. A little bit of creative thinking and you can easily brand your own personal sound AND look.
