The art of DJ.

 

The art of DJ.

The art of DJ, has become widespread. Today, a DJ is not just a person whose task is to mix tracks, a DJ at present is already a composer who creates new music. The art of a DJ lies in a live set, where the main task of mixing tracks is also arranging music, adding musical fragments and sound effects in real time. The art of a DJ is, first of all, direct communication with the listener through live music.

Light accompaniment of sets has become an integral part of the life of a DJ. No one will argue with me that the light accompaniment of music will create an additional atmosphere and enhance the perception of a piece of music. The light accompaniment of music can even radically change the perception of the musical work itself. But there is also the other side of the coin, if the light is not synchronized, if it does not correspond to the piece of music, the light can play a negative effect. Therefore, a feature of the use of light accompaniment in a piece of music is the presence of an inextricable link between music and light.

Many lighting equipment manufacturers have begun to produce lighting consoles for mobile DJs, on the basis of which they can control their lighting devices. All these remotes are built on the same principle, you need to write a control sequence for your lighting fixtures and save this control program first. And during the set, run the visualization program for your show. To get the most out of music visualization, you need to create a separate lighting composition for each track. Audio functions allow one way or another to synchronize the lighting program with the music track. Additionally, during the operation of the light console, you can manually switch settings and control additional devices, such as a smoke generator, stroboscope.

But this approach has significant drawbacks:

1.  DJs have to constantly come up with new light sequences to control lights, because the same sequence annoys the viewer even when the music track is played repeatedly.

2.      A unique lighting control sequence written for a specific music track, not suitable for another piece of music.

3.     Such lighting consoles are completely ineffective for live music, a DJ is a creative person, during a performance, a DJ must focus on music, and a modern approach with such consoles distracts the DJ's attention from the main task. Therefore, in the DJ broadcasts that have gained popularity now, most often there is no light accompaniment.

4.  The absence of a real connection between the formed light images and the musical flow. Synchronization mechanisms are imperfect and most often simply do not work.

 

Manufacturers of modern lighting consoles for mobile DJs have mainly focused on creating compact modern designs in a new style, these are backlit buttons, encoders, the presence of a graphic display and nothing more. There really are no revolutionary innovations in these consoles, only one desire of the manufacturer can be traced, to present the already existing principles of visualization differently and shove them into a new package.

I think that a DJ needs lighting equipment that is intelligent, able to create music visualizations as independently as possible, in real time. Such equipment that will allow the DJ to fully concentrate on the music. A feature of such a system should be a visible connection between visual images and a piece of music. The ideal option is when the music itself creates a light show.

I have talked a lot with the so-called lighting technicians whose job is to create light shows at concerts, and they convince me that the creation of such devices is impossible, and that this is a creative process that electronics cannot. Talented lighting technicians are artists in their field and create amazing light shows, but even so, this show is only for one time. Moreover, I have never seen, let's say, a "good" synchronization of light and music anywhere, which is sometimes very upsetting. But most often such light shows look like a combination of so-called lighting effects, running lights, strobe lights, everything is mixed in the hope that somewhere, something, somehow will fall in time with the music and it will be good.

For a DJ who uses live music in his work, using a pre-programmed composition approach is not practical, and hiring a lighting engineer is simply unrealistic. Therefore, we often see that most often the light used in a DJ performance has nothing to do with the music.

Mankind has long noticed that music has the ability to excite visual images in the human mind, and therefore light shows have become an integral part of any musical concerts and performances.

I have devoted all my free time to a hobby, which is to develop real-time music visualization systems. From the beginning, I built many devices according to ready-made schemes, created output optical devices, to the best of my financial capabilities. But the result of these works always led to the same result, that the newly built device, which in the first days pleases with a variety of effects, after a couple of days no longer pleased, and after a couple of weeks, interest in it simply disappeared. This effect is called the visual fatigue effect. This is due to the fact that the human brain visually remembers a lot of information and requires its constant updating.

I concluded for myself that the existing approach to building automatic devices, which allows real-time visualization of music, does not correspond to reality. We need new rules, theory and technological principles that would allow us to take a fresh look at the visualization of music, according to which it would be possible to create devices capable of performing automatic visualization of music in real time, without human intervention. Moreover, I want to say that such devices should have such algorithms that would allow creating a visual arrangement of a melody that, when playing the same piece of music, would create a new visualization that would eliminate the effect of visual fatigue.

I'm not a musician, I just love listening to music, but I'm a fan of music visualization. Therefore, I went down the path, at the beginning of which I determined for myself the basic principles of what visualization of music represents for me. I called these principles - real-time music visualization technology or abbreviated RTMV-technology.

Basic principles.

1.       In any piece of music there are two components - this is melody and rhythm.

2.       The melody is a smooth component, which is like a wave that runs like a thread through the entire piece of music.

3.    Rhythm - or you can call it a pattern, it can include a solo instrument, the performer's voice, well, the rhythm itself is something opposite to a melody, a dynamic component of a piece of music.

4.    The visualization algorithm must perform the “light arrangement” of a piece of music. What does it mean? He must create a new visualization, each time for the same piece of music. The visualization algorithm must be intelligent to some extent.

5.    Output optical device (OOD) - this can be a screen, it can be a set of various light sources that have a certain location in space, both among themselves and relative to the viewer.

6.  Symmetry principle. This is the principle of beauty. I came to this when creating output optical devices or a principle for arranging lighting fixtures on a stage. If the formed light images are symmetrical, it is always perceived as beautiful. And if you look at all the light installations, then 100 percent you will see that the principle of symmetry is present everywhere.

7.    The algorithm of work, music visualization systems, must be completely autonomous. Algorithms must independently determine the style of a piece of music and, depending on this, create control sequences for controlling lighting devices.

8.       The frequency component analysis mechanism must distinguish one note from another.

9.       The main requirement of RTMV-technology is the principle of creating light images. Light images must have a visible connection with the piece of music, which means that the visualization must be connected and synchronized with the music. Or to put it differently - the visualization should be created by the music itself. Each light image created by RTMV-technology must be derived from the melody and rhythm of a piece of music.

Taking these principles as a basis, I began to develop algorithms and design controllers. When designing such devices, the format of the digital data needed to render the music is determined by the light sources used in the light show. For me, the most affordable light sources were LEDs. And with the advent of LEDs with built-in drivers, they have become the main means of visualization. This does not mean that RTMV-technology cannot be used with modern stage devices, it means that it will require a description of additional control functions for a particular lighting fixture or group and nothing more.

At the beginning, to visualize music, it was supposed to use a 2D screen, and RTMV-technology itself was developed for this type of screen. When the development process reaches a certain level, it is necessary to create a working prototype so that the idea can be shown for objective feedback. Getting feedback is an important step, as it allows you to take a fresh look at the results of your work and provides an opportunity to go beyond your subjective understanding of reality. But it turned out that creating a prototype of the 2D version required significant financial resources that I could not allocate from my income. And without showing a working device, it is not possible to find an interested sponsor or manufacturer of lighting equipment.

Then I decided to move away from the chosen direction and create a series of music visualization devices, such as a sound signal level indicator (VU-meter), so that I could earn the necessary start-up capital on them. But all the solutions that I created did not suit me, I tried to add more lighting effects, but everything ended in the same obsessive - fatigue effect. That is, a certain period of time passed and the device simply got bored, became uninteresting and unattractive. And this is fundamentally contrary to the purpose of my work. Then I decide to apply, a simplified version of RTMV-technology, for a linear type display. A linear display is an arrangement of the same type of light sources on one straight line and this option is called - 1D visualization. The first test results made me very happy. The fact is that at the very beginning of the creation of RTMV-technology, I rejected the concept - 1D visualization, since I believed that it was impossible to create sufficiently effective light images in such a design. But as the result of the experiment showed, this is possible and at a fairly effective level.

This project was named - CLUBBEST. Two types of visualizer prototypes were developed and manufactured, models M68 and M100.  They differ in the type of LEDs used, their number and approach to the data visualization mechanism. The main purpose of these models is for home use, I personally oriented these projects as a decorative device for listening to music on my PC. But as the reviews showed, this visualization approach also interested music professionals. To popularize this, I started to record live videos of these devices in order to get more information about the perception of this new art form. And I started getting positive feedback. The most inspiring feedback for me was when a subscriber of my YouTube channel wrote - "I felt like I saw the music". Yes, and it's true, I'm developing this technology so that a person can see the music.

Pay attention to how well-known brands of lighting equipment manufacturers are suitable for demonstrating new technologies or new visualization systems. They make advertisements and create promo videos in one interesting way. In their videos, they talk a lot and in detail, and sometimes even tediously, about the new device, about its unique properties and capabilities, how many new connectors it has, how many beautiful buttons, what convenient encoders, and now they have also added an OLED display. How much can be programmed into this new device of light control sequences, hiding how many additional hours of work it will take. And most often there are no examples of a real video demonstration of the operation of such a device, with lighting devices, or a demonstration of a maximum of 10 seconds. And why is it so? This is because there is simply nothing to watch for more than 10 seconds, because nothing really new has been invented in this device. And for some reason, everyone is silent about the fact that the use of such an approach to visualization leads to the well-known effect of visual fatigue.

I think it's important for a DJ to know, especially for a mobile DJ, how comfortable, efficient and easy the new equipment you buy will be. To what extent the use of this equipment will simplify his life with lighting devices and will not distract him from his main work on music. Moreover, now this new device will help him in his musical creativity. A DJ, having created a piece of music, should be able to immediately see its visualization in real time. And such modern technologies offered by modern brands do not allow him to do this.

To evaluate the work of the new visualization technology, to show its objectivity, I shoot commercials, recording the entire piece of music. Please note that I do not edit the video, leaving only some good moment. In order to provide information about the real work of the music rendering mechanism, I try to show the result of music rendering throughout the entire piece of music, to show the connection of light with music. And even if it's a broadcast, I try to show a section of the video lasting 5-10 minutes so that you can evaluate how effective the DJ's performance will be if visualization is also added to his work. I record visualizations with different musical styles so that you can see how the technology deals with the processing of this or that information. Music should be listened to, and visualization should be viewed. The visualization should be of such a level that there is a feeling that the sound does not come from the speakers, but the sound comes from the light.

CLUBBEST is built on the principle of Plug and Play. All you have to do is apply an audio signal to the input, and RTMV-technology will do the rest. CLUBBEST does not have any tuning knobs. CLUBBEST itself determines the style of a piece of music and generates visual effects synchronously with the piece of music on the output optical device available to it in the current configuration. In the CLUBBEST project, everything is simplified, the light sources always have the same characteristics, their number is constant, so the algorithm is simplified, and it is focused only on a given configuration of the output optical device.

Please note that CLUBBEST is the most simplified version of RTMV-technology, but already built prototypes can be used as a basis for creating a number of serial products for mobile DJs, as well as for consumers, for individual use, when listening to music.

And I want to add that there is another wide application for such systems that use real-time music visualization - these are various clubs, cafes, bars, restaurants where there is music and the owner of the establishment wants to add live light to attract attention. visitors.

If approached from the standpoint of using RTMV-technology stage lighting control, then the lighting console created on its basis will have one main feature that distinguishes it from modern consoles - it will not have a tedious control sequence programming mechanism for lighting fixtures. RTMV-technology is a technology whose essence lies in the fact that the music itself must create light visualization.

The pre-setting of such a lighting console may include a visual description of which lighting fixtures you have to work with and how these fixtures are located in space. In RTMV-technology it is possible at the moment 1D and 2D arrangement of lighting fixtures in space. Theoretically, a 3D option is also possible, but so far, I have not determined these requirements for myself.

How, for example, for the user (DJ) might the connection of lighting devices look like? You need to select the type of visualization symmetry to use. Next, indicate the type (brand, model) of light sources, indicate their position according to certain rules in space, and that's it. This completes the setup.

I’ll clarify right away for more advanced users, a deeper setting will be provided, for example, limit the rotation angle or the maximum brightness of the light source, and similar parameters.

Pre-configuration, for RTMV-technology, is necessary for the system to understand what control parameters need to be generated in order to control the connected illuminators.

And then the user simply connects to the sound source and the light show begins.

Modern music visualization technology implies that for music it is first necessary to create and program a light composition, taking into account the lighting devices used. I think this is an independent direction intended for lighting artists and is a special kind of art that has the right to life and development.

But the time has come for the need for a new art - the art of algorithms and the art of electronics. Such an art of music visualization, when the composer, creating his musical work, will determine what kind of light show will be and what kind of light visualization of his musical work will be. But for this, he must get completely different tools for visualizing music for his work.

Now it's time to design and build so-called smart real-time music visualization tools.

Here is one of these opinions, in recognition of my innocence and another confirmation that such a time has come: https://youtu.be/pZZiAXjMOsw

And after watching the previous video, go here to see how RTMV-technology works, and you will completely agree with me - The time has come!

  

Catcatcat electronics,

Dnipro, Ukraine, 2023.