DiPiVJ - Video Tutorials - Page 2
Welcome to the video tutorials for DiPiVJ - The Plug-and-Play Audio-Reactive Visuals Instrument for DJs, bands, video artists, VJs, music venues, installations, and other creative spaces.
Page 2 consists of Chapter 12 - 18.
For Chapters 1 - 11 please visit page 1.
Chapter 1 - Getting Started
Chapter 2 - Connecting to Web UI
Chapter 3 - Web UI Overview
Chapter 4 - Scene Tab Intro
Chapter 5 - Brain Mode
Chapter 6 - Playlist Mode
Chapter 7 - Auto Logo
Chapter 8 - The Content Tab (How to Update)
Chapter 9 - The Create Tab
Chapter 10 - The Mapping Tab
Chapter 11 - The Network Tab
Chapter 12 - LTC Timecode
Chapter 13 - MIDI
Chapter 14 - OSC
Chapter 15 - Art-Net/DMX
Chapter 16 - Gang Mode
Chapter 12 - LTC Timecode
Playlist Mode can also be driven by timecode, so that your scenes land on exact moments in a rehearsed show.For this you need a stereo USB audio interface.
The DiPiVJ normally listens in mono. Turning timecode on reopens that input as stereo, and then it is listening for two different things. Channel one carries the timecode. Channel two carries your program audio, and that is what the visuals react to.So, you want a prepared track with the timecode on the left and your music on the right. Get those the wrong way round and the unit will never lock on.
One other thing worth knowing. The audio device is chosen when the unit starts up, so plug your interface in before you power it on.
I am on the Playlist tab, and right now there is only the one switch here, for Playlist Mode. I will turn that on.
Several more controls have appeared alongside it. Previous and Next, a Loop switch, and a Timecode switch. I will turn Timecode on now.
Two things change. Up in the corner the unit starts reporting on timecode, and it says No LTC lock, because it is not hearing any yet. And down in the list, every item has lost its beats or time setting.
Each one now has a timecode box instead, in hours, minutes, seconds and frames.You will also notice that Loop has greyed out.
While timecode is running, the timecode decides every cue, so there is nothing left for Loop to do.
Before entering any cue points, it is worth checking that the unit can actually hear your timecode. Up here it says No LTC lock. I will start my timecode track playing into the interface now. There it is. The header is reading the running timecode, and it is telling me the frame rate it locked on to. That is your confirmation that the wiring is right and that the unit is listening to the correct channel.
Now I will stop the track again. It goes back to No LTC lock, and notice that the visuals did not jump anywhere. When timecode stops, the playlist simply holds whatever scene it is on and picks up again when the timecode comes back.Now I will give three of these items a cue point.
I will put the first one at five seconds, the second at fifteen, and the third at twenty-three.
Everything else in this list I am leaving at zero, and that is deliberate. An item left at all zeros is not a cue point, and timecode will never fire it.
You can still reach it with its Cue button, or a scene card, or a controller, but the timeline ignores it. So you can park as many spare scenes in a list as you like without them hijacking the show.
These cue points get saved with the playlist, right alongside the beat counts, so one playlist holds both and the toggle simply chooses which one is driving.
Now let us run it. I am starting the timecode track from the beginning.
The header has locked, and before the first cue point the unit simply holds whatever was already showing.
There it goes, at five seconds.Timecode fires scenes, and only scenes. A clip still plays at its own rate, so the clock chooses when a scene starts. And there is the second one, at fifteen. The playlist is a timeline now. Seek the source clock backwards and the visuals follow. And the third, at twenty-three seconds.
Chapter 13 - MIDI
Any standard USB controller works — knobs, faders, buttons, pads. There are no drivers to install and nothing to configure.
You teach the unit what each control does from this panel, and it remembers after a reboot.Plug the controller in before you power the unit on.
A controller connected afterwards will not be picked up, and swapping to a different one means another restart.
Everything starts with the MIDI Learn switch, at the right of the Audio Boost row.Switch MIDI Learn on. Every control you are allowed to map picks up a dashed amber outline, a Clear MIDI button appears, and a strip of nine sliders drops in below the row.
Tap the control on screen you want to map. It turns a thick pulsing blue, which means it is waiting. Then move the control on your controller. The outline flashes green and settles with a small badge showing exactly what it answers to.
A playlist Cue button and that scene's card share one mapping.
Now lets look at this strip of nine here at the top. Three sliders are for effect intensity, three for smoothness, and three are for the logo.Put a fader on FX one intensity and then you are controlling the FX intensity of the first FX slot for every scene card. Since we are able to have up to three audio-reactive FX per scene card, I will go ahead and map these first three.
Now you can see as I move my faders the FX intensities are being altered in real-time. I will turn all three FX all the way down. Here is the first one. We can see it is mapped. Now adding the second one. One and two are now full blast. And finally here is the third.
All three FX layers are all the way on now. Controlled in real-time by midi .
Brain Mode overrides everything, so while it is on knobs will be ignored completely.And grabbing a slider in the WebUI takes that one parameter back from the controller.
Only that one, everything else stays where it is. Move the fader again and the controller has it back.
Chapter 14- OSC
Art-Net lets a lighting desk drive the DiPiVJ on the same channels as your lights, so the visuals move with the rest of the rig. This one is receive only — the unit listens, it does not send anything back.
It listens on port 6444, on universe zero by default, across a fixed layout of seventeen channels.
I am going to switch the ArtNet toggle on, on the right of the header. Every element you can control is outlined in this orange dashed line.
To find the channel for anything, all you have to do is press on the element. I will press on this scene card, and the popup gives us the universe, the channel, and how that channel is read.
Every scene shares channel fourteen. The value you send on that channel is what chooses the scene — zero is the first scene, one is the second, and on down the list. So, you patch one channel and change its number to cue.
I will click on the Network Tab and scroll down to the Art-Net and DMX Input section. Switch it on and set the universe if you are running more than one unit. Enabled and universe take effect straight away, but changing the port needs a restart.
Underneath you will find a channel monitor showing all seventeen channels and their labels. If you had a desk sending, you would see those values moving here. That is the quickest way to confirm your desk is reaching the unit before you commit to a patch.
Two things worth knowing. Faders only act when they move, so a parked fader never locks out the panel. And the effect channels are ignored while Brain Mode is on.
There is a lot more detail on Art-Net in the DiPiVJ handbook, including the full channel map.
Chapter 15 - Art-Net/DMX
A playlist is an ordered set list of scenes, each will loop for a length you choose.I will click on the Playlist tab. Now I will toggle the "Playlist Mode" toggle. Turning on Playlist Mode automatically turns Brain Mode off since they are mutually exclusive.
To create a new playlist click the button that says "new". Then we can see this new drop down bar. Once I click here we can see all of our content. I will choose "Diffraction". Now I will press the add button, and the Diffraction shader has now been added to the playlist. Now I will add "Embers" from down here from our "Faces of Greed" folder. I will also add "Greed Cloner".
You can drive the playlist through beats or time. Each playlist entry has a toggle to select either. You can see right now that Diffraction is set to beats. To the right we can see it says 300 beats. The scene will hold until that many beats have been counted, so it stretches and shrinks with the tempo.
Now I will change this from beats to time. When it is set to time the scene holds for that long in real seconds and then moves on, no matter what the audio is doing.
For manual mode you can use time or beats - just set the value to 9999 to ensure it never reaches the cue. Then you can just press the "cue" button for each scene to cue the scene manually.
To the right of our Playlist Mode toggle, we also have buttons for previous and next.
We will talk about controlling Playlist Mode with timecode in a later chapter dedicated to using Timecode.
We have already learned about the New button, but notice you can also save, load, and delete playlists here as well. Next, we will talk about the Auto Logo tab.
Chapter 16 - Gang Mode
Gang Mode runs two or more units as one performance. This way you can synchronize the show across many different monitors.
The DiPiVJ all need to be on the same network. You can put them all on your own existing network, or you can use one unit's own hotspot as the network, which is what I am doing here.
I have two DiPiVJs and my laptop is on the hotspot of the first one.
Let's go to the Network tab and go down to Gang Mode. Just under our Gang Mode settings we can also see Nearby Units, and there is our other unit.
Now under our Gang Mode settings I am going to change the mode for this device from Standalone to Leader.
Make sure you hit Apply.
This unit will now be the leader that sends information, and it is also the one running the hotspot that everything else is on.
I can get to the Web UI of my other unit easily by clicking its link here under Nearby Units.
And here we are on the second unit, without ever leaving the browser. This one was already connected to the leader's hotspot, which is how it turns up as a nearby unit in the first place.
I will do the same thing here, but set it to Follower, and Apply.
That is the whole setup. This unit now names the leader it is copying.
Now let's go back to the leader, which tells us how many units it is driving.
Now everything I do on the leader happens on both.
In the Scenes tab, I will change the scene here by cueing With Love 1 in the With Love folder, and there it goes on both units. Blackout travels. Brain Mode travels, and so do its scene choices. The playlist and its position travel. The global effect knobs travel as well.
What does not travel is anything about the picture on each screen. Which effects are loaded on each scene stays per unit, so you can run different audio-reactive FX on each output. Mapping, masks, layers and display settings stay per unit too, because every unit is pointed at something different.
This is the part that makes ganging worth doing. The followers react to the leader's sound, not their own.
Without it, every unit reacts to whatever its own microphone picks up in its corner of the room. With it, the whole rig pulses together, and only one unit needs a good feed. Put the line from the desk into the leader and you are done.
Each unit still shows its own audio meter, so if you are using the microphones instead of an audio input card then this is how you choose a leader. Pick the one with the best sound.
And if the leader ever goes quiet, the followers fall back to their own sound so the visuals keep moving.
Ganged units keep their own effects on purpose, because two units can be meant to look different.
When you do want them to match, there are two ways, and both only appear on a leader that actually has followers.
Still here in the Scenes tab, I will open a scene's FX popup, and right at the bottom is Copy this scene's FX to followers. That does this one scene and leaves the rest alone, so you can keep some looks matched and others deliberately different. It reports unit by unit whether it copied, or whether that unit does not have the scene.
To do everything at once, we head back over to the Network tab, down to Gang Mode, and press Copy my effects to followers. That replaces the effects on every scene the follower has a match for, and tells you how many it applied and how many are missing.
Either way it matches by scene name, so get your content matching first. Neither one touches mapping or masks or display settings, and there is no undo.
So what happens if the leader drops off? The followers handle it on their own.
This could happen with network interference, a poor Why Fi connection, or the leader losing power.
For the first couple of seconds, nothing — that is just normal network hiccup territory. After that they hold the last frame. Not blackout, not back to their own show, just frozen on the last good look, because that is the only safe thing to do mid show.
After ten seconds they go back to running themselves, and you get a red No leader detected banner in the Web UI. When the leader comes back they rejoin on their own.
One last thing. A unit left as a follower keeps that role through reboots, which may be exactly what you want. If you would rather it came back up on its own, set it to Standalone and Apply.