Vixid’s firmware programmer extraordinaire and software guru Vince has previously shared with us some PD patches to help control various aspects of the VJX in ways impossible when you’re just using the knobs, buttons and sliders on the unit.

The physical layout and control scheme of the mixer has allowed a huge amount of functionality to be packed in to a small space, and the preset system is robust for loading and saving layer setups on the fly, but it’s physically impossible to load more than one track preset at a time. Preset management is also one of the only VJX functions not controllable via MIDI, so you can’t quickly load an “entire mixer” preset.

Or perhaps I should say “couldn’t”, as Vince has come up with an extremely elegant solution which utilizes the free, Open Source, cross-platform patching language PD (Pure Data) to send and receive messages from the VJX, allowing you to save and load the entire state of the mixer.

Vixid Control Snapshot V2 (PD Patch. 16KB Zip File)
Note: This software is Beta, please get in touch if you have any problems or discover any bugs.

Along with PD, you require a MIDI interface with both MIDI-IN and OUT to allow your computer to talk to the VJX. If you don’t already have some MIDI hardware lying around the place, DealExtreme has a cheap one for US$17 (including worldwide shipping)

Once you have PD installed and your MIDI interface connected, open the TestSnapshot.pd file. Ensure that your MIDI device is active (PD Menu: Preferences > MIDI Settings)

The VJX sends MIDI out with every control or parameter you change. So with a MIDI interface active on both IN and OUT, the PD patch can listen to everything that happens on the VJX, enabling you to save or load the entire state of the mixer.

This is a great framework, but as PD is free and open, I think we can expect more. I’m starting to learn PD to help me control my VJX in new ways, and I’d like to share what I come up with. I hope other VJX owners will join me, so we can learn together and make all of our performances better.

The VJX’ Preset system is pretty robust, allowing you to save and recall 16 blocks of settings for Keyer, FX, Motion, Crop, RGB, BCS, Transition, Audio Type and Audio Link. If you haven’t made it that far down the manual: Press Preset then one of the Matrix buttons to save a preset for the current section. Hold down that section button (RGB for instance) and press one of the Matrix buttons to load a preset.

It goes deeper though. Somehow, on my first several readings of the VJX manual I managed to skip the part about saving and loading entire track presets. This will save all of the above settings for the track.

The “Select” button – your new best friend.

To save a Track preset, press Preset as normal, press the Select button for the track you want to save, then press a Matrix button to save the whole track preset in that matrix location.

This is very useful when you’re working with complex feedback effects, or have different track settings for different inputs. For instance: I’ve been using RGB and HSB tweaks to colour correct my camera inputs, but if I was to switch from a computer input on the same track to the camera I’d want to be able to quickly load these colour tweaks. To reset back to “default” you can do a Track reset, by holding down Reset and pressing the track Select button.

So this gives you almost all the track settings possible in just a couple of button presses. We can’t yet save a “super-preset” of the whole mixer setup including routing, compositing mode etc., although I’m told that this functionality is being investigated for a future firmware update, and in the meantime we can control all of these things via MIDI. Has anyone made an application to save and send VJX setups via MIDI? Sounds like a good candidate for the next PD experiment.