Magic Music Visuals

Hi,

I'm new to Magic (excellent software BTW ) but it would be great if there was a timeline (like music or video software). So you could drop audio in and see the wave form, then automate parameters for the modules inline with the waveform. Also text over (I think I've seen this mentioned before)

I know it would be useless for live performances but it would be great for music vids. At the minute i have to guess the duration in seconds for scene switch, which isn't ideal.

thanks

Thanks Doojster . I totally understand what you are saying. It has actually been a little challenging for us to come up with a system that works equally well for live performances and for creating videos. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

In the meantime, one thing you can try (if you haven't already) is selecting the Show Start Times option in the Playlist drop-down menu. This makes it a little bit more like a video editor because you can see what time each scene starts.

Let me know if that helps.

Eric

Cheers Eric, I'll give that a go.

I was just thinking about the same thing, something like the logic audio timeline -

where you have the automation graph - every plug in you add and can select individual parameters to draw a line graph for parameter changes

and instead of dropping audio files, we drop video files would be helpful for video producers who don't do live stuff

for the live stuff, all it would have to do is record all the events happening in real time.

Think like the dj software Traktor and Ableton - where the controller allows real time effect changes, but also records the performance as the effects are being changed - so after your performance, you can go back on a linear timeline to change / tweak your recorded performance. - non live can go into the timeline and manually draw the performance with a mouse or drop videos onto the timeline.

would definitely make this software one of a kind

same concept in animation software also - instead of motion files, it would be video files

Yup , see this topic: http://magicmusicvisuals.com/forums/vie ... t=134#p528

You might also want to check out the Duration software he mentioned, it seems pretty cool although it would only work for using Magic in real-time, not for exporting movies.

sweet, I'm excited to see where you go with this!! Thank you for allowing us input! Cheers

Hi there

I've just bought this and only used it on 'video media' once, but I think a time-line would be brilliant too.
I couldn't figure out a way of switching a module on/off without creating a new scene and that might be tricky to get right if one want the video to not skip when the scene changes.

Total newbie me, so may have missed something though!

Great software for £26 though!

cheers
zpink

Thanks . You're right, currently there isn't a way to switch a module on/off in the middle of displaying a scene. The Timeline would solve that issue. We are also working on MIDI control for module power and bypass, which would solve the issue for live scenarios.

if one want the video to not skip when the scene changes.

This tutorial might be helpful: http://magicmusicvisuals.com/forums/vie ... p?f=3&t=12. You can use the same video across different scenes without worrying about skipping.

Eric

Thanks for that handy little tip!

I will definitely look into using a scene as input next time I play around with a movie input.

+1 for more timeline development, if possible

Just wanted to say that Magic is the program I've been looking for so thank you - I'd barely scratched the surface on the free trial and I was reaching for my (virtual) wallet.

I'm using it to create visualisations of mixes I've created and I'm also hoping for some text integration as well. At the moment I'm creating the text overlays as images and using scenes to display the playing track.

I did find that the timing isn't directly linked to the actually playhead of the audio file though - this caused me much pain until I'd worked it out! Basically I was starting the track and then skipping to near the time of the scene change and wondering why the scene wasn't changing at the specified time... But then I figured it was purely a duration timer.

Would be pretty cool of the timer could be linked directly to the audio file but I don't imagine that's as straightforward as it sounds...

I also hope to get this running with Traktor in the future and playing with some midi control too - the now playing track projected on the visualisation is something I've been looking for unsuccessfully so if you can nail that one it'd be incredible

Thanks again, very excited to see how this develops and looks like I may be buying a projector soon

Merse

Just wanted to say that Magic is the program I've been looking for so thank you - I'd barely scratched the surface on the free trial and I was reaching for my (virtual) wallet.

Awesome, thanks

Would be pretty cool of the timer could be linked directly to the audio file

I think what you are looking for is the "Audio file control" option... http://magicmusicvisuals.com/downloads/ ... ileControl. When this is enabled, moving the time slider will auto-select the corresponding playlist entry.

the now playing track projected on the visualisation is something I've been looking for unsuccessfully so if you can nail that one it'd be incredible

At the moment I'm creating the text overlays as images and using scenes to display the playing track.

Yeah, honestly I assumed that people would actually want to use images instead of text, because images will always give more options. I do plan to add a text module, but I don't think it will ever look as nice as what you could do in Photoshop, for example. But at least it will be handy for quick text edits during live shows.

Eric wrote: I think what you are looking for is the "Audio file control" option...

Outstanding, thank you

Eric wrote:...people would actually want to use images instead of text

Agree it's potentially more flexible, I was just looking for a quick and dirty-ish option rather than creating multiple images - time is my enemy

Thanks for the reply btw, I didn't have notifications enabled so missed your response!

M

I would like to vote against this style timeline type of control. If you build in OSC then you can use another app like Ableton Live to change values over time. People use Live to sequence VDMX5. But the same time, I do like the idea of short cycle event sequencers.

In the case of live performances I definitely agree with you. But it's also important to keep in mind that a lot people are using the "Export Movie" feature, which is non-real-time and thus can't make use of OSC. So for that, I do think some kind of a Timeline would be useful.

AniRhythm wrote: Think like the dj software Traktor and Ableton - where the controller allows real time effect changes, but also records the performance as the effects are being changed - so after your performance, you can go back on a linear timeline to change / tweak your recorded performance. - non live can go into the timeline and manually draw the performance with a mouse or drop videos onto the timeline.

+1 to a timeline in this fashion.

It not only would allow to use Magic as video editor but to record live shows without stressing the machine since the changes could go into a xml for later rendering or even render on a different machine.

this flexibility would be awesome.

the blender "bake audio to f curve" is awesome also!