Just wanted to add, I decided to get back into some visual design again. I definitely would not count out Unity3D, especially with its new GPU based Visual Effects Graph.
Very easy to implement Ableton link to sync timing, much support for midi/osc etc. Screenshot is of my latest project, simple VFX graph usage with link implemented.
As for FFT monitoring of live audio, not really too feasible, but you could also just split some channels in daw (low/mid/hi) and do some midi/osc conversion with some type of volume rider plugin. Send that to unity instead of needing to monitor audio and all good.
I used my home time today and started learning touch designer. Really cool tool. There is so much to learn, but I think if I combine this with other tools like blender and gimp I can come up with some cool stuff.
I have been binging VDMX tutorials after home office hours and kiddos bedtime, I still have a lot of old DV tapes to repurpose. Problem is only and always … time…
If you want to do 3D and everything else the tools you want to have a look at are touchdesigner and notch. TD has a fully functional free version(resolution limit 720p).
If you just want to edit video clips + some effects. Resolume or vdmx will do the trick.
@ game engines… unity unreal, lumberyard; yeah, you can do almost everything with those, but it is usually a pain to get Asio and Midi working. you might have to code some elements yourself; so for elektron device integration, expect an uphill battle.
regarding OS:
all the really cool stuff 3D will only work on windows with nvidia cards.
there is a long story about apple and their constant fail(since 2003), when it comes to GPUs, but hey if you wanna do live-3D there is absolutely no reason to go for a mac.
some really cool TD stuff with the new azure sensor:
I compiled a list of free software recently.
Graphic Design, Video Editing, 2D / 3D and Tools.
Everthing is either completely free or freemium.
If you like what you see, consider donating.
Free software list
Photo Grading - Raw file editing
rawTherapee – imho, the best editor for raw files. Has all features of lightroom + 500 more https://rawtherapee.com/
Graphic design
krita – forget gimp, forget affinity, this is my choice for photoshop/illustrator and indesign replacement. I love it. https://krita.org/en/
3D Animation
blender – looking for a free full scale 3D app? it doesn´t get better than this. https://www.blender.org/
Surprised nobody mentioned EboSuite. Been looking around now for a couple of weeks for the best way to get into visuals, tried Lumen, K Machine, VDMX and a couple of Max things.
For mixing video with shaders and blending/sequencing them with midi, Ebosuite seems to be a very good solution. It’s fully integrated with Ableton, which I already own and know inside out.
Only problem I ran into is my MBP 2015 graphic card is going bananas when using shaders in a project, so now looking at eGPU’s.
Well, I am seriously considering buying it. I am not a very technical person and most of the other software I find very clunky and unintuitive or generic and uninspiring.
I would like to use Ebosuite to make visual/videoclips to go with my music or to make integrated audiovisual projects.
Big plus for me is the Ableton-environment it functions in. So it’s easy for me to work with drum racks, max devices and throw an enveloppe follower or an lfo in the chain to manipulate the visuals.
My 2014 MBP was really good with shaders. Just you know.
I experimented with Vuo (free community edition) and loaded shaders and 3d models into VDMX and have so many parameters to tweak - I can really reccomend to try this out!
ISF shaders are reall nice and VDMX is 249$ right now (and starving artist discount 99$ I think). VDMX can open Vuo scenes and ISF and Vuo can also read ISF.
I really love the fact that with Vuo you can mix 2d shaders with 3D objects (so you could have a torus rotating around some fancy patterns) - and sync it all up over MIDI/audio/OSC groundbreaking for me!
I have a question …maybe we have some Max experts here? I love the connection m4l kit for Ableton - it has the OSC send.amxd which is only mappable to knobs and buttons and send it to specific /osc/addresses.
There is also another patch which can send the MIDI notes inside a track (I really dislike having to create dummy tracks all the time to extract and route MIDI data to other receivers).
The patch is called OSC MIDI send.amxd which does it - almost. It takes the played Note and sends it … to some weird address. Could anybody help me make it accessable / versatile as the patch above?
I also downloaded the Ebosuite demo a few days ago.
Really enjoying it so far.
I’m in the process of building a live show and adding visuals, going to push Ebosuite as much as I can within the demo period to see if things will be stable enough. If so then i’ll definitely purchase the full version.
I’m also running 2015 MBP and haven’t hit any major issues as yet.
This thing seems pretty cool and the ISF shades on top like a lot of fun.
Haven´t downloaded yet but checking tutorials on YT.
Anyone knoes how to make a video to a finished track in Ableton and exporting music and video in 1 file for YT?
There’s a midi library that I played around with some time ago and theoretically you can make all your gear send midi which is being captured by processing which responds to whatever you write your movements attached to the incoming midi message. http://www.smallbutdigital.com/projects/themidibus/
Requires some programming skills, but would consider Processing as one of the most fun languages for artists to learn.
