Comments on: Numark Midi Controller Mini Review: Jog Wheel Problems on NuVJ and Total Control

By: Jaymis Loveday

Jaymis Loveday — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:40:54 +0000

@Sentient: Those Numark products aren’t too bad, but you may need to use a 3rd party translator such as Bome’s Midi Translator to get the midi from the Numark or BCD2000 acting correctly. I don’t have experience with the Xone, Xponent or Vestax though, so not sure. The best option is to take your computer in to the music store and have a proper try, setting up all the different functions on the controller with your host software.

Now you mention VDMX as well. The issues are different here: VDMX currently doesn’t support “endless” midi. I’ve just had a chat with David from Vidvox, and he says that endless midi support will be added “perhaps in the not too distant future”, so you won’t be able to use jog-wheels (or any other control which spins endlessly) without some kind of clever midi translation.

That said, I think the BCD2000/3000 are excellent devices, and some of the best value for money. They’re quirky, and I haven’t tried them with Mac, but the bang-for-buck on them is fantastic.

By: Sentient

Sentient — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:36:03 +0000

Should the Total control be avoided in preference to the NuVJ?

I’m now looking at controlling VDMX with either of these or the BCD3000 … but the latter does indeed scare me a little.

I know theres better out there.. but these are within my price point and can double as MP3 mixers.. which I’d like to have a play with.

By: Sentient

Sentient — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:02:43 +0000

If I follow this thread correct.. It still looks like one should steer away from using Numark products with Resolume (or any other Non-Numark/Arkaos software).

And the other contenders with a similar feature set are:

VMX VJ from Codanova
2x xone:1d
M-Audio Xponent
Vestax VCI-100
BCD2000

Any others those outside the Numark realm should consider?

By: Don

Don — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:55:06 +0000

“but counterclockwise has the live controls snapping backwards at 5 times the speed of forward movements.”

As someone else stated, this is the result of the wrong setting of “RElative, Signed Bit”. USe the Relative (lin. 2’s Comp.). Presto, working jogs.

By: Don

Don — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 03:52:50 +0000

I got a NuVJ to control Ableton with - it works pretty well, actually. However, this “Total Control” - well, I didn’t know it existed, frankly.

In any case, I used BOME’s midi translator to get past some stupid decisions that Ableton’s makers made (namely, only being able to assign nudge, loop, and most other track-controls to a GLOBAL setting, rather than per channel - the solution? Run the NuVJ —> Bome’s (have bome take the midi signal and translate it to a key sequence) —> MidiYOKE —> assign the input in ableton to MidiYOKE1.

You then set up things like loops, etc to one key (let’s say nudge forward is “Q”, backward is “Z”) then assign a key to the track status indicator in CH1 (ex “A”) and CH2 (ex. “B”). In BOME’s, set the button press MIDI to translate to the key sequence “AQ” to nudge Ch1’s track forward, or “AZ” to nudge back, etc. and so on….

By: Mik

Mik — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:40:50 +0000

Oright boys and girls, very new to this game.

After several messy sessions with friends decks I’ve decided to get something to allow me to mix up my mp3s at home and at parties.

Up till now I’ve been taken by the BCD2000 until I more recently discovered this site and the several alternatives available.

Could one of the several more experienced people on this site please answer the follwoing question:
If you have £150, what do you buy?

PS) If saving the extra 50 bones or so is worth it then please say so but don’t go to mental, as i said, I’m a first timer so not really up for going all out, especially as my skills prob don’t merit it.

Thanks,

Mik

By: Time Squid

Time Squid — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 07:48:04 +0000

Well after a ton of research on the subject Ive decided that the best thing for me to do is to get two trigger fingers and chain them together and mod them into one complete housing…. does anyone think it possible?

By: Create Digital Motion » Livid’s New Ohm Control Surface, and the Hunt for the Perfect VJ Controller

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 15:55:47 +0000

[...] Visualists have a challenge: visual hardware needs often aren’t quite the same as music’s. To make matters worse, there’s still no single, killer DJ-style control surface. There are lots of interesting entries, from Numark’s Total Control and NuVJ to the M-Audio Xponent and Vestax VCI-100, but, as our own Jaymis can attest, finding one that’s “just right” for you personally can be a challenge. [...]

By: Zac

Zac — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:11:08 +0000

Buy two USB Griffin Powermates …

By: M-.-n

M-.-n — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 19:14:02 +0000

If it is the same as NuVJ, the jogs send incremental midi control rather than normal ones… i.e in positive direction it send +1,+2 (depending on the speed) and in negative it send (+127,+126,…). This is standard midi but not supported on all apps. Maybe that’s why the video goes nuts.

For example, in live, you have to proceed as follow:

1- Map the control to the jog wheel.
2- you will see in the bottom status window a pop up allowing to select the mode for the controler and choose: Relative (lin. 2’s Comp.)

Midi standards are unfortunately very ‘relaxed’ and most softwares doesn’t implement all of them because it’s a pain in the butt.

At least you can try NuVJ now :)