Audio Reactive Assignments

Audio signals can be routed to control almost any button, slider or knob in Vidjam. First you need to select an audio input device inside of Preferences. Next you want to enable the feature using the Enable Assigned Audio button. This button is useful to enable and disable all Audio Assignments simultaneously during a performance with a single control.

There are two Audio Assignment panel types. One is to trigger buttons and one is to modulate sliders and knobs within a specific range. Let’s start by assigning audio to trigger a button.

First, rt. Click on any button and select “Assign Audio” from the context menu. Here we will trigger the FX layer’s engage button.

The Audio Assignemt panel opens for you to select the frequencies used to trigger that button. You can choose 4-bands for simplicity or 20-bands for more precise frequency selection. You may also save and recall Audio Assignment presets.

Normally one of the included presets will work for most scenarios. However, you may need to refine the settings for your desired effect and that’s what these controls for more advanced users are for.

Attack and Decay affect the velocity of the frequency bands in order to smooth out their levels. Increasing the Attack smooths the ramp-up time. At 100% the frequency bands barely have time to rise. Decay time affects the fall off of the frequency bands. At 100% the bands barely have time to return to their baseline. Set both of these values to zero when you want to detect fast transients like kick drums and snares.

Let’s select the frequencies to use for triggering the FX layer button we chose. You may click-drag on the bands to multi-select. Controls to the right of the panel are used to define the precise output signal level at which the button is triggered by averaging the individual frequency band levels you have selected.

Move the threshold marker until you achieve the desired trigger point for that button. When the threshold is crossed, the button will become engaged -represented here but this indicator. When it drops back below the threshold, the button will be disengaged.

Use the invert signal button to flip the behavior so instead of engaging the button when the signal crosses the threshold, this mode forces the button to disengage when crossing the threshold.

To trigger the assigned button on beat it’s usually best to detect transients in low-end frequencies rather than using the frequency levels themselves. Use these controls here to shift from detecting frequency levels to detecting transients.

Signal boost normalizes the signal. This causes the output level to display relative level changes over time… and the net effect accentuates any transients to provide better beat detection.

We suggest starting with a signal boost of 50% to detect transients for bass beats. Leave signal boost at 0 if you only want to trigger based on frequency levels.

The minimum signal can be adjusted to ensure lower level signals are not boosted which could cause unwanted triggers. Anything below the minimum signal level will be ignored.

We suggest starting with a minimum signal of 10% to detect transients for bass beats. Leave the minimum signal at 0 if you are triggering the assigned button based on frequency levels.

It’s usually easiest to start with a preset and then experiment with different settings to dial in the desired effect according to your style of music.

OK let’s assign a knob next. Rt. click on any knob and select Assign Audio. Notice the panel is almost identical to the button mode except instead of a single threshold marker, you have two range markers. Let’s choose some settings.

Notice with the range markers set at 0 and 100 the output signal level will affect the full range of the assigned knob. When the range markers are changed, the output signal level will only affect the knob position when it enters this knob range.

This allows you to set a start position of the knob and then set a range for which the output signal affects the knob position. Use the invert signal button to cause the knob to move in the opposite direction so when the output signal rises, the knob value decreases.

Try starting with one of the included presets and experimenting with various settings. Then once you have it dialed in save these as your own custom presets for quick recall in all your future performances.