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More Chris Korda (CKCI) software

• Polymeter is a MIDI sequencer for music that's in multiple prime meters simultaneously. Each track has its own loop length, and when the lengths differ, the tracks "slip" (or shift phase) relative to each other. If you love polymeter, this software is for you.
• FFRend (Freeframe Renderer) is a renderer for Freeframe plugins. It allows you to chain any number of plugins together, automate their parameters using oscillators, and record the output to an AVI file. The input is a video (AVI), still image (BMP/JPG/GIF), or source plugin. It's the perfect complement to the Whorld Freeframe source plugin WhorldFF.
• BmpToAvi is a BMP to AVI DirectShow source filter. It allows you to create an AVI file from a series of bitmaps, one frame at time. It's similar to the VfW AviFile API but without the 2 GB limit! The filter has an MFC wrapper object, which includes a dialog for choosing a compressor. Now wrapped as a convenient DLL!
• FFSrcPlug is an MFC template project for developing Freeframe source plugins. It mirrors the structure of a typical MFC graphics app, using a surrogate main frame and view, so that drawing code can be transplanted from an app to a plugin with minimal modifications. The project has a simple demo view which draws a bouncing ball, and exposes a single Freeframe parameter (the ball speed). The download includes the plugin DLL and the project sources.
• Fractice is a free, open-source fractal explorer/renderer for XP/Vista. It supports navigation, history thumbnails, previews, antialiasing, deep zoom, printing, posters, palettes, multicore and distributed processing, movie recording, undo/redo, color cycling, and job control. It also has VJ features, such as mixing, mirroring, origin motion, palette tweening, dual-monitor, and MIDI.
• Mixere is a free, open-source application for mixing WAV, AIFF, MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Flac, and Mod audio files. Mixere is ideal for live performance, and especially for multi-layered sound collages. It's like a rack full of CD players connected to an automated mixer.
• WaveShop has many of the features typically found in digital audio workstations, but with an important difference: WaveShop is bit-perfect, meaning samples aren't altered unless they need to be. If you edit a portion of an audio file, only that portion is affected; the rest of the file is untouched. This is very useful for patching finished masters. Cut and paste, peak and RMS analysis, normalizing, fading, and more, all with unlimited undo.
• ChordEase lets you play music with difficult chords easily on any MIDI instrument. Though it's intended for jazz, it could be useful for any type of music that modulates frequently. ChordEase ensures that all your notes are harmonically correct, but leaves their sequence and rhythm up to you. It's free software, and it runs on Windows XP, 7 or 8.
• TripLight is a psychedelic visual synthesizer inspired by 1970s color organs.
• PotterDraw is a free 3D software application for designing and visualizing pottery. You draw the pot's outer wall using a spline, while the inner wall is generated automatically. You can map synthesized textures or image files onto the pot, export files for 3D printing, modulate mesh and texture properties with oscillators, and animate your modulations to create videos.

About Chris Korda

• Resume

Power Users

• Jeff Mission has built an interesting hardware setup around Whorld. He uses a Kaos Pad to control Whorld, but he also mounts a small video camera directly above the pad, and mixes its image (of your finger motions) with the Whorld image. The result is that you see Whorld following your finger around, and leaping towards it, as if your finger were a Whorld-magnet. It's hard to describe, so watch his Kaoss Whorld movie.

Other stuff

• VJs are performing artists, no less than DJs or electronic musicians, and deserve to be treated as such, but it's not likely to happen unless we organize. United Visual Jockeys is working for a future in which VJs get paid fairly for their time and get fair credit for their work, and in which everyone who wants to be a VJ has a chance to become one.