What we do … is what the TuneSong AudioVisual Label does … produce quality content for VJ’s … DJ’s … Producers …. and just the most very occasional garment. Currently there are two long-sleeve tops that have been produced, a single prototype of each, currently undergoing real-world testing of subtropical jungle treks, the construction of stand-up “guitar practice outdoor studio semi-rooms”, and similar strenuous activities.

Vaguely surprisingly and perhaps satisfyingly … the inspiration for the B-Boy Mixer “sound” of “Rock-Funk” has not actually gone away. Production is ongoing, and in fact just this year 2023 the actual “finished and polished vibe” of the various sounds and loops are above merely satisfactory, thankfully. Play it loud and play it proud, or keep it cool and phonkatized, in a nuanced kind of not-in-the-face way, as regards the audio EQ and mixing style. Just enjoy. If you like. Or if not, feel totally free to criticise. In fact, SuperGeek had the nerve to declare that his bass riff sequenced in March 2023 on the MC-101 was the most-perfect-bass-riff-ever. He is not 100 percent convinced that is correct, although most likely … it is. Check it out now on the Twing Twang track.

What else do we do?

The VJ Images … they are 4K size, so … “future-proofed” as regards dimensions for the next ten years. So, no tears before teatime if any person in the audience disagrees with the saying “chunky is funky”, as regards potentially detectable pixelation if-and-when using any “Regular HD” size VJ content.

4K was this fantastic vision in the future, that VJ I-Clan (who is the 2nd VJ of TuneSong AudioVisual Label) preferred not to think about during the early 2000’s.
And why? Hard drive space. Visuals were and are very hard-drive-space-hungry, so-to-speak. Also, almost no VJ was using this massive size. To accomodate the realtime performance requirements of Video Jockeying, the video format of choice for exports (when the VJ loop is fully ready) is going to be the “cycle-economical” codec of .mp4, with a framerate of 30fps for 20 percent more smoothness of movement, presumably. The .mp4 codec is really economical on data size and actually looks really nice.

I-Clan did HD content production and realtime visual performance for a variety of events including Transmission @ Gas/Boheme 2001 … the NYE visuals for The Buddha Bar Byron Bay 2005 … the Electric Tipi Stage during “Splendour In The Grass”, 2006.

There was more, and all of this took up lots of hard drive space. So much. Especially as VJ I-Clan insisted on using the Photo Jpeg codec at High Quality for renders, and the larger of the two HD specifications, that being 1920 pixels wide by 1080 high. That’s a lotta high-qual pixels, dude. Check it out.

So now the magic and mystery of 4K video and imagery content is pretty much summed up by saying “it’s exactly twice the size of high-qual HD video. Sooooo… 3840 pixels wide, and two times 1080 high. 2160 pixels high, that is. Very high.

In this brave new world of 4K video being “a thing”, some VJ’s potentially just retired, too shocked by the amount of hard drive space that was going to be required when producing 4K video content for realtime performance at events.

Others perhaps took a more “wait-and-review-options” … this is what I-Clan chose to do, and eventually bought a couple of high-volume storage drives that were on sale this year in 2023. So he’s back in the game and got some real snazzy visual vibes to splash about the place … and share for free for his fellow Video Jockeys, worldwide. The internet is wonderful for this kind of thing. Viewing, sharing and potentially accessing various types of media for various reasons.

Other non-standard gigs VJ i-Clan has enjoyed being the VJ for: NYE visual mixing for the Brisbane super-club, “Family”, in the year of 2009-2010. The “non-standard” aspect of this gig was that there was no screen, and no projector. The “format of visual performance presentation” was a fairly fresh-and-new technology titled “LED Curtains” and they required this mysterious large panelled electronic box that interpreted the video signal from the VJ Mixer’s video lead output … and converted this (without nearly no latency - yay) … to a few hundred variable colour single-placement LED lamps arranged “background-curtain-style” behind the DJ podium.

The effect of this was minimal, potentially mesmerising, and for those who know of the 1920’s art genre “Pointillism”, it was kind of like that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointillism
… Only it was a moving video format. Fed through this electronic box interpreter for this custom LED Curtain install that was permanently rigged at the "Brisbane “Family” super-club. VJ i-Clan enjoyed the vibe of this immensely. It was amazing and there was a full moon and mixed emotions, too much to rave on about really. It was real. And just for one night, for VJ I-Clan, as there were two resident VJ’s employed usually there. Just so good. Peak performance experience without a doubt.

The second “non-standard” visual scenario was a 15 minute VJ style animation for The Hotel of Dreams in Macau, in 2014 … the visuals were licensed along with content from other producers around the world, and essentially became part of an ongoing stylised video playlist especially for the medium that was and is quite a commendably simple-yet-involved concept: a 30 foot wide curved glass Holographic Musion Screen.

Due to the fact that moving holographics that hover in 3 dimensions in mid-air … kinda don’t exist just yet (although there is a workaround I-Clan discovered in 2001 when VJ’ing as the resident VJ at a techno club in Sydney) … the Musion company (based in London, who eventually sold the technology to the Vatican, of all places) placed the custom-adjusted “short-throw” projector at the base of the gigantic curved thick glass screen … on the other side of where the audience would be. And essentially the visuals produced for this “year-long installation”, so to speak, had to “hum the chorus convincingly” … In other words, the visuals had to be context-aware, content-savvy, and effectively had to have “Hologram-style effects” pre-applied via whatever video editing software the producer preferred. Thankfully, a moderately affordable plugin for After Effects had recently been released, titled “Holografix”, and VJ I-Clan already owned and loved this video effect software.

The third non-standard Video Jockey activity to mention regarding VJ I-Clan’s illustrious and abstract career-to-now is a “music video remix.”

Remixing a song is a time-honoured tradition in contemporary Western song genres since perhaps the 1960’s or 70’s … although much more prevalent in the 1990’s going forwards. Remixing a music video, not so much. So VJ I-Clan was intrigued by the concept when contacted by LightRhythm Visuals, a VJ label based in Tokyo and London, in 2004. The song in question was called “Sond.” It was kind of funky downtempo genre for the audio track, and the visuals for it were way-cool. VJ I-clan did the gig of producing a professional DVD standards-quality music video remix, and this appeared along with the original, on a VJ content DVD called “Hidden Partition 02”, being the second in the series. The first also had some “discoverable content that was video sampled from various sources, remixed with effects, and not necessarily all of it was “legally licensed”, so this “art happening culture jamming content” was placed in very very non-obvious areas of the “Hidden Partition” DVD startup onscreen menu. Very cool scenario and vitally the coolness of the original music video for “Sond” was quite an ongoing visual production influence on VJ I-CLan. to this day.

So the vibe and motivation of “what we do” at TuneSong is think about ways to improve the value of what we bring to …. the context. The “sense of place” is either going to be there in the visuals or it is not. To upload is momentary, to design a good user experience website is a multi-iteration process, really, except for those who do it every day as “senior designers” at interactive agencies. They can do it all, as a series of images, within a week or two.

To have something to upload requires … well, how long is a piece of string, and what is being produced, and why? The “why” when discussed is a way of getting to the heart of the matter. Quality content that came together as a natural process and not for the reason of having something to upload. The conceptualisation needs to happen to become an idea in the heart of the content producers of the TuneSong Label stable of talent.

So it might just be that in three years’ time, that VJ visual #029 … just happens to be noticed by another VJ a thousand miles away, and they notice how perfect it could be for an event they are booked for … and so then, perhaps only then, the download happens. From there, the visuals come to life for a while on a big VJ screen at a musical event, most likely.