DJVJ – the free must-have app for visual artists and DJs - Decoded Magazine (2024)

An often-overlooked job in the events industry is that of the visuals artist. Nestled among production staging set-ups of DJs and pop bands, VJs, as they have become to be known, put the icing on the whole audiovisual cake, including a digital cherry on the top.

Habs Akram is one of those at the top of his game, delivering bleeding-edge visual wizardry at some of the biggest festivals and events over the last 20 or so years. Oh, and he’s also got a new toy for you to play with on your mobile device. To be fair, while some may think it’s for playing with, DJVJ is actually a unique, superior and robust mobile platform that allows absolutely anyone to design high-quality visuals on the fly and ‘cast’ those designs onto any screen in any venue.

Decoded caught up with him to talk about his October launch for the app, just before he set off on a gruelling weekend, still on the road, at some of the UK’s August bank holiday festivals. Luckily, he was touring and supporting some of the many charities he’s behind, as well as his artist mates like Slipmatt & Andy Galea. In fact, Habs, along with others, has been working with quite a few of these and other virtual festivals during the C-19 crisis – either through projects such as Stream Believer, or the VR20 festival, helping them raise loads of dosh for the charities.

Famed for his recent work touring with Carl Cox and his production team, Habs, managed by Exact IA, has been at the vanguard of this specialist field for more than 25 years, and as such, has a CV to die for. His latest project, however, is destined to leave more of a mark and offer anybody who wants to, the chance to create super sweet visuals on the fly and deliver them to any screen in the world from any mobile device – literally VJing from your pocket, anytime, anyplace.

“I have been working up this idea for about 9 years or so. It’s a game-changer and there is so much more to come!” Habs said.

“The key benefits are the ability to mix 4 visual channels, utilise special FX buttons with amazing inbuilt visual effects combined with the ability to record the output and save it on your mobile device. That means clips and videos can be easily uploaded to social media or email. Also, you can simply edit the video, change its speed and crop clips. It is also easy to output the video signal from your phone to your TV, screens and projectors, which is great for smaller venues and live streams. Future updates for DJVJ will enable the user to use DJVJ as a visual stream tool through OBS,” Habs stated.

Over the last quarter of a century, Habs has worked for some of the biggest acts in the industry. His talents are not limited to the electronic music scene either. He has supported acts such as Franz Ferdinand, Nine inch Nails & the Pet Shop Boys to name but a few, among the hundreds of other A-list electronic artists over the years.

“I started working in West London many moons ago in the club circuit, visual mixing with VHS tapes. My first live events were with the garage bashes promoted by It’s a London Thing at a venue in Kingston upon Thames called Options,” he said.

“It was a new and innovative time in the world of dance music, and through the years I went to work with trance DJs and pop artists before working with Carl for 12 years, 8 of those in Space Ibiza. Tuesday nights were the best! There were many, many good times… too many if the truth be told. I mean, if you haven’t missed a flight home from the White Isle, then you have never ever really been to Ibiza!” Habs reminisced.

Where the app idea came from:

“I was on the road with Norman (Fatboy Slim) & Carl in Japan. We were there for 3 days doing a charity event for the Tsunami survivors. All three of us are technology junkies, and of course, while you’re in Japan, you have to go and check out the amazing stuff in Tokyo. They’re so ahead of the game there in every respect,” said Habs.

“So I went into this mega-mobile phone store somewhere in downtown Tokyo, and it just struck me then… that everything will be migrated onto the mobile platform! That’s when I got the idea that I could easily put my system onto a mobile device. Back then smartphones were exciting, but still an emerging technology that was just about to explode globally.”

“To put that into context, today there are roughly 8 billion mobile devices and that number will only get higher as new mobile communications standards evolve – which means more data is easier to manage while on the move. So back then, I saw that mobile was the future for all things digital. Anyway, the next day whilst setting up on the stage, I said to Carl that one day I wasn’t going to need all this kit to perform the visuals. He said: ‘What do you mean?’ I said mate, this is all going to be easily managed on a mobile phone one day and I know how to do it. He said: ‘Make it happen!’” Habs recalls.

“After quite a few years of investment – both financially and time, mainly in blood, sweat and tears with my business partner Nick and with the help of my development team, a fantastic crew called Crema™, we are ready to launch some superior software.”

The app design team Crema (originally branded as The Room 1.0) is a Málaga-based design studio of freelance Spanish and British designers specialising in developing creative strategies, branding and digital products. Together, they developed the software that offers users the chance to display their visuals on any venue’s visual output.

“If you have ever been to Ibiza to see Carl’s shows at Space, that same capability to perform Space-level visuals from your pocket device is now really possible. Everyone, especially DJs and promoters on lower production budgets, now have the possibility and tools to be a VJ and make some serious, high-quality visual productions to accompany their live stream music sets and future events.” Habs claimed.

Under the DJVJ bonnet

DJVJ is ‘the ultimate party revolution’ and allows you to use your smartphone as a VJ mixing table, broadcasting the output to festival projectors, club screens or LED walls. There are a total of 5 layers which can be mixed into the output channel: two video channels, one image layer, one text layer and a special effects button-pad.

The sensor controls adjust how much each layer reacts to the audio input. If set to minimum, the layer will be static (no bouncing), whereas as raising the layer’s sensor slider, the layer will gradually bounce more and more to the music. This makes it a very cool tool to accompany any type of live set, without the cost of a full VJ hardware kit.

Two video channels with slider controls allow VJs to control the speed, opacity and sensitivity of each video loop, as well as assigning a blend mode and a layer style, which customizes visuals.

Users can also edit and save cropped versions of any of the video loops, so VJs can build up their own library of loops to mix with. DJVJ launches with over 30 exclusive HD video loops included for free but includes an option that gives users the ability to browse and purchase anything from an extensive library of video loop packages. This way, you can build a custom video library to suit your own style and needs.

There is a base video (on the left) and an overlay video (on the right). The left channel is placed at the bottom of the layered video mix, which basically means it lies at the bottom and all other layers are placed on top of this one. You can apply special layer styles to the base video channel which affect its saturation, intensity or colourizing.

The right channel allows for special blend modes, which change how this overlay video affects the base video in the lower layer. The combination and order of what video you place in each video channel and which of the 13 layer styles and 10 blend modes you combine gives you 130 different combinations for each pair of videos your mix.

Future-proofed mobile VJ technology

“The free version comes with 30 free loops and can be used with any screen, at home, bars, clubs or larger productions, when they fully reopen… it really is a totally professional visual mixing tool and loads of DJs are becoming aware of it. Actually, we got near-instant approval from both Apple and Google – literally within 24 hours of applying – which is unheard of and actually says so much about the concept and the development team behind it,” Habs said.

“In fact, I have seen people use the app on Facebook and Twitch live streams, which is really satisfying! Surprisingly, the app has had zero negative reviews, which is a relief – I say surprisingly because it’s hard to please everybody all the time – but our end-users love it!”

“Of course, DJVJ is a business. But we want to make it an affordable option for our users and fans. If you know me, then you know that I am all about solving problems, not making them. The app is an extension of my work, years of experience and expertise, all boiled down into an easy-to-use system that does just that,” added Habs.

“We are going to launch DJVJ as a completely free app that can be enhanced with a series of upgrades that are activated via a low monthly subscription plan. These options just add more value into the app’s capability,” he said.

“For example, a live recording function at output… much more content will be added by myself, and other great visuals designers. As a matter of fact, other designers will be able to generate income from their work over the app. I think that is great news, especially in this long period of uncertainty while the festival and club scene is in forced hiatus,” Habs explained.

It’s only the beginning as we discover more uses. Like using emojis – everyone loves using them and now you can build them into your VJ set with the app, which is a first! In fact, we are excited to be also supporting Evermix, who has taken a great liking to DJVJ and we have added their logo into the app for them to see the power of DJVJ as a great branding tool for Evermix users,” he confirmed.

The app will be launched on both iOS and Android platforms on Tuesday 27th October. There will be more features and news to come as developments occur in the future so stay tuned…

To subscribe and access this incredible app visit the DJVJ website.

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