Datas Mosh Deluxe FAQ
DataMosh Deluxe FAQ :
Why can't I preview? Why isn't this realtime? Most apps I have are!
This is hands down the most common question we have been receiving. It is a legitimate question. Our app can never be real-time because we have to break the video frames and then reassemble them in creative ways. This is really DataMoshing not filters or shaders that emulate it. There is also randomness that we use in the presets that we would have to remove to make the DataMosh more predicable but even thats impossible. This is part of the magic of DataMoshing. We feel that the heart and soul of the app is that you will get different results every time you use it.
Also for the Audio Moshing if the song has a slow build/no hits for the first few seconds, the preview is going to look like it's not working.
There are amazing real-time glitch apps out there that emulate glitch. This will never be one of them unless we time travel. Beam me back Scotty. Thats the next update. There are two real DataMoshing apps in the App Store so far. The other one is amazing and is as close to realtime as you can get. We feel both apps compliment each other. There is only one with reactive audio, importing of multiple large videos and a shitload of awesome inter-dimensional algorithms. You guessed it. DMX.
Old school manual DataMoshing takes hours by hand. This takes seconds. Aren’t you lucky.
This app sucks! I want a refund
reportaproblem.apple.com. <--------App returns
My DataMosh seems to take forever rendering
So here is the deal. The app is manipulating thousands of frames. The longer your video is the longer the rendering time will be. If your file is too long it can crash the program because you are going to run out of ram on your phone eventually. You will have reached the hardware limitation of your phone. The moral of the story is you will need to experiment and get to know the presets and the controls. For instance the White Rabbit preset has our painterly algorithm. It will make long beautiful ambient visuals that can be hours long.
I am really confused how to get an audio file into my phone?
We have always disliked apples method. It is confusing. It is actually easy once you get used to it it You can email yourself an audio file. Click and hold the file and save it to your files on your phone. Select the files option in DMX to import. You can Airdrop it from your computer to your phone if you have an Apple computer or iPad. You can also do this from any Apple iphone, iPad Apple computer to another. In the new update you can select any video from your camera roll and it will use that audio to mosh. Lastly you can import from your iTunes if you imported or bought a track. Disclaimer : We don't know how long this method of using iTunes will work since apple moved to Apple Music.
Why don't you have a 1080p option? Wasn't 720P used in the stone ages?
We have found that 720p gives the best mosh results.1080p just did not look as good. Since we have had numerous request we will have the option on some undetermined update and tweak it so it looks better.
My video doesn’t seem to be reacting to sound
Some audio will work better than others. It depends on a lot of things. If a file is mastered a certain way the transients will be gone or less pronounced. This will mean that the controls won't be as sensitive or maybe it won't react at all. You will still get a mosh out of it though. Also it depends on how the song was recorded and also how many drum hits there are. There is nothing we can do about this. The threshold button tightens the sensitivity so play around with that!
OK so let me explain how we are doing reactive DataMoshing. There are three ways effects and moshing can react to sound
1. Transients : Drums - Tracks sharp hits
2. Frequency : Not using yet
4. Loudness (RMS) : Ambient Music - Tracks amplitude (loudness) of the song
Most of the audio DataMoshing presets use transients because that is what we all really want. Cuts that are more in sync with the music. The last Preset "My Lonely Loop" uses RMS ( Root Mean Square huh? ). This preset tracks the loudness of your track over time. We can not use transients because there are no drums! I know super geeky. This will give you a more painterly abstract smearing effect.
Why doesn't this app have filters or other effects?
DataMosh Deluxe is not a one stop filter glitch apps. We created this app to do one thing only DataMosh and glitch out your video with real glitch. There are plenty of apps that do filtering and other effects really well but only two so far that DataMosh. Only one that can react to audio. Yes you guessed it. DMX. (I think I repeated myself. Sorry music be the time travel)
Why did you create the app?
First at the time there was no DataMosh app on the App Store. Normally to DataMosh the process is insanely long and arduous. I spent hours engulfed in this process deleting and adding frames by hand. Also adding many video files was impossible. As musicians we wanted music to be a major part of the glitching process and to date there is no DataMosh that reacts to sound. We wanted to focus on the art and not the process of deleting and manipulating frames. This is debatable some will think the process is part of the art and We can see that perspective also. We decided this could be a benefit to glitch artists that wanted to focus on the creative process also and with a fun UI. Most apps have user predictable presets (Which is great!). Ours does not. Coming from music backgrounds the aspect we love about creating is the chaos. You never know how a song will be created or what the results will be. It is a birth of sorts and each song is like a baby with its own personality. We wanted the UI to be fun and reminiscent of the 80’s with an imaginary realistic hardware feel from different times, with a gigantic dusty knob and recycled pixels from organic lama hair. We also wanted the process to skip anything arduous. We wanted the app to walk you though the complicated process of DataMoshing in a linear way. We also chose no saving of presets because we wanted a new experience every time you used the app and really it would be chaos anyway. We wanted algorithmic themes per preset. We included what each preset does on the most recent update.
Did you really use sustainable pixels made out of organic lama hair in the app?
No silly goose its digital. I put that to see if you were still reading.
Edit video order?
This matter SO much! Try flipping the order with your videos. We have a function in there this gets really wild if you have tons of videos. Pile on as many videos as possible. You will get different results. HINT : If you look at what the presets do you can base what kinds of videos to use. Like some are better with motion and will have freaky morphing. Others have a mix function where you can layer the videos.
Send us your DataMoshes!
We would love to see your DataMoshes so we can feature them! Drop us a line on our contact form on the website or though the app and we will give you our email address to send them to.
All for now
With Love,
Ory and Zack
P.S. Stay tuned for more music and video apps. Your opinion matters so keep the ideas flowing....
Double Love,
Ory and Zack
Bonus points :
If I had one mandatory change in my life what would it be?
A- A foot as big as my thumb
B - A thumb as big as my foot
C - My world DataMoshed constantly
D - Realizing my dreams were reality and my waking life was a dream
E - Realizing I am only the real human and everyone was a robot that seemed human
F - Finally finding true love ( I gave you an out how nice of me )