VeeMee Visuals is a collective of artists, illustrators and designers specialising in live visual performances and content creation for events and festivals. Based in the Netherlands and headed up by Michelle Van Mil, otherwise known as VJ VeeMee, this talented group create visual support such as content creation, video mapping, 360° panoramic projection, performance mapping or video clips for festivals, concerts, DJ’s, business events, TV shows, award shows, fashion shows, museums and more.

Having worked on over 800 shows, VeeMee and Van Mil know what works for them and what doesn’t, and more importantly which products they need to make their creative vision a reality. Having used the Roland V-800HD Multi-Format Video Switcher, V-1HD HD Video Switcher and the Roland V-4 Digital Video Mixer ‘a billion times’, Van Mil is a long-time fan of Roland products, and having added the Roland V-600UHD to her setup, she now has an easy way to handle 4K as well.

‘We’ve worked with the V-800HD and the V-40HD a billion times, and over time we’ve worked with several different media servers (to deliver 4K)– but with the V-600UHD there it’s like the ‘little brother’ you always take along. Roland is such a trustworthy mixer, it’s easy to plug in, hard to mess up because it works. So, I’m happy that it’s on the market now more and more.’

The V-600UHD enables transition to a 4K workflow, greatly improving the image quality of the production with 10 bit 4:4:4 Pixel accurate colour. Roland ‘Ultra Scaler’ technology provides scaling on every input so that Full HD and 4K sources can be used simultaneously and output at multiple resolutions.

‘With the V-600UHD it’s all about the 4K for us’ explains van Mil. ‘There are not a lot of 4K switchers around yet, it’s always been just the big media servers, so I think for this season coming up the V-600UHD will be around a lot more. It’s an easy ‘go-to’, it’s a lot more affordable (than larger media server alternatives) and you don’t need to rent additional large equipment that needs a separate operator. The V-600UHD is easy to operate so even a normal VJ can come along and pick it up straight away. In the past, for events when we needed 4K outputs and more I always needed to hire that extra operator but with the V-600UHD it’s not necessary as I can do it on my own.’

A recent last-minute request from the annual DJ Mag Awards gave Van Mil a great opportunity to put the V-600UHD through its paces. Announcing the top 100 DJ’s in the world, the DJ Awards is probably the most important event in the DJ and VJ calendar. As many DJ’s are paid depending on their ranking at these awards, the event draws attention from around the globe, and the audience expects a flawless audio-visual showcase of talent on the night.

The awards ceremony was one of only a few major events to be held in front of a live audience last year, just squeezing into a ‘lockdown free’ few weeks in the Netherlands – hence the last-minute organisation. However, producing and VJ’ing at the event was completely in Van Mil’s comfort zone - despite the schedule of 10 DJ’s and 7 guest VJ’s with rapid changeovers that would challenge the hardiest of professionals!

‘The event had a lot of guest DJ’s and a lot of guest VJ’s - in fact every half an hour there was a different VJ - so we had to be very flexible in our FOH setup so that we could have everyone ready exactly every half hour. We operated with 2 people, my colleague as a more technical operator who made sure everyone could connect and I was more the VJ. We had a lot of timecode shows, plus introductions for the new DJ and so one DJ could build off and the other DJ could set up - and we connected everyone through the V-600UHD. We had 4 inputs that we used at the same time - one was always live, one was the backup and then we had 2 inputs for VJ’s.’

The awards ceremony setup FOH was in fact like a TV Show broadcast setup, with a technical side and a creative side working side by side in a production setup. As Van Mil also produced the event, she made sure the stage and the video looked as it needed to look at all times.

‘We created an A section and a B section, putting 5 VJ’s in each and switching between them, all connected with HDMI. As a backup we had an NDI connection to the laptop in case of any problems, or if they didn’t have time to map we could do that on our own laptops.’

The technical buildup and programming for the ceremony were done the night before and during the day of the awards, working to an extremely tight schedule. ‘We were programming but then at the same time we were also still dealing with the contents part, so whilst setting up we were also still rendering content and timecode shows.’

Even though this was one of the first times that Van Mil had used the V-600UHD there were no questions about having to take time to familiarise with the product.

‘I didn’t need to prepare the product very much because I figured I know the V-800, I know the V-4 and I’ll probably know how the V-600UHD works and that’s exactly how it was.’

The V-600UHD is now an essential part of the VJ and live production toolkit at VeeMee, perfect for events that require one or two 4K outputs, that are handled by one operator and, importantly where the high definition, high quality of the production is paramount.