i may not have been blogging terribly often the last few weeks but that’s because i was making this!  it’s for james annesley’s virtual proximity – the track’s called suburbia.  dig the album here.

the clip was made using a combination of stop motion animation and projection mapping and i put together a little video describing the process.  dig that below.

And then I made this.  It’s called Archaeopteryx, it’s a MIDI controller designed with VDMX in mind and I think it’s pretty hot.  I’m going to make a run of similar, smaller controllers called The Sleep Crime so if you’d like to get your hands on one shoot me an email.  But for now here’s how this one came into being.

I came across this post by Fake Money detailing building a MIDI controller around a modified Korg Nanokontrol and a USB hub and, having hacked up a qwerty controller in the past, I started scribbling out ideas for my ideal controller.  I’ve always been big on the Livid Ohm 64 but it didn’t have enough knobs for me.  The first idea i scribbled down came out like this.

The required ingredients:

• 2 nanokontrols
• 1 usb qwerty keyboard
• 1 usb hub
• 3 10k linear faders
• 33 10k linear pots and knobs
• 9 toggle switches
• 55 momentary push buttons
• Some sort of case

All up the parts cost about $400 AUD.  The case I scored for free in hard rubbish.  In a past life it was a cutlery box.

I started with the keyboard – keyboards work by having two conductive sheets placed one on the other that lead to a little PCB with a whole stack of terminals.  When a button is pressed two terminals find each other and the keyboard figures out which button you pressed.  In order to make your more awesome push buttons do the same thing it’s a case of tracing the two sheets back to the PCB and figuring out which two terminals are shorted to the desired keypress.  There’s a good run down on how to do that on the ableton forums here.  I ended up with a squid like PCB and a notepad full of gibberish:

Getting stuck into the nanokontrols was a bit tougher.  I followed Fake Money’s guide to dismantling these little things and after a bit of trial and error managed to remove everything I needed to to solder my own pots.  If you’re trying this yourself, this is a good way to dismember the faders:

after a bit of trial, error and almost frying one of the boards, all the pots somehow soldered themselves in place.

drilling…

staining…

wiring up one half of the buttons…

wiring up the other half…

attaching the qwerty squid…

slapping the whole shebang together.  I used a USB hub with a USB B connector to save more soldering and it’s actually a great little hub.

inserting the hyperstrobic eureka shield™ – scientifically designed to lift and separate.

and with the hyperstrobic eureka shield properly installed the whole thing was done.  there were a couple of little bugs found in testing.  just one or two miswired qwerty buttons but with that fixed  Archaeopteryx is ready to scavenge in the jurassic period.

if you’re in melbourne, you can see these plugins in action along with some button pressing, singing and jumping around when i play live at plugnplay next thursday the 28th of april at the kent st cafe, 201 smith st, fitzroy.  i think i’m playing with vdmokstati, jean poole and others… bit short on details at the moment… but it’ll be awesome, i’m sure.  the day after that (friday 29th) i’m playing at the builders arms with time shield, the leafs and sun blindness.  i’ll also supplying visuals for the leafs and sun blindess.  check the fb event!  and the poster:

in other news, the dudes at projuice have thrown up a little write up about me which makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy.  projuice is a media creation showing airing on abc at the moment – it’s really great seeing tutorial style programming making the airways especially since it’s pretty much favorite sort of thing to watch on the interwebs.  that and videos of baby sloths.

in other, other news, i’ve been inspired by this, this and this and have decided to build a midi controller (i’ve undertaken a similar project in the past).  i’ll be using the guts from two korg nanokontrols and a usb qwerty keyboard and it should end up looking a bit like this:

can’t wait.

this is going to be the format of the new Zeal live set except expect some acoustic guitar, live sampling and words that sound nice but don’t mean much.

My album is ranked third on a whothehell.net  ”list”.  It’s the second time i’ve ever been on a list and it’s still fun.



Last week my song “clouds” made a top songs of 2010 podcast on polaroids of androids.  it was the first time i’d ever been on a list and it was fun.

i played alot of shows this year, all of which had secret words, many of which i can’t remember.  some were:

• alphabetical
• curvacious
• rod stewart: android
• william shatner
• gumption
• dental plan
• dragon master
• griffin slayer
• cromulent
• lights in the skies

the best gigs of the year were hobart + music = yeah and the gate.

i also had a great time at this is not art where i sat on a panel and talked about axis.

i got to make a mixtape sorta thing for a polaroids of androids podcast and inflict my taste in music on the masses.

i put out an animated film clip for vigilante with midi and lights:

my name was in sos

i released my debut album and it landed album of the week on FBi.

it was also uploaded to a russian file-sharing website.

it’s been a good year.  onwards into a happy and productive twenty-eleven!

bob.

The pretty colours are provided by a Novation Launchpad which is sequenced/animated in Ableton Live. This track and the rest of the album are still free. Go get it.

UPDATE:
I’ve uploaded the MIDI file used to run the clip.  If you have a Launchpad and want to see the clip in glorious real life download this MIDI file and play it in your DAW of choice with the Launchpad selected as your MIDI output.

like these ones:

If you’re heading to this year’s TINA I’m going to part of a panel discussing making music with game controllers smart phones, not so smart phones etc.  I imagine I’ll be talking about AXIS and and MAX/MSP…  The TINA/Sound Summit Program puts it like this:

Saturday, October 2nd:

2.00pm – 4.00pm: Artist Presentation
Instant Expert: Know Your Gadgets
Process Space (401 Hunter St)

Facilitator: Andrew Tuttle (Sound Summit)
Participants: Brett Kinny (Megatroid), Jason Forrest (Cock Rock Disco, DJ Donna Summer, Nightshifters; USA), Pia van Gelder (Dorkbot), Robert Jarvis (Zeal)

The ongoing development of gamer controller technology and continuing innovations in smartphone capabilities have contributed to an increasing number of electronic musicians composing and performing with these tactile devices. Learn some tricks on how to revolutionise your live performance, and have a whole lot of fun doing it.

Should be a lot of interesting ideas in one place!

If you’re in Adelaide Monday the 20th of September (tonight)  come down to the wheatsheaf from around 8 to see Virtual Proximity play with me in my VJ disguise.

My goodness.  There’s alot coming up over the next two months.  One biggie in about a fortnight is HOBART + MUSIC = YEAH! A festivus of wonders…  I just made up that byline… maybe it’ll be picked up next year.  I’m playing with the splederous tiger choir who i’ve played with twice before and there are a stack of other great bands playing.  Also it’s cold and there are devils.  what more could you want?

I’m also working on a new VJ set for a live audio visual project for james annesley in his solo electronic guise.  I’m incorporating live video feeds into this set which is something new for me.  Dr Who style video feedback FTW!  I’m going to trial some of the new material still in it’s learning-to-walk phase this sunday at the workers club. We’ll see how it goes…

but wait there’s more.  I’m playing a show in Sydney September 18th which is way exciting as i’m yet to have carved up that particular town with my plastic axe of doom.  I’ll put a proper post up about that show soon.  There’s still more because there’ll probably be a radelaide show shortly after that.  Ampersand there’s even more because after that i’ll be at this years This is Not Art speaking as part of panel on  alternative controllers in electronic music… spoiler alert: ergonomics, stage presence and the buttler did it.  My new album is still free BTW.

My new album “With the Moon alongside Racing Us Home” launched today.  It’s available as a free download and also as CD in lovingly handmade cardboard sleeves made just for you.  I wrote and recorded the album throughout 2009 in my bedroom studio dubbed The Pentagon, It has reoccuring themes of robots, dragons, anarchism and the night sky and a little three note refrain scattered throughout.

You can download or buy the album here.

To celebrate the albums release I’ve also sent my new website live.  mmmmm… orange.

What do think of the album and the site?  let me know why don’t you.