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 twicebefore 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.
i’ve upped some video from last weeks birmingham gig. i think this might be an internet debut for this track and one of the first examples of axis out in the wild! much more coming up soon.
I’ve had a few questions and comments regarding playing chords with axis. Here’s how to do it in ableton:
This’ll only work in ableton but there might be ways to do this using comprable vst plugins etc.
The new Zeal set is coming together and the first of many Melbourne gigs is lined up for April. Oh yeah, and did i mention I have a new album ready for release? next few posts should be bigguns…
zeal has been appearing in interesting corners of the blogosphere in the last couple of days. there’s an interview at fiese falle about process and gear. they’re the sort of things that interest me in interviews so maybe you’ll be into it.
also, there’s a write up about my guitar hero to midi app AXIS on one of my fav blogs – hack a day.
the post has drawn out some entertaining flames like: “Get a haircut and a real job. Also, learn to play the real guitar. It’s a lot more fun, I promise.”
upon reading that i got a hair cut and a real job and learned to play the “real” guitar. it’s not as fun.
speaking of fun – fun new things to buy appearing soon and even fun new ways to buy said fun new things. but for now…
spent the last two weeks finishing my new album. i don’t think i’ve mentioned what’s it’s going to be called yet… i don’t think i will now either. but i will moon soon. a few tracks are mastered and i’m being a one man CD duplication factory this very second, pumping out a small pile of cd singles. feels like we should have been done with these lumbering circular plastic things 5 years ago. catch up radio! next step, artwork. it’s quite exciting. you’ll like the album, i promise. it makes mention of robots a few times and there’s this three note refrain that’s sprinkled through out the 15 or so tracks which all weave together. it’s almost a concept album… just with a poorly defined concept… more of a unproven hypothesis album.
also on the work bench, for all you unfortunate souls, i’m getting AXIS up and running on windows… i say that but really xp’s alright. the windows versions going to be minus a few small features just because of the way the windows drivers interpret the guitar (or unless someone else can fix it). this is one big step closer to release meaning it will be out before the years up.
i’ve been making stickers too. as i promised: robots and swear words. if you want one you have two options. the hard way: print out the above robot on sticker paper and cut it out. or the super easy way: enter my EP + sticker give away! there’s four days left and it’s super easy.
upped another vid demoing the Guitar Hero to MIDI app AXIS that i’ll be releasing soon. tilt sensors should be on everything! they make the world so much more fun.
i know i haven’t been gigging very much this year. and i could forgive you for thinking i’ve not been doing much on the live music front but you’d be wrong. so very wrong. i don’t want to make you feel bad or anything, it’s just the truth. this is my new guitar hero to midi max app i’ve been working on. it turns the guitar into a playable instrument while keeping all the control functionality of my previous patch. here’s the hastily thrown together blurb i slapped up on my youtube.
An app i’m working on called AXIS. it enables an xbox usb guitar hero controller to output midi to control ableton or any other software or hardware that eats midi.
it has two modes – play and control.
in control mode the buttons, whammy and 3 tilt sensors send out midi messages. this is intended for interfacing with software.
in play mode any musical scale can be superimposed over a guitar hero scale built on the first four buttons. the up pick can be offset to allow rapid playing of fifths or whatnot. the orange button acts as a modifier key allowing change of key and offset on the fly. the D-pad changes scale and the back and start keys change volume (velocity). the three tilt sensors and whammy send out MIDI CCs to control what ever. the tilt sensors on this guitar are particularly awesome, they sit on three different axes and you can make the guitar really expressive.
there’s a little HUD you can sit on top of what ever you’re controlling to monitor mode, key, volume, offset and scale.
i’m sorting out some documentation and then i’ll release it as a stand alone mac app. if a max-head out there want’s to help me port it over to windows that’d be ace. mac and windows interpret the guitar controller differently. once finished, i’ll release the source so people can modify it for other system’s guitars too. I went for an xbox guitar because it’s usb and the tilt sensors and whammy work which is a problem for ps2 guitars/adapters.
at the moment i’m building up my new live show utilizing the guitar to simultaneously shred, trigger samples and effects, control the rest of the track and control the accompanying video. see, i have been busy! and not just on this. i’ve got a whole album of new material which i’ll be relentlessly plugging through out the near future.
this post is little a bit of a tease, now i think of it. perhaps this video might make it appear more substantial.
another new clip in the works. this one will involve aerial video and possibly toy cars… i’ll post a less foggy explanation soon, along with news on all the other stuff that’s in the pipeline: new album! midi guitar hero application! fun new merch! weeeee!
Thanks to everyone who made it out to the Aleks and the Ramps album launch. it was a great night. there’s some footage of the night that i’ll post up when i can. if you’re unfamiliar with the ramps you should go edumacate your self. they’ve got a new clip which is pretty fantastic and just happens to share a few themes with my clip for faux pas‘ track coach. while i can’t really overtly claim it’s plagerisation, i certainly can insinuate it.
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE:
i know now some of you might think this whole thing’s a trick, that they are both obviously exactly the same video, but i promise you there are some subtle differences. It might help to watch on a larger screen…
and if you want to do that you can! because COACH is going to be screened through out july at fed square in melbourne thanks to a competition curated by the portable film festival. it’s fun news, coach has been pretty underground since its creation. so if you’re around melbournia between July 15th to 25th go and see it debut daily for ten days … i don’t mean you should go see it all 10 of those days. just the first day. and the last day. and the day right in the middle. and the two days between the first day and the middle day and the middle day and the last day. then arrange yourselves into human sculptures to represent the screening times you’re attending. tearing it’s debut from the 4th dimension into the 3rd with little forethought to the dire consequences for the cosmos. that would be an apt debut… Continue reading kittens, space, axes
Zeal is 25 year-old Melbournite, Robert Jarvis. He makes indietronica in his bedroom studio and animated music videos about cats in space on his bedroom floor.
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