I’ll be putting this out as a Max for Live plugin with the next VIZZable update.  Fun times with tech!

… and we’re back. while I was blog-absent some fun things have happened. VIZZable was the 10th most read story on CDM last year. It’s exciting news for a little set of plugins in the relatively obscure Max for Live video scene  and encouraging that others are as interested in using Ableton as an audio-visual environment as I am.  Big shout out to the great folk on the Jitter in Max for Live group!

Sound 2 Light

Some documentation of  last years Sound 2 Light has arisen. Sound 2 Light was a tech/media arts event held in Hobart where artists are partnered up and given a small period of time to come up with an installation or performance. I was partnered up with venerable techno producer Sam Gregory and we created a 20 minute AV piece revolving around strange hybrid animals all mapped onto four, large rectangular panels. I also put together two smaller installations: “Homunculus II” a teleoperated robot visible at the start of the video and a colourful, kaleidoscopic, audio-reactive projected piece that evolved throughout the night. Watch the video below and see if you can spot such things.  You can also listen to the live broadcast that went out on the night.

Stereosonic

Last year I was also lucky enough to VJ the Bass Arena at Melbourne’s Stereosonic.  It was the longest set I’ve played so far – about 9 hours – I used the opportunity to try out some new masking and feedback techniques as well as the usual fare of Live camera feeds, glitches, datamoshing and rainbow meltiness.  Whilst playing for Danish electropop singstress Lucy Love, her manager approached me and asked if there was anything wrong with the video signal.  I gestured to my PS3 controller as if to say, nope, it’s OK, It’s supposed to be like that and before I could launch into a deep discussion of how visuals, when tightly synced, can reenforce sound and give it more impact he said “Don’t do that”.  I quickly pigeon holed him as a square whom I usually enjoy confusing but to keep him happy I kept the rest of the set less interesting/confusing. Anyhoo, some videos of the day have popped up on youtube.  Datsik was particularly awesome.

Next…

A few Zeal shows are popping up in Radelaide in the coming weeks as well as some remix projects to get back into the music side of things.  I’m building another controller similar to Archaeopteryx but this time for feet:

I’m also exploring Augmented Reality with a view to put together an immersive AR installation at some stage in the future.  I hope I’m not alienating all you normal people as this is possibly the geekiest video I’ve uploaded to date:

Alrighty, you’re up to date.  I’m back to blogging and tweeting so sit tight, there’s more soon.

bob.

i discovered there’s a shortage of keystroke to MIDI converters for mac so I made MIDIpress.  to use it…

1. Download MIDIpress
2.  select your keyboard from the menu on the left.  this might take some trial and error – when you find it the yellow button next to the menu will flash when ever you hit a key.  mine’s “Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad 4″.
3. choose your MIDI output settings.  “from midipress 1″ is a safe bet.
4. make sure your target application (ableton, FL studio etc.) has your chosen midi port active in it’s preferences.
5. set your velocity and note length.
6. do whatever! you can control any midi mappable parameters or jam as you type.

here’s the max patch for the nerdlingers

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.

Practice

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.

Download: VIZZable Modular VJ plugins for Ableton Live

UPDATE!

These plugins are completely compatible with the amazing V-module suite by Fabrizio Poce. These two projects have now merged to provide a comprehensive suite of video, effects and real-time graphics tools for Live. If you’d like to become involved in testing and developing these plugins please join us in this google group.

I’ve been getting asked for this keypad to midi patch a lot recently so I thought I’d upload it.  You can get it here.  You’ll also need the free max/msp runtime from cycling74.com.  If you’re on windows you’ll need loopbe too.

and remember – Zeal’s live Melbourne debut this Friday!