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.
zeal has relocated to melbourne! i’m building my new live set so all you melbournites – keep an eye out for shows in the near future. right now i’m prepping the packaging for my new album “with the moon alongside racing us home”.
physical copies of the album will ship in awesome handmade sleeves with fun paper parts and bonus warm fuzzy feelings. i might find a way to sneak fun stuff into the digital copies too. lots on the horizon – vj shows, new video clip, maybe a even a tour and a new ep. back to it!
so it took almost exactly a year to write and record and now my next album “with the moon alongside racing us home” is mixed! complete! done! finito! pung! bahoogled! i made a lot of those words up, feel free to use them (CC non-profit, attribution, share-alike).
now all this mixing’s done i’m focusing on my live show and getting axis out into the world. i’m also enjoying playing with max for live as an audio visual environment. getting sensors to the party is the next step i think… like some sort of reactive audio-visual “thingy”.
artwork for the album has to be done too… might start on that now.
this is the little video patch i’m working on for the new show. eventually it will do more fancy stuff like multiple layers, zoom, rotate etc. the live show will probably involve fewer aliens…. but more robots.
As promised/hinted at the first Zeal EP “This is how I hear your voice” is now up on . Click that button to make sure I’m not lying. I don’t like iTunes so I’m going to change the subject… right now, I’m busy playing with max for live and developing my new live show. Did someone say midi controlled video and animation?.. hooray for comprehensive video control from with in ableton! shall share shortly.
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.
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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