Entries Tagged 'gigs' ↓

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 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!

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.

…perhaps not.

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 →

speaking of vj guitars and hiking shoes!

michel gondry + flight of the conchords = yes! :0

they go together like pop rocks and pepsi.  i’ve been seeing a lot awesome music video work recently.  the new qua clip is freaking amazing.

it’s best clip i’ve seen in while.  really great idea and execution. aaaand -  sbs station I.D.s! oh yeah!  showing abc how it’s done.

come to the show and see what the future of the live zeal show’s looking like.

bob (:b

for the last few weeks i’ve been working on a clip for melbourne band cuba is japan.  they make sorta soundtracky, interesting music.  it’s really great stuff to work with visually… it’s great stuff in general.  i’ll put a video sample up once my internet is dethrottled.  it’s a fun project to have been working on too.  broken into three sections, the clip starts with bugs coming out of cocoons, continues with bugs flying and ends with bugs dying.  my job was the begining and end with the flying bit in the middle being animated by another robert elsewhere in australia.  it’s all being pieced together by various animators, illustrators, director/producer/editors and new zealanders via the wonders of the internet… and snail mail.  when i post a video about this i’ll put up a run down of everyone involved and their particular claims to awesomeness.

in other news: ZEAL RETURNS TO THE STAGE!

and this is going to be something special. why?  because: ZEAL IS PLAYING WITH ALEKS AND THE RAMPS AT THE JADE MONKEY JULY 9TH!

it’s difficult to explain how exciting this is.  i’ve wanted to play with aleks and the ramps for years.  so come!  it’s my first gig in 6 months!  hear the new album!  watch my new guitar hero max patch in action!  see my audio/visual spectacular of which the visual component isn’t quite complete!

click here for the facebook event. invite your friends

ok.  that’s enough for now.

bob.

so no gigs in.. what month are we in again?.. march. but soon enough. album is progressing. it’s been whittled down to 15 tracks and they’re all going to mesh together and reprise and be thematic and stuff. several guest superstars, probably including phil collins, are contributing. stars are mentioned several times. as are dragons.

for the last fortnight or so my efforts have been focused once again on the visual realm with a vj set i played for the baron’s ep launch (check em out!). it’s an exciting new world for me, being able to play video in a similar fashion to playing music. i wish to do more. and i hope to use this experience to incorporate video into the new zeal set. should be fun. and a massive amount of work. yay! anyhoo.  here’s a slice of the baron set just for you.

the baron – striking

back to work.

bob.

the last show of octoberlaide is upon us.  friday the 31st @ rhino room w/ twilight bazaar.  doors at 10 and it’s halloween so… i don’t know… you can dress up or something.  poster!

the last show (@ the jade monkey w/ we grow up and the warsaw flowers) was a cracker… or, as the english say, a biscuit.  there’s a review by adelaides premier diss-dishing,  camera-wielding, blog-posting psychonaut spoz at spoz’s rant.  and photo’s such as this one… 

this firday’s gig (w/ twilight bazaar @ rhino room, 10PM) will probably be the last for sometime.  with one song written per show i’ve now a bag of tunes to commit to tape and a hunkering down must be done.  i will see you on the other side… and this friday!  bobobob.

hi to anyone  i met a ‘this is not art’ and is, by the slightest chance, reading this.  wow. fun.  in other news… did anyone know channel ten was busted for subliminal advertising during the arias?  and now, due to a very sus verdict, it seems a flash of 2 frames is considered subliminal while a flash of 3 frames is veritably liminal. [kill the french ambassador. you will kill the french ambassador. kill the french ambassador] media watch has the details. video.

my tour of octoberlaide is tearing through time and space… limited to october and adelaide respectively. posters!

come check out the new tunes.  bob.

so i’ve booked an impossible number of gigs just as i was set to hide away and record. hmmm. solution: to write and perform 1 new song at each show. here they are:

wow. cut and paste has come along way since highschool plagerization and i don’t even know who to thank for it.  anonymous programmer, my gratitude knows no horizon.

bob.