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.
my EP This is how I hear your voice is now in delicious digital form. you can stream it from this lovely little widget, you can listen to it here, you can click share and tweet about it, you can click download and buy it for half the cost of the physical disc and you can click download and pay significantly more for it because you want to support my whimsical endeavors. isn’t the internet great? the EP will be up on itunes soon too so you’ll be able to do that whole thing too if you’d like. i tend to avoid itunes after it ate my entire mp3 collection (TWICE) but maybe you’ve had better luck.
it’s all quite exciting and in celebration i have a free EP set aside for you. just send me a tweet, leave a comment or send me an email answering this question:
how do you think YOU will survive the approaching inevitable robot uprising?
the best answers received before November 4th receive a copy of the EP and stickers with robots and swear words on them. robots and swear words!
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.
The Agnes Kain clip is finished! I’m very happy with the end result. There are no effects in post, everything was shot in camera… which is probably obvious right up until the end. You can check out my previous posts to see how it was made from conception to birth. Big thanks to Chanelle and Stef and ultra-mega-big thanks to Ryan for wearing ridiculous things, standing in uncomfortable poses for extended periods of time and just being generally rad.
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.
i threw together a little max patch to convert a cheapo keypad into a midi controller (a bit like this one i made a little while back). these little things are great. got me thinking, what the hell did we do before usb?
in other news, the Agnes Kain clip is finished! i’ll send it live in the next few days. now that’s done i’m back into music mode gluing together bits and pieces to finish my NEW ALBUM. some gigs lined up too… zeal reemerges from the makey-cave to obliterate your senses!
i’m knuckling down and editing the agnes kain clip over the weekend. it’s the first time i’ve tried final cut and it’s not that bad. i had to shed some prejudice brought on by my hatred for itunes and all apple software by association. but final cut’s actually alright. it runs much faster than premiere (which i made this with) but i’m still yet to find anything as intuitive as vegas (which i made this with). if anyone out there knows of any secret superstar video editing software let me know – i don’t think any developers have quite got it right yet. meant to put up this super exclusive behind the scenes pic last post. i’m all about ruining the magic.
a few little scenes left to shoot and edit and then that’s a wrap. it’s pretty exciting to see how the clip’s turning out, especially seeing how it’s evolved from the original idea. i’m animating the clip “in camera” with no effects in post. it moves a lot of the problems that usually need to be solved from inside a computer out into the real world where they’re easier to deal with. mainly because in the real world every single problem can be solved with gaff tape. ryan the birdman agrees.
winter’s the best but the weather’s been holding back shooting on the agnes kain clip again. i’ve been working on everything that can be done inside out of the way of the falling sky water which luckily includes experimenting with projected backgrounds – parallels are cropping up between the agnes clip and the cuba is japan clip again. planning a big rear projection shoot this week. should be a sort of scaled up, person size version of what’s going on down there. i’ll be sure to post something about it. for the moment i’m setting up the mini version…
if you follow my twitter you’ve probably noticed the robot binge. it’s had it’s effect… behold the homunculus!
these are the birdman wings i made for this agnes kain clip. all heshen, bamboo and cable ties. the opacity of the heshen in a few silhouetted shots turned out real nice. and i’m seeing some unintentional parallels pop up with the cuba is japan clip. now i’m making a small cardboard set to double the aerial footage.
Zeal is 25 year-old Adelaidien, Robert Jarvis. He makes down-beat experimentapop in his bedroom studio and animated music videos about cats in space on his bedroom floor.
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