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!

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.

bob out.

as promised, a brand spanking new track from my upcoming album.  download and share to your hearts content.

Zeal-Wasps.mp3

Wasps was sampled and sequenced on a PS2 using this software and some of the lyrics were borrowed from a Benny Hinn song.

It’s been picked up by New Weird Australia vol. 3, a way cool compilation of interesting Australian music.  CHECK IT!

and Rose Quartz picked it up almost instantly and said nice things like “this new Zeal track is some cool fucking shit.” READ!

that’s the name of my new album!  apparently not “with the moon along side racing us home” as is written on… THIS PROMO CD!

i have some promos left from a very tiny run.  Three new tracks from the new album all in odd cases, no two are alike. Three to give away! just hit me up.  that’s right. i blunk.

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.

back to the assembly line for me.

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.