Java / JFugue / Processing print artwork

July 2008

I have been concentrating on print artwork recently - I'm getting physical CDs made and I'm trying to make the artwork a bit special. This is for Majectical Electical. I used a Java library called JFugue to parse some midi files from the tracks on the album, and the Processing API to render the graphics. This effect was inspired by Robert Strübin. The source code will be included in the CD artwork.

Java/Processing: Falling Leaves etc..

April 2008

Here is something I have started using at gigs - it reads a text file and then notes can be played by clicking the mouse. I had my live rig running while I recorded this - the music is coming from Ableton Live, Reason with occasional embellishments on my keyboard.

I really have no idea how to get this online as my structure became sufficiently intricate that I couldn't use the Processing IDE to achieve the effect I wanted.

Here are another couple of things I did on the way to that.

Audio Unit glitch plugin

March 2008

I needed a turntable-stop effect and some other glitch stuff. There was no obvious candidate so I dived into the CoreAudio Audio Units plugin development API on Mac OSX and started tinkering with Objective-C, audio buffers and weird C++ audio libraries. I got this far and then kinda lost interest for a bit. I had proved that I could do it but there was no impetus to finish it! Also it wasn't obvious how to make the plugin work with a MIDI sidechain. I use Sugar Bytes Effectrix now anyway. Still. I've had a go now, so maybe some time I will build something...

The beat you can hear is from "Bumpy Bosbo" on "Majectical Electical". My plugin only works at 133bpm which is the tempo of that track..

Doepfer prototype

March 2008

I spent a couple of days proving that I could get my Doepfer PCB wired up to some knobs - I filmed this stop-frame thing. I got it working but I need to do a much better build to create something that is as beautiful as the rest of my equipment. The soundtrack from this video, "The Thumping Cadence Of The Engines" ended up as track 2 on "Psychogenic Fugue State".

The Jazzmutant Lemur

May 2007

When I first saw this device I drooled like a baby. A couple of years later I could finally afford one. But it was not an easy relationship. I had stability problems (involving rebooting during a live set) on both Windows and OS X. I made this patch to control the dblue glitch plugin which was kinda fun, but all in all, the lack of tactile feedback made this multitouch interface unworkable as a musical instrument. So I sold it on. For half the price I paid for it :'( . Still - this video has had over 46,000 views on youtube, so there were benefits after all!

The beat I'm manipulating is from "How You See Me" on "Broken Into Tumbolia" (I played it on my V-Drums).

The Ableton Live Video Experiment

October 2006

Why's there something wrong with you? When Ableton 6 came out, I quickly realised something cool could be done with the way that you could time-stretch video the same way as I was used to doing with audio. I spent a day recording myself playing various instruments in isolation and then constructed a song from the parts I had recorded. All the sound on this is coming through the camcorder microphone. I had to film the screen to bounce it down. I was featured on Create Digital Music here, and mentioned in one of the SonicState.

This song features on Psychogenic Fugue State.