Testing the setup with sound detection.

After reviewing several commercial and open source DMX controller software, we decided to go for the free (and Finnish!), Q Light Controller (QLC). Our goal was to link Ableton Live to QLC via a virtual midi port and relay the commands through the Enttec dongle to the lighting equipment. As we know from experience, doing something like this usually screams for failure. However, the first test was an absolute success. After setting up the fixtures in QLC (by referring to the channel codes in the lights’ manuals), we tested the setup with QLC’s virtual console – and hurray, it’s alive!

QLC virtual console

Now it was time to add another link to the chain, the infamous midi connection. As the virtual port we used Loopbe1, which is made by nerds from Germany (at least according to their website’s address). We had to use Loopbe1 for the sole reason of running the tests with a PC – when using a Mac you can easily setup midi ports straight from OSX’s preferences. Now, in Live we made a new midi track, whose output was assigned to this virtual midi port (after applying the port in Live’s settings of course!). Notice you must leave the track empty of any instruments or effects; as soon as you do this, the possibility of outputting the signal disappears. In QLC we had to fiddle with some settings to get the signal to come through. Defining which signals were to govern which attributes was easy by using the learn-function in QLC’s input manager. Using a midi clip in Ableton Live to rotate a physical motor in a lighting fixture and to alternate color intensities with envelopes for the first time was… well, just fucking awesome. You never expect these red rectangles, which you’ve been using for mere sound production (not to say sound waves aren’t physical) to actually DO something in the real world. I’ve begun planning a race car based on midi velocity envelopes. Anyway, enough for the enthusiastic philosophy. All was ruined in the end. The next time we plugged the system in, the Enttec dongle signed itself off after spontaneously firing a few leds. We hear the Enttec Open USB dongle doesn’t have surge protection and suppose this is probably what caused the failure. I have no idea what could’ve been done differently to prevent the problem (yes, the PC was grounded – so were the lights).

This sucks on many levels. First, we can’t provide a customized light show for our upcoming gig in Helsinki (there’s no time, since it’s hard to find these dongles in Finland!). Second, we’ll have to invest in a more expensive DMX-USB dongle (most likely Enttec USB Pro, with surge protection!). We’ll see what the nice people at Thomann have to say about this.

After ranting about the converter, it’s time to say a few good words about the lighting fixtures. Well, actually bad. But I’ll be quick. Then I’ll say something nice. The bad news is that the other Dekker had a broken motor, which resulted in static lights. Since we don’t like static (except the one seen analogue TVs - it’s got traces of the big bang on it! So cool…) we had to return it to Thomann. Still waiting for a replacement. And now for the good news. The Dekker, the one which is functional, is freaking awesome! So is the fog machine and the strobe and the flood lights (which get extra kudos for being so damn cheap!). I filled my apartment with so much smoke the fire alarm went off. Thankfully the batteries ran out the second it began to scream. Which reminds me…

In other news, Joona just got a new MacBook Pro. I hope we get rid of some of the performance trouble we’ve been having in Live situations. Ramming all the songs in one Live file has its toll (read more here).

Tomorrow we’ll start shooting a music video for a new kick-ass song called The Game is On. The scenes involve laboratories and parking garages. There’s also green liquid and agents involved. And yes, this time we have permissions to shoot (the video, not people nor animals).

- Ville

Two new songs will be played at the event. Our new enlightenment generators will also be present.

Related show

• Unzyme Laboratories: Unzyme
• Date: Saturday, December 31st 2011
• Time: 10:00pm
• City: Unzyme in Helsinki
• Venue: Kulttuuriareena Gloria
• Address: Pieni Roobertinkatu 12
• Country: Finland
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

With skilled scheming and planning he has somehow managed to combine this extraordinarily brave and unsound mission with his university studies, and will receive academic credits while doing it.

We will continue working on new tracks, but live operations will be postponed until he’s back. That is, if he’ll make it back. Wish him luck.

Yesterday we spent time on Thomann drooling at lighting solutions. And today we went mad and placed an order on two  America DJ Dekkers, two Stairville Flood Panel 150s, one Stairville SF-1000 fog machine, one Stairville PS1500 strobe, a bunch of cables and an Enttec Open DMX USB Interface. Each of the lights are DMX-controlled. The usb-DMX-dongle combined with some software will allow us to use MIDI from Live to control the lighting of the stage. The idea is to pre-program midi tracks for each song and build a nicely synced, automated audio-visual spectacle. In case of sudden stage-freak-out (both human and machine) the pre-programmed lighting can be overriden with manual midi controllers. I’m really excited about all this – so far our custom lighting has been composed of something like four static light bulbs (one of which is RED!). Can’t wait to start fiddling with our new tentacles!

We’ll try keep blogging more often from now on. Place a comment if you have any questions or suggestions on anything (if you know ANYTHING about linking DMX and Ableton Live, come forth, as I know nothing… yet).

- Ville, 11.11.11 (nice binary!)

The track will also be featured on our upcoming album, which will be released in 2012.

This blog post was originally made to demonstrate extremely targeted publishing. Also, this is a neat way to trick visitors to our site, as the title could be somewhat looked for on Google. We might also have something more useful to say on the subject, so stay tuned.

Jesus in my Trunk (Johnny Tr4sh remix) by Unzyme

She asked if we had ever played in Lahti. We had not, in spite of numerous attempts. She revealed that she knew the owner of Torvi, a legendary rock venue in Lahti. Just a few months earlier we had contacted the owner, trying to book us a gig, with no luck.

Paula really wanted to help us out, and she promised to book us a gig there. At the moment we were a bit doubtful, but excited. Could she really do it? Would she keep her word? Five days went by, and then she called, telling us that a gig date at Torvi had been arranged. This alone was quite unbelievable, but little did we know what kind of a surprise we were in for.

Soon after the gig was confirmed, we put up a Facebook event and invited the few people we knew from Lahti. It was quite difficult to spread the word as we knew so few people in the area. In a couple of weeks, the Facebook event had collected a grand total of 9 people “attending” and some 15 people “maybe attending”. Partly because of this, we had minimal expectations about the gig. At least it would make a good addition to our gig list of 2010, and we’d get to experience Torvi.

Just before the gig Ville came up with the idea of streaming the whole show directly to the web. He taped his Google Nexus One Android Supecellphone  to the ceiling and set it to record. This was the second time we tried live streaming.

Though we didn’t expect even those 9 “attending” people to show up, they were actually there. That was enough for us, and we started playing. For this gig we’d chosen to tighten our setlist by dropping out a couple of slower songs. It proved to be a good decision, because we managed to keep the energy up throughout the show. It was a very natural performance with no  mentionable technical difficulties (which is rare). The audience seemed to enjoy the show as much as we did, and that was all that really mattered. Mission accomplished. After playing, we were about to just kick back for a while before carrying everything back to the Unzyme Probe, when suddenly…

a horde of people walked in. Turns out that they were coursemates that had just finished their physiotherapist studies (Maitland). Craving for live music, they asked if a band would play tonight at Torvi. We told them that they had just missed our show. Regardless, they were determined to hear live music today, and they also needed to show their foreign friends that Torvi is the best live music venue on a Thursday night in Lahti. Naturally we wanted to prove them right, and agreed to play another gig – just for them. There was only one slight problem. The guy who had mixed our gig, had already left. For a moment we thought we couldn’t do it. It would sound plain horrible without proper mixing. Fortunately help was near – our good friend, Sami Kiukas (from Trauma Field) volunteered to do the mixing.

Quickly we made a plan to play only our fastest songs and keep the show as tight as possible. From the very first minutes, we got a furious response. Everyone was dancing and jumping to the music. Such crazy wild activity in front of our stage had not occurred before. The overflowing enthusiasm of the crowd was infectious. We sparkled like fireworks. The audience was entranced. Every song landed in raving applaud. Our performance was rather extreme – every chance to make our songs louder than usual, were taken.

Eventually we had played all our songs, even though the original plan was to play just a few quick power tunes. After exiting the stage, the audience was still hot for more. Never before had we heard such clapping and yelling. Ville and Mari were eager to get back to the stage, but I wanted to enjoy the furious screams of the audience a bit longer. It was difficult to stay still, and we managed to do that only for a minute or so. Luckily we had spared two songs for the encore – one last fast song (Anniversaries) and a soft ending piece (Covered clearance).

20% of the audience bought our album. Three autographed CDs were sold. They even bought us drinks (just soda for me). This must have been the most surprising show so far, starting from the way we got it (through a dog), and ending in playing an extra show for a random graduate bunch.

We are grateful for all this.

Special thanks to Emmi, who sold the CDs.