Waaay back in 2008, I put together a live show called Pattern.Dot.Life (version 1.0) I had been touring New Zealand non stop as a well, almost 1 man band meets hybrid VJ/DJ, I had a vision of this cool synthwave future music in my head and I went about making that real! I used a Novation x-station as the main controller for a early version of ableton live and midi clock sync’d up all my external synths, A Korg X-50 and my fav synth the Ms2000b along with drum machines the Roland 707 and other rack based multi midi controlled effects, Some kinda alesis beasty that gave me perfectly in time delays to whatever the BPM was doing between sessions (I eventually changed that to one main master session during a update that let me define the BPM via clips in the master section of Ableton which would clock out to the gear!) I also was running various VSTi and VST plugins inside the sessions which had been mapped to the x-station, the overall effect was I could basically, stretch songs out for as long as I wanted jumping between patterns and change levels of each channel bus of Drums, Basses, Synths, Pads, whatever else and use the custom channel and master patches with all the knobs! was totally awesome having that much control over everything. Keytar Solos and Vocoders and retro drum machines and arpeggiators flying everywhere!
Also, I was sending control data at resolume, so I could cc map all my visuals to be affected by the performance, which included my own set of brightness, warping and other controls and other effects mapped to filters and pattern changes, Oh, yes, The DMX was involved, I would just draw automation curves within the clips and used some code I wrote to change that midi channels data into DMX format so I could pretty much just draw in curves what i wanted the lights to do in places, like A: intro = dark B: drop = everything and so on! Also there was questionable data going the laser software, I think I just sent it the midi clock and hoped for the best, it did great random things at times! ha
Remember this was 2008 and looking back at getting up to such nerdy adventures on a stage I can honestly say at a much older age, I am proud of young me for going that deep into trying to put on a show worth something.
We recorded the whole show both audio and video and somewhere in the archives we have been looking at restoring that old footage, but the audio still holds up and comes across great! Not so sure the video will make it, but mabye it will, It was on YouTube many years ago, but lost in the digital sands of time (stupid google account stuff) The crowd at this small little bar, about 150 that night were totally into it and really reactive to what the music was doing, for me, Pattern Dot Life is a total snap shot of that moment in time and I am happy its still around which is why i fixed it up a little and put it on bandcamp!
The album artwork was once again created by my friend Matt Pitt after I explained the concept of wanting to make a live album to give away free on the internet, The Patterns being the music, the dot being the internet and the life being the audience. He came up with a great node based speaker pattern, like networks of sound travelling over the servers, Totally perfect!!
So, yeah! it is still free, you can head along here to http://module.bandcamp.com and grab it, Feel free to donate it you want. Any cash from music lately is just going back into what I call the never ending jam, mostly the studio and I am always happy as when people pass on some digital cash money love, but its totally not a requirement or a need, it just makes me feel cool when I go buy a coffee or grab some bits and pieces I need for the crazy tech setup at Module HQ directly from what I am doing almost 24/7 (yes writing this at 1AM, but hey! I am a Musician!)
Big thanks go out to Sandwhiches, Bryce, Paul Moss for Filming and Mike A for capturing the audio and FOH mix, Mike Busy for the visuals and tech goodness, Of course Matt Pitt and everyone who donated recently or will in the future or just shares around the musical patterns on the internet with people.
Here are few more pics that made it on the old hardrives!
Any questions just hit me below in the comments and I will get back to ya ASAP! Peace, Jeramiah