Wave Gotik Treffen and The Hardware Roundabout

[bones]

First of all, we have good news - we will be playing at Wave Gotik Treffen in Germany in June. It is 12 years since we last played overseas, at the same festival, so we are understandably excited, to the point that we've already done twice as much rehearsal as we've ever done before and it is still six weeks away.

Anyway, you know how I bought all these hardware synths, then decided they were krap? Well, I've changed my mind yet again. More accurately, the KORG Monologue changed my mind.

We've been rehearsing every week for the last three months and for most of that time the plan had been to use my Ultranova for everything. Thanks to it's built-in audio I/O and it's ability to mix in two external sound sources, Sik's drum pad output (stereo), it meant that my whole set-up was just a laptop, the Ultranova and a USB cable. It doesn't even need power - a two hour rehearsal uses just over 25% of the laptop's battery capacity, even though it is also powering the Ultranova.

However we ran into a limitation with mixing, in that it was very hard to get the Ultranova's levels right for every song, mostly because it doesn't have a simple volume control for it's internal synth output. So we decided to look around and I ended up with a Yamaha AG-06, which is a small six channel mixer with USB I/O and built-in effects. When I bought the Monologue last month, the mixer became even more useful.

Meanwhile, I had decided to put the Minilogue, JP-08 and JU-06 up on eBay and after I got the MInilogue out to take some photos for the listing, I plugged it in and had a play around with it for the first time in months. Because it's mono, I could plug it into one of the mono channels of the new mixer and apply some reverb, compression and EQ to it, while the Monologue in the other channel gets the same reverb but it gets an Amp Sim instead of compression and EQ. The effects made a huge difference, to the point that I withdrew it from auction on eBay, even though it has been bid up to just $40 less than I paid for it, and we will now be taking it to Germany, not the Ultranova.

To be fair, a lot of the decision is around the Ultranova being way too big for carry-on luggage, while the Minilogue is the perfect size. But it also sounds great now, thanks to those simple effects (which you can program from the PC) and a few synth tips I learned from the simpler Monologue. It's one Achilles Heel, strings, we've taken care of by using it as a controller for something in Orion (Antidote, which was the early beta version of what became Dune, before Rich used that name for the Reason thing). Of course, the Monologue is also coming; it fits in a 17" laptop sleeve which goes in my laptop bag, so our live set-up will feature two KORG analogue synths. If anyone had suggested that would be the case a year ago, I'd have laughed in their face.

BTW, the JU-06 sold but the JP-08 is still available if anyone's interested. It comes with the k25m keyboard.

[Teksonik]

Good luck with your show.

[bones]

Thanks, mate, but we'll have done so much rehearsal by the time we get on stage that we'll be able to do it with our eyes closed. I was just thinking as I was running through the set tonight that I have never known the songs as well as I do now, and we've still got another six weeks of rehearsal before we head over there.

[Teksonik]

Do you plan on having anyone shoot video of your set ? Would love to see it......

[Kriminal]

Was it 12 years ago i saw you in London ?

[bones]

Yep, 2005 was the last time we were over that way. We tried to get some other gigs but didn't have any luck. So instead I'm going to see a few other bands either side of the festival. It should be epic.

Do you plan on having anyone shoot video of your set ? Would love to see it......

Last time they videoed it all, with several professional cameras, and said we could have some but we never got it so I'm going to get our manager, who is very heavily into photography, to shoot it from one angle and I'll have my GoPro set up somewhere to get a second angle. So yeah, we should end up with some footage. Whether it's usable or not, of course, will be another matter.

[fea]

This is something I would like to see! I found some live from youtube but it was recorded with potato..

[bones]

I'm doing it again. I just saw a Waldorf Rocket on eBay and now I want to get one. As far as I can tell from YouTube demos, it has some decent potential and even though Waldorf are idiots and only do an iOS app, there is a 3rd party editor that runs as a VST or stand-alone. If I can pick it up super-cheap, I'm gonna do it.

[HYPNAGOGIA]

Go for it! Do what makes you happy

Also, I'd like to see the footage of the gig when/if it gets out

[bones]

We're now looking at maybe doing a VR shoot of the show. My band-mate works for a company who do VR stuff so we have the expertise, we just have to work out if it's viable to shoot it in that environment. The VR camera will need to be in front of the stage so we may have issues with people bumping into it. If we could hang it from the ceiling it would work but our memory of the venue is that we won't be able to do that.