In December 2007, I was invited to do a performance on visual radio show ‘Freak Night’ with DJ Giel Beelen. For this performance I produced a special audio-visual track in one day on location.

Making the track

I came early in the morning to make video recordings of Giel and his guests during his morning show. I moved part of my studio to the radio studio to work with these recordings on the spot and produce the track. I then performed the track live with my SenSorSuit on his evening show.

The three videos below show the raw footage I took that day with Giel and his guests: MC Extince, MC Lange Frans, radio DJ Gerard Ekdom and the weather lady. The forth video is taken in the dressing room where I set up my studio and created the track with these recordings.

The track

I produced the track with Logic Pro (music software) and SenS IV. All creative features of SenS IV work in real-time, very convenient for trying out ideas and writing a track quickly. I loaded the raw video recordings into SenS IV and picked the right shots while I was trying them out in the composition immediatly. I used one of SenS IV’s audio-visual effects to morph Giel’s voice into an audio-visual bassline in real-time.

This video shows how SenS IV and Logic Pro were used.

Performance

Once the composition was finished I moved my set-up to the radio studio to perform it live with my SenSorSuit. I performed all video skrtZzes and part of the audio-visual bassline live in this performance.

Due to a malfunction of the device that sent my computer’s output to the live TV stream the output of the computer looked green :/

Disposable video

I like the concept of writing a track quickly to respond to what is happening at that moment. I call these quickly produced tracks ‘disposable videos’, because in many cases they become irrelevant when the moment they are based on is overtaken by current events. ‘Disposable video’ may sound negative, but I don’t mean it like that: this way of working makes it possible to improvise during the composition process to respond directly to the audience, other players or current affairs. 

In the ¡Viva la Creaçion! project I made ten tracks this way responding to videos people sent me online. In the WikiVideo project I expanded on this idea and optimized my studio for this collaborative creative process. In the Doc vs Doc project I produced five tracks in five days together with five different documentary makers.

Another advantage of producing a track quickly is that it leads to tracks with raw energy and a spontaneous feel. That is why I produced many of the DVJ 3.0 and Chaos funk tracks this way. For the Frame Drummer Pro I developed composition assistance technology, like the AGT (Accent Grab Technology) and MIDI filters to speed up my creative process. Read more about these concepts on the ‘Generative Tracks’ project page

Technology

This project is produced with my audio-visual instrument SenS IV. To fund the development of SenS IV (and now EboSuite) I produce interactive audio-visual projects and shows with EboStudio. Very talented, experienced and skilled technicians and designers. I am very fortunate that I can work with them. And you can too. Need help for an audio-visual project or concept? Don’t hesitate to contact us.