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Haitus Maximus

syphus — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 22:15:32 +0000

This is hardly news-worthy by anybody’s standards, but here’s me saying I’m taking an indefinite breather from doing live Syphus performances. Yes, I know it’s not like I’m kicking out the keytar jams 24/7 anyway, but my whole routine has sleepwalked into stagnation a bit, and I can’t find the time or head-space to evolve it. And besides, I’m something of a traditionalist and I don’t desperately want to contrive an evolution of my live chip-style outlet when it probably doesn’t need one. Why force it?

It started in my bedroom, on grey Sunday afternoons with ProTracker, then years later it coincidentally happened to become popular in the ‘real’ world and I had a great deal of fun playing it live; improvising; reinterpreting it for fresh audiences. So I guess now it’s going back into the Sunday-afternoon/bedroom domain, where it belongs and where I get the most enjoyment out of it.

I’ll still be making occasional Amiga tunes and working on demoscene productions, but I plan to focus on getting back to composing fully-sequenced music, expanding on the bits and pieces of games music writing I’ve been doing lately and generally driving myself forward rather than treading water. Maybe I’ll even get the swathes of unreleased tunes released, and unfinished tunes finished.

This isn’t some sort of tearful goodbye, and I’m not conceited enough to think that anybody should give a toss, but I do want to say that I’ve:

met some cool people
played some cool gigs with some cool people
seen a few more crevices of the world than I might otherwise have done
had my grumpy sourpuss old mind opened up to some things beyond the scope of the demoscene
opened some other minds up to things within the scope of the demoscene
had my Blip Festival visuals done by The C-Men
got shitfaced with Firebrand Boy
got lost in Manhattan with Trash80
been attacked by a London gang, along with Minusbaby, Starscream and Nullsleep
watched Nullsleep literally headbutt his way out of the situation
driven a tour bus at 90mph whilst technically and medically asleep
been part of some triumphant organisational successes (and some triumphant organisational failures)
watched a hooker give a copper a blowjob in a Newport carpark whilst our audience were being arrested and loaded into a paddywagon across the road
taught USK all conventional English swearwords, plus a few custom ones of my own devising

and much, much more. So, y’know, things could have been a lot worse ;)

Syphus LIVE in Liverpool – Thurs 17th Dec

syphus — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:48:00 +0000

The exhibition’s at FACT, but I’m playing the launch’s after-party at Chameleon Bar in Liverpool – L1 4NL – from around 9pm :)

Space Invaders: Art and the Computer Game Environment
Preview: Thursday 17 December 2009, 6.00pm – 8.00pm
FACT, Liverpool
Booking: rsvp@fact.co.uk

Syphus
Firebrand Boy
SoundMatrix
Jellica/Kittenrock DJ mix
DS Orchestra

PortaMod – MOD/XM/S3M library for Processing

syphus — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:22:20 +0000

FINALLY, I’ve got a release-worthy build of my MOD/XM/S3M replayer library for Processing! PortaMod is based on a very high-quality (but bare-bones) pure Java replayer engine by Martin Cameron called IBXM. IBXM had been around for a few years, but I wanted to implement it for Processing and make it available to that lovely little sketching language that’s been so helpful to me in my effort to learn OOP.

I’ve been working on this in a couple of different ’strands’, and if you’re following my sporadically-documented, mad-scientist crap to any degree, you’ll know that they include:

Chipdisco (a dual-deck module DJ application with MIDI control, headphone cue-mix, module-loading from URL and dual playlists) – click here for a work-in-progress
PortaMod Player (a single-deck player with scrolling tracker-style patterndata display and various other nice features – interface similar to Chipdisco)
PortaMod Single (a very very compact single-tune player intended for embedding on websites, particularly websites that archive modules)
PortaMod itself – the library which will make projects like these easy for others to make. Usage can be basic, e.g. doing a soundtrack for a sketch when you want to avoid bundling a massive mp3 file, or more complex, e.g. driving a series of visual effects triggered by note-events in the music.

Anyway, better follow the above link to get all the details.

New tunes from LCP’09

syphus — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:55:19 +0000

LCP is over and, in typically late fashion, I’m pushing out the music I entered in the compos.

The tune that won me the Up Rough-dominated SNES music compo, olden days (or oldendays), is available here and there’s an mp3 rendering of it on the music page for those cursed with iPods and the like.

You can also hear it here on 8bc.org, with the added advantage of being able to add it to your ‘likes’ ;)

My Amiga music entry (which came 4th) will be online soon.

Hu-hu-hupdate

syphus — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:26:37 +0000

So: busy summer! Well not enormously busy, but now that I’m working a full-time job and keeping involved with a diverse bunch of stuff, everything is a bit more crammed in.

Last week was a rush-hour flavoured 8-hour slog to London in the car for Bleep +LDN – the much-publicised allstar do put on by gwEm and me which presented to the UK public the likes of Nullsleep, Minusbaby, Starscream, Failotron and Die Moderne Welt (US, US, US, HU and DE), as well as domestic impressarios Jellica, Tin Foil Hat Brigade, Kezziebeat and the incomparable Steve.

Organisationally, things went a little bit to shit and that’ll sadly be a lot of people’s memory of what went down. In actual fact, gwEm and I managed to save it from going TOTALLY to shit (thanks to a gargantuan error on the part of the venue which, to give them their due, they admitted and compensated us for) and generally provide most of what we promised on the flyer.

The relief of getting finished and out of the venue without things kicking off was palpable until we (Minusbaby, Nullsleep, Damon^Starscream, Ali, Mia and I) got set upon by a fucking street gang. Well, shit happens; we eventually got ourselves out of the situation with not too much blood shed and the others lived to play another day. The next day, as it happens, in Liverpool.

Right now, I’m packing my bags for a flying visit to Sweden for LCP (Little Computer People) – “for all the c64/amiga/atari/spectrum/console/whatever-lovin’ sideborder musicians, stamp fakers, coders, forth lamers, screen dumpers (yes), bbs hangarounds and full screen graphicians”.

It’s gonna be a fucking nice party and I’ll have a chance to catch up with my Up Rough groupmates, musician friends like Nullsleep, zabutom, Random and Goto80, and people I’ve never met but wanna – Crazy Q, maktone, etc. I’ve got three tunes ready for the competitions, some of which are in Up Rough prods, and I know Nullsleep and Random have some exciting stuff on the way.

Then next week, I’m playing in Newcastle with The Turing Test – my mate Guy from work. That’s Wednesday 22nd at The End Bar in Newcastle. Dunno how much it costs, but probably not much. I guess it’s 8pm onwards… Guy’s also a great 3D modeller; I wanna find an excuse to use his skills in a demo as it’s hard to find someone who’s either good or who can be arsed these days.

1st of August is 8bitball II in Blackpool, featuring all sorts of cool acts. It’s a daytime job in Stanley Park, which I’m told contains an oldschool bandstand. Should be a laugh.

Then I’m gonna try to be a bit quiet – quiet enough to concentrate on writing some new music – until I hook up for one night with this year’s Chiptune Alliance Tour as they storm through Newcastle on their way to conquering the world again. I’m too old/tired/busy/bereft of annual leave to join them full-on, but it’ll be nice to make some noise under the CTA banner one more time.

Oh, lest I forget, Sundown ‘09 is on in September in Budleigh Salterton (near Exeter, south coast of the UK). Not much to say, except that it’ll be brilliant as usual. All welcome.

And now to pack for Sweden.

SYPHUS LIVE DATES – Summer ‘09: London, Blackpool, Newcastle

syphus — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 08:36:52 +0000

It’s that time of year again: spreading myself wide across the UK (well, just England this year) with a BRAND NEW SET comprising 80% BRAND NEW MATERIAL for your rocking-it-up/jumping-around/spazzing-out pleasure.

First up is this summer’s hottest mini-fest, organised by gwEm and I and featuring some fucking blistering acts (including us :P) – BLEEP +LDN, on Saturday 11th of July: see the flyer here.

Next, it’s Newcastle at The End Bar with The Turing Test on Wednesday 22nd of July.

Then Blackpoool on the 1st of August for 8bitBall.

Get yourselves along to one of them; it’ll be fun!

duckslinger

syphus — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:51:39 +0000

Not sure how all the US-based Nintendo chipsters missed this interesting looking Blockparty release, but it doesn’t seem like anyone’s been talking about it in all the usual circles. Anyway, this is the first release of a new NDS tracker – NitroTracker means well, but sadly doesn’t seem to be coming up with the goods. If this guy’s gone for his own custom format, then maybe it’ll be able to carve out its own comfy niche…
Looking forward to giving it a shot, when I can find my DS. It took second place in the Wild compo at Blockparty, and the pouet thread is here.

Chip Tune Marching Band@BentFest, on Make

syphus — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 19:28:43 +0000

The Chip Tune Marching Band, which I helped organise in Newcastle and Helsinki, has gone to New York for Bent Fest without me (while I’ve been living it up at Breakpoint :). Jamie Allen (lecturer in the department I work for) and Kazuhiro Jo put this idea together and are doing the workshop wherever they can.

Yes, I hear you cry, there are no actual ‘chiptunes’ involved, per se. The phrase is attention-grabbing, though, and reflects the fact that people are making crazy chip-style noises with squarewave generators, and it’s all terribly good fun.

Having said that, if you look closely at the video on the Make article, you’ll notice a surprisingly high ratio of chip-musicians to regular people: Cerebral Scars, Goto80 and, of course, myself :D

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/04/handmade_music_bent_edition_-_tonig.html?CMP=OTC-0D6B48984890

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/3756589[/vimeo]

Breakpoint’09: Syntax Infinity on MSX2

syphus — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 20:56:52 +0000

Just got back from Breakpoint ‘09 in Bingen, where my favourite production of the weekend was Syntax Infinity – an MSX2 demo from Tulou and Traktor. I dunno exactly who worked on it, but they’re both excellent Amiga groups I wasn’t particularly surprised to see that the great music was done by everyone’s favourite Esau, who’s a member of both. Anyway, check it out.

I’ll elaborate and possibly post some similar things of interest as and when I recover from the 10-hour living-death layover at Stansted and stop hallucinating.

Ghettosette – C64 Datasette/audioplayer conversion

syphus — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:26:25 +0000

C64 Datasette – you remember it. The Datasette embodies Commodore cheapskatery from start to finish: it was a cheapo alternative to a proper disk drive, it’s got a crudely thrown-together connector with wires hanging out and it’s even got a skinflint mono drive head apparatus. All expenses spared, so that Jack could keep the costs down!

So it turns out they last pretty well. And in this age of 1541 emulators, MMC64 interfaces and the like, it’s sad to see a Datasette sitting unused and unloved. So I decided to lavish about four quid on mine and turn it into a block-rocking pimp star supreme with:

an internal speaker
internal 9v battery power
an external in (for when I eventually get the recording head to work)
a line/headphone output
a switch/knob for power and drive motor speed control (though this doesn’t really work yet)
an unfeasible amount of mystery line noise, which I’m going to pretend is intentional and adds ‘character’.

As usual, my half-arsed attempts to document the process fell flat since I’ve lost the proprietary charger for my proper camera (damn you, Samsung) but I caught a few snaps on my phone cam and some of them aren’t too dreadful. The whole thing was a couple of hours of cheap fun – I probably got between £4 and £6 worth of stuff from Maplin on the way home for it. Eventually I’ll get some video of absolute junglist techno dub rave spaz horror madness being perpetrated with this tremendous device.

So does it work? Well… Yes. Basically. The speed control isn’t right yet – possibly because Commodore put a regulated motor in that stops dead below a certain input voltage. Although it’s supposed to take 5v and I’m giving it 9ish… and it falls off below 90% of the pot. Oh well.

Some other stuff isn’t spot-on yet, either. I couldn’t be bothered with the LED, but that’s a possibility. Oh, and like I said, the recording isn’t working perfectly.

The final shame? I don’t actually have any audio on tape to test in this! I’ve only got data cassettes, so I’ve been chilling to the blissful binary of Revenge of The Mutant Camels, Arkanoid and Firelord all night. I’m reasonably satisfied that I’m getting what’s on the tape out through the speaker/line, so that’s fine. Oh, and my speaker cut-out for when something’s plugged in isn’t working very well either – probably dodgy soldering on my part. Twill be fixed.

Updates will come…

Update: so I’ll stick in a different pot today and see how that goes. And probably rewire the record head to within an inch of its life, because being able to record line sources portably on this badboy would be extremely cool.

Up-Update: well I’m always willing to learn…and I’ve learnt two things. Firstly, that I need a Darlington pair (dual transistor circuit) to effectively control the tape speed. This is pretty standard stuff for motor speed control, but I’d never heard of it until my good friend Deltafire specifically detailed it to me. And now I realise what Jamie was suggesting in the first place :)

Secondly, SLC in #c-64 pointed out that the play head also does the writing, and the white head (which I thought was a record head) actually just erases. Well maybe everyone in the world knew this, but I didn’t – now I do! So I need to power that, but on a contact switch (maybe beneath the Record button) so that it doesn’t constantly wipe the magnetic data.

And I STILL think I can keep the entire cost of this mod well under £10. More soon.

Here’s what else I’d like to do:

Put a mono delay circuit from a cheap-shit Behringer guitar pedal, IF it fits in the case (running out of room fast). It’d be great to make this a gnarly dubbox.
Experiment with Arduino for motor control and some other cool stuff – after Jamie suggested some stuff in the comments, I discovered that little-scale has coincidentally done this sort of thing over here…
Make this a very very cheap project that I can distribute a simple how-to for. Arduino boards are wicked, but relatively expensive in view of what the Ghettosette is all about (wow, I’ve already idealogised it). If the total cost is under £7, plus around £5 for the Datasette (although ideally someone will have one lying around already – doesn’t everyone?), I’ll be happy.
Introduce some common sense: mount all jacks and pots in the lower portion of the case, using double-core wire that’s neatly glued down, fashion some sort of cradle for the battery (even though it sits pretty tight where it is) and ensure that battery replacement is straightforward and everything’s neat.
Use it to listen to Depeche Mode while flying a spaceship.