Everything we've made that's good.12/08/2009
Calvin Harris - Humanthesizer
Calvin performs a version of his new single Ready For The Weekend on a unique human synthesiser. The instrument employs 15 bikini clad models painted with Bare Conductive, a new skin safe ink which conducts electricity. When the performers touch the connection completes a circuit, triggering a sound.
The instrument consists of 34 pads on the floor which have been painted with the conductive ink and connected to a computer via some clever custom electronics. The performers stand on the pads, and touch hands to complete a circuit and trigger a sound. Different combinations of pads trigger the different sounds needed to play the track. ‘Making of’ video is also on Calvin’s YouTube channel.
The project is the result of a collaboration between Calvin Harris and masters students from the Royal College of Art’s Industrial Design Engineering programme.
Bare Conductive was developed by RCA students Bibi Nelson, Becky Pilditch, Isabel Lizardi and Matt Johnson. The custom electronics and software for the project were created by Matt Johnson, employing two Arduinos and the graphical audio programming tool Max MSP. The performers, floor pads, Arduinos and Max MSP combine to create a giant MIDI controller which is used to create music which is sequenced and quantized with Ableton Live.
Special thanks to:
RCA / Bare Conductive - Bibi Nelson, Becky Pilditch, Isabel Lizardi, Matt Johnson - http://www.bareconductive.com
Jerwood Space - http://www.jerwoodspace.co.uk
Video posted at 08:08
27/07/2009
The Kasabian site which was relaunched about 8 weeks ago has the most badass discography section we’ve ever built.
It helps when you’ve got a band with a highly collectable catalogue, and one who have actually had some decent b-sides over the years.
There’s no flash carousel that revolves all the releases, because that’s not what I’d mean by ‘badass’. What I mean is ‘lots of data, really nicely organised’. There’s a hierarchy of data, with media (title + type + url) linked to tracks (title + notes + lyrics) which link to formats (title + cat # + artwork) which are part of a release (title + date + notes + purchase links + country + type).
So, when you turn all that data around and look at it from the front-end, you get nicely presented details to satisfy the completists, and a media playlist which is autogenerated by the tracks linked to the release. And, if you’re on an individual track page, it will auto-generate a list of releases that the track features on.
Now, I know that no-one is going to write in and congratulate us for something that they’ll pretty much take for granted. But the cleanliness of the structure pleases me greatly. It’s the latest in a line of beautiful databases that we’ve made with Kleber, who are most excellent at this sort of thing.
Photo posted at 10:34
25/03/2009
Phil and Steve won this for this, last night at the Media Guardian Innovation Awards 2009.
That’s pretty nice.
Photo posted at 11:09
30/01/2009
» Google Translate module for Expression Engine
Steve built an EE module which gives the user ability to translation any article types we specify on the site.
Whilst Google Translate isn’t an entirely reliable service and various comedy mistranslations can apply (eg “would like to thank my fans” becoming “would like to thank my air conditioning”), this is very useful for artist blog content, which is unlikely to ever be officially translated from its native language. Most users will forgive the odd oddity.
‘X Factor’ is ‘Factor X’ in German. Who knew.
Link posted at 18:01
30/10/2008
Facebook app that allows you to send a number of variations on the rock ‘horns’ to your friends. Including, coincidentally, some AC/DC horns.
Photo posted at 16:25
23/10/2008
AC/DC ExcelVision
An actual genuine full-scale success. AC/DC’s Rock’n’Roll Train is the world’s first video in MS Excel format, downloadable at acdcrocks.com/excel.
The spreadsheet has been downloaded over 700,000 times at time of writing, and that of course does not include e-mail forwarding. The demo video above has just passed 1m views, and has had a YouTube honours list as long as your arm.
Video posted at 16:30
09/09/2008
Produced in-house as a kind of pressure-release valve, to be used in cases of client idiocy. Most of us get to use it about once a fortnight.
Photo posted at 16:13
25/08/2008
Global Websites
During 2008 we’ve spent a lot of time developing global websites for artists. These use geo-IP detection to recognise the user’s location, and then display locally relevant content.
The benefits of having all of your traffic and analytics in one place are significant. As far as Google is concerned, The Script’s website has over 67,000 pages (at time of writing), for example.
Smart and flexible CMS systems have been developed with 2 different agencies, as well as in-house.
In-house: Leona Lewis
Kleber: Newton Faulkner, The Script, Dido
Ten4 Design: The Ting Tings, Glasvegas
Photo posted at 15:47
20/08/2008
Facebook & Bebo cross-platform app, built for the Michael Jackson King Of Pop album, released around his 50th birthday. Users could compete on either site, and have their scores run on to the same leaderboard. Played by over 120,000 people during the prize week in August 2008.
Photo posted at 16:08
26/07/2008
![The Naked App
Facebook app which allows you to arrange the heads of your friends on the bodies of [nearly] naked people. And inimitably, you will find that you want to buy Ida Maria records.](http://26.media.tumblr.com/yYUmpgqcPh0axarcdGk111Eoo1_500.jpg)
Facebook app which allows you to arrange the heads of your friends on the bodies of [nearly] naked people. And inimitably, you will find that you want to buy Ida Maria records.
Photo posted at 16:20
