TECH News BEARDYMAN
Beardyman has taken the art of beatboxing to a totally new level, using his vocals in a way that most would love to achieve with just technology — let alone their mouths! The range of sounds that he generates is mind-boggling, so when he told us he’s created the Beardytron 5000 to enhance his live shows — “a slice of technology like no-other” — DJ Mag USA just had to know more…
Tell us about the Beardytron 5000 MkII, Beardy… “The Beardytron 5000 MkII is my new live/recording system. It’s one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted by an electronic musician and I’m becoming increasingly convinced that I’m mental for pursuing it this far. It’s bearing amazing results but it’s been incredibly expensive and mentally exhausting to bring it to fruition. I’ve basically paid some of the most intelligent people in the world to build me my ideal live-production system. It’s nuts, and I love it. I’m going to make a lot of music with it.”
What is it? Is it hardware or software-based, or a combination of the two? “It’s software, but it’s tightly integrated with all the hardware I use to control it. Three iPads, Native Instruments Maschine, and some Roland foot pedals. The iPads are running bespoke programs and contain about twenty gestural control elements, which are entirely unique to the Beardytron. “I’m still using the TC Voicelive, as there’s really nothing like it. I’m also using an Eventide PitchFactor, because it’s awesome. Much of the hard work in getting the system to work was getting all the components to work together.”
When did you come up with the idea to create the Beardytron 5000?” About seven years ago I suddenly realized that electronic music was repetitive, and as such could be generated in real time using a very complex looper. I sought out any way I could to do just that, but found no perfect way of doing it. A lot of the units I bought were inspiring, like the Looperlative, for example. I bought one, it’s a 1U Rackmount Unit which does some very clever looping stuff but it wasn’t complex enough for me and I couldn’t get it to work properly — it kept crashing. I began to realize I’d have to go down the software route. “I had an inkling I’d end up at this point, but for a while I was trying to use freeware and stitch it all together in a routing environment called Plogue Bidule. This proved tricky as it would glitch and freak out and crash for reasons beyond my ability to unearth. I then sought help from one of the most pre-eminent Max-MSP developer/artists in the world, a lecturer named Sebastian Lexer. But we found that Max was not suited to the task and after three promising but agonisingly fruitless years I had to approach a man named Dave Gamble, who has given me more time than either of us ever expected it would take, and together we have built this beast. I say ‘together’, I’ve been there watching him code, which is an unbelievable sight I can tell you, then I would test the feature and find bugs. It’s been insane. But it’s finally stable and fully featured, and it’s so much fun to use.”
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Is the Beardytron taking what you do one step further? “It’s validating my ethos, as I see it. I’ve always felt that my ability to make music in the way that I’ve wanted to has been hampered by the lack of this system. Now it finally exists, I can do the kind of shows I’ve been trying to do all these years — and it sounds beautiful. There’s per-channel sub-band side-chain compression, a complex routing and resampling system, all made by DMG Audio (Dave Gamble). I don’t even travel with a sound man anymore as I don’t need one, the whole thing mixes itself and I can do feedback destruction from the stage during sound check. It’s really quite beautiful. “In terms of the content of the shows, I can now finally do the kind of subtle things I’ve always wanted to. I can make fully formed songs and keep things separated and mixed carefully, without having to ever mix up channels or source sounds. I never miss a drop as everything’s quantized: if I just splurge my hands all over the iPad screens that control the thing, the worst thing that can happen is that I get a musical result I didn’t expect. It’s impossible for this thing to produce a musically displeasing result by accident, but that said, nothing is pre-planned, there are no menus, no tabs, everything is intuitive and getting increasingly more intuitive as time goes by and the system gets refined. I’m very proud of it. With any luck I’ll be able to keep working on it, so that it simply knows what I’m thinking and does it for me by sensing my thoughts.”
Who else has been involved in the creation of Beardytron? “Sugar Bytes have been key to the project’s success. The system uses seventeen instances of Turnado, Sugar Bytes’ award-winning multi-effect. Also, Nick Dowell, another coding genius, was involved. He coded the multi-threaded audio engine necessary to process the insane amount of data moving through the system in real time. The processing is split between the cores, and all meets up at the other end, sample-accurate.”
Will the Beardytron 5000 be available for general public use in the future? “No, but smaller more useable offshoots might be available quite soon.”
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