Find the Octavio at your local dealer

If you’ve been religiously following our blogs then you probably read about our discovery of a possible shortage of Octavio-stocking dealers. Next Byte seems to be the most reliable place to find them however they might start popping up elsewhere too. computer-generated image depicts our vision of a glorious future where the Octavio can be found around every corner near other more umbiquitious but less healthy and soul-nurturing products. Another similar photo and heaps of other Octavio pics can be found at Jamie’s flickr.

Regards,

Jacob on behalf of VAF

New Video: Music for 5 Octavios

Earlier this week I decided to film another video using the prototype Octavio I borrowed from Jamie. I decided to do something musical again cause that’s fun but I thought perhaps I’d try to incorporate the Octavio into the music to make it more interesting. There are two ways of making sound with the Octavio that I could think of – hooking it up to an audio source and cranking the volume and pounding the sturdy mdf cabinet like a drum.

I thought I’d pursue the pounding first because this was enjoyable and easy to film. One advantage was that I was able to show the VAF Octavio logo closeup which I thought would make people hungry to purchase one. Actually I just thought it was hilarious because it’s such a cheesy thing to do.

In playing sound through the Octavio I thought it would be important to make sure that the Octavio is more important than just a way to convert the electrical signal to sound waves so I figured the knob on top would have to come into it. The knob can do two things: switch audio source and adjust volume. Being the psycho overconfident testosterone-fueled teenager I am, I decided to do both. The tracks I used for all of this are detailed below.

• Two percussion tracks
• One synth where the switching between the Octavio’s audio inputs mutes and unmutes the synth (cause one input is wired and the other isn’t)
• One synth where the switching between the audio inputs of the Octavio switches between left and right panning (with a muted period in between). I did this by only wiring up the left channel of input 1 and the right channel of input 2.
• One track of an organ sound with volume swells performed using the Octavio’s volume knob. It’s hard to hear it in the video but I like the slightly glitchy sound of the Octavio’s stepped digital volume control.

I just recorded a small section of most of the tracks while filming and then looped the sound of the last track with the video progressing to the next.

This job is so much more fun than what most of my friends are doing in the holidays.

Thanks for listening

Jacob for VAF

New Octavio Video – Keyboard Rig

Jamie and I have been getting a lot of use out of the Octavio for various musical utility tasks where we need a convenient but dependable speaker system with a full frequency response that isn’t fatiguing to listen to. Anyway – I decided to make a promotional video about how I’ve been using it to play my sampler through for the last day. It really is convenient to have a little self-contained speaker box that I can just plonk down and plug in to avoid the discomfort of headphones and the difficulties in headbanging with them. The way I’ve set everything up here is the keyboard is talking to the sampler (grey box) via midi and then the sampler is sending audio to the Octavio so I can hear what I’m doing. Also the original song that I’m poorly trying to play can be found on Jamie and I’s myspace.

So anyway – I thought I’d try to be as pretentious as possible in this video because the playing is so bad – I thought it might be safest to take the piss. So I hope it’s okay with everyone. Either way – even though I’m not really a modern keyboard virtuoso I can say that the Octavio may be used for monitoring any audio source and if you have a lot of audio/music gear it is great to have around as a convenient and high-quality speaker system. Thinking of it as a Zune dock is really overlooking a lot of fun possibilities…..

Thanks for watching.

Jacob of the VAF Kids

I’ve made it to the spam!

Looks like I’ve become so famous that news about me has been stolen from Mike’s blog and is now featured on some spammy looking site. As long as the Octavio’s name is mentioned, I guess it might be okay. Any publicity is good publicity (perhaps?).When I recieve the first Octavio-selling spam email I’ll know things have gotten out of hand. Jacob

Practical Octavio Usage 101: Evicting your shed boombox

I just noticed (courtesy of my yahoo pipes) that Mike has chucked a photo of his Octavio in his shed on flickr (I reprinted it below). I can testify that the Octavio was there because Jamie had to retrieve it the other day so we could use it to monitor for a recording we were doing. You may notice that Mike actually doesn’t have any mp3 player in his Octavio which is because it is a Zune model he scabbed off Mr Vafiadis and unfortunately he doesn’t own a Zune. However this won’t stop anyone hooking up their radio through the aux inputs to spend some quality time in the shed.

My Sales Pitch:

The shallow form factor of the Octavio that was designed to sit on modern TV cabinets and compliment LCD screens also allows the Octavio to meld perfectly with your steel shed furniture or sit unobtrusively at the back of your workbench. The effortless, room-filling sound quality of the Octavio makes it suitable for small or large suburban sheds and the sound quality is more than likely to exceed the expelled boombox. Assuming that your shed’s acoustics are less hideous than average you may want to construct a comfortable chair to position in front of the Octavio for long listening sessions. I would recommend using one of the acoustic skins to protect those premium speaker cones from dust during productive sessions. Perhaps use a different coloured skin to the one you’re using when you take the Octavio inside for wild parties and general chillaxing.

So in summary – grab an Octavio for your shed and your mates will be around for a male bonding/jazz appreciation session in no time!

Jacob of the VAF kids