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 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

Octavio Interview Remix RadArtFilm

I’d like to unveil Wholesale Meat Media’s first promotional film (propaganda?) – a remix of an interview we found on the web where Mr Vafiadis was talking about the Octavio. Thanks heaps to Duncan for posting the original video at on10.net. Oooops I think I may have forgotten to ask permission to remix it but Mike tells me that they are probably cool about it (I hope so?). Anyway – shout of thanks to them.

I mainly chose the segments of closeup moving octavio footage and just used iMovie’s inbuilt processing to make everything look a bit like a dated music video. Hopefully this should suit the 80s-style octavio theme tune I made yesterday. I would have to say that Mr VAF is really quite an exciting guy to talk to (even though most of what he says goes over my head).

Anyway – please enjoy the viewing and be seduced into purchasing an octavio.

Jacob on behalf of VAF

New Octavio Theme Song

Hi Everyone

I’ve just been working on a little Octavio theme song that I’m sure will aid in it’s conquest of the world. Jamie and I are planning to accumulate as many cliche jingles as possible to spice up our podcasts and use as backing music for the video remixes.

This song is mainly influenced by all that 80s spacey pop music. I don’t really know how I’m trying to imitate it because all I’ve heard is a bit of Peter Gabriel and Enya, but anyway spacey synthesizers (check), world music percussion (check), exaggerated reverrrrrbbbbbb (check)……….I had a fair bit of fun doing this and I think you should all have a listen to the mp3 linked below. I would recommend listening on a VAF product because you won’t fully appreciate the depth of the music on anything else :-p .

Octavio Theme 1 (1.5mb)

I hope everyone’s having a great time (yay I’m still on holidays)

Jacob on behalf of VAF

p.s. Jamie and I have written a rap about Powermove (the Octavio’s distributor) and it should be on the way soon……..

Octavio Videos Discovered

Hey everyone

Jamie and I have just been holidaying at the beachside town of Middleton so there has been a lull in posting. Anyway, we are back and ready to continue learning, finding, creating etc.

Until recently, we didn’t realise that there were videos on the octavio. But it turns out there are two and they are both great. My highlight would have to be Freddy Mercury’s guitar solo during the octavio demonstration. I can verify that Mr Vafiadis really is knowledgeable about the technical stuff as evidenced by his explanation in the interview. I asked him about the use of the passive bass radiator because some people are calling it a fake subwoofer and he went into detailed explanation about how although it’s passive, it fulfills a role similar to a port and allows the system to be more efficient. I am really quite excited about the mashup opportunities and a mashup would be a good excuse to make a soundtrack which would be fun so let’s do it.

Octavio Demonstrative Promotional Video

Octavio Interview with Mr Vafiadis

Jacob on behalf of VAF

Practical Octavio Usage:Backyard Cinema

My mate Lachy and I have been wanting to find a use for the old projector my uncle gave me for a while now. In the end we decided to invite some of our friends around and setup our own outdoor theatre. This involved hanging a blanket from the eaves of Lachy’s house and sitting the projector on some chairs in front with a computer providing the video. For sound Jamie provided his prototype octavio beneath the screen with a long RCA cable feeding it from the computer. The teenage attendees (including fellow Octavio blogger Jamie) were treated to the classic Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

The octavio is the shadowed box beneath the person kneeling at the screen (the purple glow of the status light is visible in both photos). I will mention for theatrical effect that Lachy rang me the afternoon before and asked if he should setup some other kind of speaker system because he was unsure whether the octavio would be loud enough. There were definitely no complaints once the octavio was cranked and we turned it down from it’s full capacity for fear of annoying the neighbours. Dialogue could be heard by those chilling in the pool and the music was certainly punchy. I noticed that the difference in volume between music and dialogue was much more apparent on the Octavio than on average TV speakers. Definitely more “cinemaish” (cinematic?). Our friends were quite surprised at how loud and clear such a little box could be. I really couldn’t imagine a more suitable device because the octavio could easily be chucked unobtrusively under the screen without carrying the separate components of a normal hifi and having to wire the speakers.

Hope this blog was half interesting – we definitely enjoyed a movie on the warm summer night. We are trying to think of more cool stuff we could do with Jamie’s octavio so there should be more photo posts from us soon.

Jacob – VAF Octavio Cheerleader

Octavio is Big Star

As Jamie and Mike have already commented on – the Octavio has just made it’s first appearance on national TV on the South Australian Breakfast show Sunrise. We’ve been waiting for it to pop up on the Sunrise website and it seems to have just appeared here. Vases not included (take a look at that sexy photo).
Jacob for VAF

Octavio in Top 8 Gifts for Zuners

Harvey Chute of Zunerama just named the Octavio one of the best zune-related gifts available. If I didn’t already have speaker systems lying around the house everywhere I reckon I’d be pretty pumped if my parents got me an Octavio. I don’t even own a zune or iPod (though I sometimes borrow my dad’s) but it would still be pretty convenient running off a CD player or computer (like Jamie does) and would be a treat to take out at parties.

If I ever get any work doing more location recording for people, I’m thinking this would be a really useful way to provide basic playbacks to people at the time at reasonable fidelity and volume as it can be a bit awkward passing the headphones around to 5 different band members. Actually we’ve been discussing some posts we could do about the different uses of the Octavio. In a couple of weeks time, Jamie and I are due for a family holiday to Middleton (a little seaside town near Adelaide) and I think we should be able to bring a little recording setup (like we did last year) using a tape deck and the Octavio.

Jacob for VAF

Zunerama Octavio Photo Review

I just found this extremely comprehensive review of the octavio including some heaps of useful photos that demonstrate the octavio’s various features and the included acoustic skins. Sounds like some people are starting to treat the Octavio as a full blown hi-fi and not just a portable speaker system to take outside or put in the bedroom. After listening to the Octavio at a Jamie’s house, I agree with the review – it really has the capacity to fill a room with music and not just provide a little background noise. As zunerama was saying – I also found it quite suitable for a wide range of styles because it’s sound seemed more balanced than some of the other modern speaker systems I’ve heard.

This is definitely the best review I’ve seen on the octavio so far and the photos are very illustrative.

Jacob – VAF Fanboy (why?)

Conversation detected!

After a little searching on google groups to see what people have been saying about the new Octavio, I found three results. One of them looked like pornography, one seemed to be in spanish, but I also found a little conversation that occurred last year about the Octavio on an Australian hifi group. This was over a year ago so perhaps the Octavio was a little harder to find back then and appeared to be vapourware. Now I just need to find modern forums where the octavio may be discussed and learn to use yahoo pipes to find the conversation quickly so I can use my blogrss2.0web skills to do something…………… that we’re still trying to figure out. Jamie seems to have found a nice conversation too in the comments of this article. Interesting.

Happy surfing/aggregating

Jacob on behalf of VAF