Synthetics & The Midi Thief were invited back to the Volt festival to do visuals for Le Petit Orb, a smaller version of the legendary British techno group The Orb. Unfortunately we had to work almost up until the gig started due to a computer crash the day earlier so we missed some of the other acts we really wanted to see. Volt had once again a nice line up with everything from the more obscure and experimental electronic acts to high energy techno DJ sets.

We had decided to go 16:9 this time and it introduced some problems in combination with our technical setup. This is one of those situations where Toby Spark’s D-Fuser DVI mixer would have come in handy. But apparently you can do 16:9 through an Edirol V-4 mixer and even record from the mixer to DV-tape if you do some clever squishing.

The VJ set went very well and our graphics were more in sync than ever before. Maybe loosing a little bit in eccentricity but what the hell, it was tight! We had tried to get hold of Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann through their management before the gig to be able to gain some knowledge about how they had planned their performance. We never managed to get hold of them that way but I bumped into them backstage a few minutes before the gig. What a dynamic duo, the calm Fehlmann contrasting the rowdy Paterson, something that was also very present on stage.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Le Petit Orb gig and Volt 2010 and we wouldn’t mind coming back next year.