Joshua Eustis

In this video, you can see him playing a Jazzmaster. At 3:43 it can be seen perfectly.

What is the toolkit you built in Max?

It’s basically a big standalone app I built in Max, which I then parted out into individual pieces for Max for Live, for working within Ableton Live. I knew that [Live] was gonna be the canvas for this thing because of its implementation with Max. It was either learn Max and deal with the idea of Max For Live controlling timing in Ableton, or learn Javascript and try to do it in Logic, and that seemed much harder. Ableton just feels like home right now.

Did you strike upon an angle of approach you thought would be the right thing to do for Telefon Tel Aviv?

After five years trying to figure if I was even gonna do the damn thing in the first place, I had to figure out what the sound was gonna be. Once I got my brain around that it was like, ‘Oh, I'm not gonna be able to do this with my current skill set.’ I realised I had to dig in on Max, so I started learning Max online around 2016 and then spent two years while tinkering with little melodies and lyrics and saving them. While doing all that, I spent two and a half years building the tool kit I needed to make the record.

What is the toolkit you built in Max?

It’s basically a big standalone app I built in Max, which I then parted out into individual pieces for Max for Live, for working within Ableton Live. I knew that [Live] was gonna be the canvas for this thing because of its implementation with Max. It was either learn Max and deal with the idea of Max For Live controlling timing in Ableton, or learn Javascript and try to do it in Logic, and that seemed much harder. Ableton just feels like home right now.

In this Youtube video, at 0:52, Joshua Eustis can be seen using a Monome Grid 64.

In this Youtube video, at 4:28, Joshua Eustis can be seen using a Roli Seaboard RISE 25.