Brett Bolton is a Las Vegas-based drummer and audiovisual artist. When he's not designing visuals for Dead & Co's show at the Vegas Sphere or Billie Eilish's latest tour, Brett is working on personal projects that involve real-time control of visual systems from behind the drum set.

The upcoming EP, titled simply EP1, explores the interaction between a human performer and a digital canvas by means of an acoustic drum set and a touchpad. In line with Brett's history of creating intricate connections between drums and visuals, each track of his new album is centered around a specific type of physical action and corresponding visual reaction. The first single is called "Avoid," and you can watch the live play-through below!

You've long been steeped in the worlds of both audio and video. Curious which side of that equation you first got into?

Well I've always loved playing drums, so that came first. I was in emo and punk bands as a kid and then in college, I started getting into electronics and production. I had a two-person band and eventually wanted to add visuals. I fell into the rabbit hole of learning Resolume, After Effects, and Cinema 4D. I was just tying together the drums and visuals as best I could as two really fun hobbies.

I eventually became a lot better at visuals than sound design, and there's more job opportunities for making visuals in Las Vegas, where I grew up. So, I eventually took that skill of making visuals ended up doing nightclub VJ packs, and, digital signage for the Vegas strip, all kinds of things.

At some point I started focusing exclusively on doing concert visuals and then learned a software called Notch, which is for real-time visuals. I really, really dove into that around think around 2017 and that's been my focus career-wise since then. Only recently have I have time to go back and focus on my own creative projects.

Can you tell us a little bit about your latest project, EP1, and how it fits into this audiovisual journey?

In many way, the new EP is a continuation of a lot of the things I've been doing since I first started doing drums and visuals together. It's all about finding an action--or interaction--between my physical movements and the digital canvas.

I have an XY controller and a drum kit with Sensory Percussion, and each song has a specific action associated with it. For example, the first single is called "Avoid" and it uses a particle system that avoids wherever my hand is on the controller while also responding to what I'm playing on the drums. So things are scattering and creating different patterns in real time.

Brett's Gear For EP1:

• Yamaha Stage Custom Hip kick, snare, and floor tom
• Sensory Percussion 2 sensors all 3 drums
• Zildjian K hi-hat + ride
• Embodme Erae Touch 2
• Audio software: Sensory Percussion + Ableton live
• Video software: Notch

What role does Sensory Percussion play in this setup?

I'm using a lot of the MIDI generator modules inside of Sensory Percussion to send MIDI to both Ableton, where there are instruments being played live alongside pre-recorded elements, and Notch, which is controlling all the visuals. I love all the sequencing options that Sensory Percussion offers, as well as how it can respond to different gestures across the drum.

For this project, I'm doing a lot of the audio stuff in Ableton and visual stuff in Notch. I'm using Sensory Percussion in a pretty simple way just to send different MIDI notes from a few different zones.

In "Avoid," the visuals are avoiding a certain area based on where you move your hand on the touchpad. What visual cues are the drums controlling via MIDI from Sensory Percussion? What about sonically? What types of sounds are controlled via MIDI from Sensory, as opposed to being part of the backing track?

Throughout "Avoid," I'm using the Erae touchpad to drive particles away from wherever I press. In the beginning of the song I record my movements on the pad, loop them, and then focus on playing the drums. Pressure and movement on the Erae opens up a filter for that ambient, kind of grainy sound you hear in the beginning of the track. So it makes it sound like the particles are reacting to the movements as they slosh around.

The MIDI from the drums (via Sensory Percussion) affects the sound and visuals as well. The kick pushes the particles out and triggers a quick high pass envelope on that grain sound filter any time it hits. The snare adds some additional geometry to the particles in the visuals and then creates some brightness bumps / inverts later on in the song.

You've used lots of different E-drums, MIDI controllers, and drum triggers over the years. What made you decide to use Sensory Percussion for this project?

Part of why I leaned towards using Sensory instead of a Roland MIDI trigger is so that when I have future things that pop up where I need to use the sequencer or use some sounds from inside Sensory, I can just drop that in and it's no problem.

But it's definitely been an evolution. I feel like I own every MIDI controller that's ever been built. For a while, I was using the Roland TD-50 with the hi-hat and everything, just because it was direct MIDI. That was cool, but there was something missing. For the new show and the new EP I was like, "Okay, I think I need to have real acoustic drums."

It had been almost a decade since I had played real drums, and it was super fun. So once I decided that, the obvious choice was to bring Sensory Percussion back in and kind of retool everything to be a hybrid kit. It's nice to have the option of super-detailed MIDI sequencing, but a big part of the decision was the hardware. I love that Sensory Percussion 2 comes with its own audio interface. Before, I had separate audio and MIDI interfaces, which was an extra step to set up. It's nice to now have a small, portable interface that handles all of that. I love being able to just plug into the interface, see the little light, and know that I'm good to go.

So basically, it frees me up to just play. I can have fun playing the drums while messing with my XY controller, and let the automated aspects handle all the section changes. Whatever is the most fun, I really lean towards that.

Where can people see or hear EP1 for themselves?

You can stream "Avoid" on all major platforms or watch the live version on Youtube, and then the full EP will be out on November 7th!