Team

Jay Smith - Founder and everything else
I am the Founder of Livid and I also design our tours. I started my career in performance technology with the creation of Viditar (video guitar) which I perform in my band Sinch, and side project Ocular Noise Machine. I was interested in creating a device to perform video with the same expression and physical controls that a guitarist uses so I created the Viditar. I performed with my band in venues all over the country and met the other Livid founders Travis and Peter during my first tour in 2002. After a few years of performing with my own inventions, I created Livid in 2004 to bring performance instruments to the market. I am very interested in real-time performance and inventive DIY interactive technology.

At Livid I do a little bit of everything from interface design to coming up with offensive nicknames for everyone. I have had the opportunity to work with some great artists and performers along the way, while creating new products to encourage experimentation. I also teach in the Multimedia department at The University of The Arts in Philadelphia and enjoy experimental performance art, pranks, Kurt Vonnegut, and watching First Blood (Rambo).

Peter Nyboer - Software and cocktail expert
Though I'd like to be described as a raconteur, a bon-vivant, or even a nomme-de-guerre, I'll content myself by having largely avoided a life described by French pejoratives. Dressed simply and comfortably, I have pursued the satisfaction of trying to bring music and video to life through software. Math and physics were degreed at UC Santa Cruz, but their workings were made explicit in the electronic music studio, and I have been entranced ever since. I was introduced to Max/MSP and "physical computing" as a way of re-imagining music, and the my clumsy attempts at guitar were quickly supplanted by the worlds of digital and analogue signal processing.

I have created a variety of interfaces for audio and video, first trying out a solo software project for realtime video as YOW*, the first commercial quicktime video mixer. I worked with Naut Humon at Sound Traffic Control and Recombinant Media Labs in San Francisco, which was pretty much the greatest incubator of out-there music expression, with multiple audio channels and video screens. We had to figure out ways to make it all sync up, and be "performable," and in some ways, Livid software is a product of those challenges and problems that are still looking for a solution.

When I'm not obsessing about software architecture, user interaction, or a new video effect, I like to play some basketball, take a trip in the pop-up, fix up a bike, roast some meats, make a cocktail, and grow some veggies in the yard.


Travis Redding- Hardware and anything that can be cut, assembled, built, or broken
As the hardware development and production side of Livid I am responsible for boiling down all the far out concepts that goes on at Livid into real world applications and capabilities. For that I am solidly rooted in the 3D world. If you are having a problem with our software compatibility and your operating system you don't wan't to call me. However, if you have an idea for a crazy new controller, building a 4 axis CNC machine from scratch, or turning a 3D CAD file into a real 3D object then I am your man. I have a multidiscipline background in construction, woodworking, cabinetry, furniture design, CNC machine operation, and have been building guitars and basses since 1998. In addition to my craftsmanship background, I have a B.A. in marketing so I not only think about what we can build, but what users actually want.

I started working with Jay after seeing him perform on tour with the first Viditar that had a square neck made out of sheet plexiglass. I did admire the inventiveness but as a bass player myself I asked "don't your hands hurt playing that thing night after night?". I quickly offered to build a machined wood body with a guitar neck shape. As it turned out I had a patented on a string triggering system and had no idea of how to control it with software. And here we are. Someday we may get around to building the Viditar and my string triggering instrument for market.