03.11.08 Steve and Jez will be appearing at the Hampshire Jam 'Jam' at the Millenium Hall in Liphook on Friday 14th November 2008 and Astrogator will be playing live at Awakenings on Saturday 22nd November 2008, at Paget High School in Branston, Burton on Trent, along with Hashtronaut and Create. 

22.06.08 Astrogator, once more with special guest Peter Tedstone, will be perorming at Awakenings on 28.06.08, as a late replacement for N_Phay who had to puull out due to a bereavement.

22.06.08 Photos from Astrogator's appearance at Elektron, with special guest Peter Tedstone have been added to the photos page, along with a short Youtube video:

04.10.07 The Dreamlight Standard Edition will be available shortly, ordering information is on the merchandise page

23.06.07 Due to popular demand, Dreamlight is due to be released as a standard edition in time for E-Live. Further details will be added as they become available.

02.06.07 New Review of Dreamlight, by Phil Derby, added to the music page.

29.05.07 New gallery of photos added from Awakenings gig last year.

03.05.07 New Review of The Darkness Between, by Glenn Folkvord, added to the music page.

05.11.06 Astrogator now have a Myspace site which will feature extra mp3 samples of our music, including rare and unreleased stuff.

05.11.06 An edit of the Astrogator track The Darkness Between Part One is available on the limited edition compilation CD, The Hawke Chill Out Sessions, which is available direct from Terry Hawke

09.10.06 New merchandise page added to the site, featuring Astrogator albums and other merchandise, including the Astrogator T-shirt

09.07.06 The Astrogator set at the Awakenings was very well received, photos and full report in due course. Ordering info for Dreamlight has been added to the Music page.

08.07.06 New track entitled 'Astral Drift' appears on Awakenings 2005 vol 2.5 'Deep Ambient Drift'

29.06.06 The fruits of the last Astrogator session in June are to be released at the July 8th Awakenings gig as a limited edition of 50 copies entitled 'Dreamlight', which features two pieces edited together from the best bits of the rehearsals for the gig. Further details are available from the Music page, this will be updated to include ordering info soon.

05.06.06 Steve and Jez met up at Steve's house on 2nd - 4th June, primarily to go out on Steve's stag do but also to plan/rehearse the Astrogator set for the next gig, which is on July 8th at the Brudenell in Leeds. Steve and Jez will be doing a set as Astrogator and also individual solo sets as Create and Modulator ESP. Also appearing on the bill are the mighty Omega Syndicate. Should be a good one.

18.03.06 Steve and Jez got together for their 3rd Jam at Steve's house on the 16th and 17th March and prepared some new material which is more than likely to find it's way on to a future release. Photos from the session are on the Photos page.

24.01.06 Review of 'The Darkness Between' by Andy Garibaldi (Dead Earnest) added to the Music page. Thanks Andy  

01.01.06 Happy New Year form Jez and Steve - Excellent news to start the year, 'The Darkness Between' is one of Phil Derby's Best Electronic CDs of 2005 in the January issue of ElectroAmbient Space.

23.12.05 Extra E-Live photos added to the photos page. Thanks to Martin Hoegee, Menno von Brucken Fock and Stephan Schelle for photos.

27.11.05 Interesting review of  'The Darkness Between'  by Matt Howarth of Sonic Curiosity has been added to the Music page. Thanks Matt

25.11.05 Scan of the 4 star review of 'The Darkness Between' from e-dition 10 has been added to the Music page. Thanks Andre

17.11.05 Astrogator have submitted two tracks for inclusion in compilations. These were both recorded at the Create Awakenings gig on 12.08.05. The first part of the set, entitled Standing Waves, will be on disc 2 of the Awakenings 2006 Vol 1 set and the second, as yet untitled part will hopefully be on the CD issued with the next Sequences magazine. Both of these are due for release in 2006.

03.11.05 Photos from E-Live 2005 added to the Photos page

23.10.05 Very favourable review by Dave Law of Synth Music Direct added to the Music page. Thanks Dave

17.10.05 Steve and Jez had fun in Holland at E-Live, with the Astrogator part of Steve's set getting a very good reception. Photos and a full report will be added in due course. Next live appearance will be their first full set at Leeds in December.

01.10.05 The Darkness Between is now also available to purchase online from Groove and will be available from Synth Music Direct very soon.

01.10.05 A new review of 'The Darkness Between' has been added to the Music page. Thanks Artemi

18.09.05 Review of 'The Darkness Between' by Phil Derby (of Electro Ambient Space) added to the Music page. Thanks Phil

29.08.05 Jez and Steve will be performing as part of Astrogator on Sunday 4th September at Bunkers Hill in Nottingham as the encore to the Modulator ESP set - full details here

17.08.05 Prices for 'The Darkness Between' have been amended slightly following a visit to the post office

16.08.05 'The Darkness Between' is now now available to purchase via Paypal see the Music page for details. This is a home-made CDR release with quality laser printed inlays and labels.

08.08.05 Astrogator's debut album - 'The Darkness Between', will be released at the Create Awakenings gig on Friday 12th August at the Brudenell Club in Leeds. Steve and Jez will make their debut performance together as Astrogator as the encore to the Create set.

06.07.05 Steve Humphries aka Create has a new website.

03.07.05 Cover artwork and mp3 samples, for the debut Astrogator album - 'The Darkness Between', have been added to the Music page, along with recording and equipment information.

02.07.05 Chesterfield Jam 2 - Photos from the 2nd Chesterfield Jam added to the Photos page

02.07.05 Well the 2nd Chesterfield Jam is done and dusted. Once more we booked two days at Digital Image Studios in Chesterfield.

Chesterfield Jam 2 Report

Day One: We arranged to meet at the studio for about 10. Steve beat me there and was having a cup of tea and chat with Glen whilst waiting for me. I was itching to go so started unpacking whilst Glen made me a brew. With Glen's help we managed to get all the gear through the house to the decking outside the studio (see photo). As we had both decided to streamline our gear as much as possible and Steve had invested in some new stands so we were set up in double quick time. The only slight problem we had was Steve mangaing to scrape his Mum's car when moving it after we had unloaded. Luckily we managed to get some stuff to cover it up when we nipped out for lunch.

True to his word Glen had re-arranged things so that we could use the large half of the studio and had plenty of room to spread out in comparison to our rather cramped experience last time. This was extremely fortunate as it was a very hot, extremely muggy day and we would probably not have survived the heat.

Once set up we got straight into recording and did a mixture of ambient and sequence based tracks, plus work on some ideas for use in our upcoming live performances. We nipped out around 6 to book in to the hotel and thanks to Glen's wonderful map drawing skills managed to get almost but not quite completely lost, though not for too long as Chesterfield isn't actually that big. (the B&B we used last time had unfortunately just been sold). On our return we did another session until 10 then went for a curry. We went to the same place, got the same table and had the same food and it was gorgeous just the same.

We went backed to the hotel for a well deserved shower and off to bed, ready for an early start on day two.

Day Two: We awoke to find the weather had changed somewhat and found that although it was still hot, it had clouded over. We had fun getting back to the studio due to some roadworks prompting a bizarre diversion through the countryside. After another diversion for breakfast we arrived at the studio in the middle of a huge downpour and got completely soaked. No sign of Glen as he'd been out for some beer the previous night, so we had quick cuppa then back into the studio for some more recording. Strangely enough the heat was even worse and got extremely tiring. We had quite a productive day ending with a totally retro Mellotron and sequencer fest. Then it was time to pack up at the end of two days that had flown by. 

Big thanks to Glen for cups of tea, helping with carrying the gear and generally just a being a cool dude, even on day two when he was nursing his hangover. We both can't wait for the next one, but we've got a few gigs to perform first.

13.06.05 3rd Astrogator session in Chesterfield is booked for 23-24 June 2005

08.06.05 NEWS!! Jez will join Steve at his Awakenings gig on the 12.08.05 in Leeds. He will also be joining Steve at E-Live for an encore. Another Astrogator session is provisionally planned for the 23-24th June in Chesterfield. Work on the debut Astrogator album continues with editing now in it's final stages. It looks like it's going to be very ambient and spacey and currently has a provisional title of 'The Darkness Between'. Artwork and mp3s will be available soon from this site. Oh and the first Astrogator gig might be happening in the near future. So not much news then :-)

26.04.05 2nd session at Steve's house on Good Friday

09.01.05 Chesterfield Jam photos transferred from Modulator ESP website to new Photos page

07.01.05 Astrogator website online, come back soon as more stuff will be added shortly

15.12.04 First collaboration 

Chesterfield Jam Report (copied from Modulator ESP Blog)

Well the first Chesterfield Jam is all over now and was definitely a fun and interesting, though quite intense and often tiring experience. I think we both learned a lot from working with someone else and hopefully some of the stuff we produced will be worth releasing at some point.

Day One: I packed all my gear on Sunday night and printed off maps and directions. On Monday morning I was up nice and early to load the gear into the car and have some breakfast. I left my house at about 9:15 for the drive to Chesterfield to meet up with Steve at Digital Image Studios. Chesterfield is an easy journey for me as it's just 3 junctions up the M1, but I gave myself plenty of time, as you can never predict what will happen on the motorway. A good job too, as traffic completely ground to a halt for the last 10 miles, making a 30-minute journey into a 45-minute one. Still, I arrived just on time to find Steve had got there just before me. I parked the car and went in to find him chatting with Glen (the owner of the studio).

The Studio: The studio was a new building at the end of his back garden. Before unpacking, we decided to go down to have a look around and plan how we were going to set-up our equipment. We were expecting a room somewhat bigger than what we actually found. In my telephone conversations with Glen he'd said the room would be about 10' by 10' but it actually turned out to be more like 8' by 6'. It was really difficult to tell whether we'd actually be able to get all our stuff in. As we'd both invested a fair bit of time and effort getting our equipment out of our respective studios and were really itching to play together, we decide to give it a go. So then we started on the hardest part, unpacking and setting everything up, which entailed trailing to and fro through Glen's house and up and down the garden path, a job which wasn't helped much by the fact that Glen was in the middle of a major refurbishment/ re-decoration project, with piles of stuff dotted here and there to trip the unwary.

Setting Up: We decided to set Steve's gear up first, as he wanted to be in the farthest corner. As previously stated setting up wasn't much fun and it definitely wasn't helped by a particularly obstinate keyboard stand and an accident that left Steve's Prophecy slightly damaged. What a start! Luckily the Prophecy should be easy enough to fix and a spare part is on its way as I write.

We finally managed to get everything set-up in roughly 3 hours and finished just before lunch, we had a quick jam then went out to Pizza Hut for lunch. After lunch we nipped over to the B&B to pick up our keys, as we'd be finishing quite late.

Recording: We came back after lunch at about 2:30 and then played through 'til about 10 pm, recording 2 80-minute minidiscs worth of material. For most pieces we used a mixture of Steve's pre-prepared sequences (from Reason) and my improvised sequences (generated by MAQ 16/3 and Nord modular). We would usually jam for 10-15 minutes so that we could get some sounds and keyboard parts that worked together, then once happy we had an idea we'd hit the record button and just go for it. We tried to avoid falling into the trap of every piece having the usual structure of ambient bit followed by sequencer bit followed by ambient bit, though we found that we needed transitions between our different sequencer parts. We even worked on a shorter song that may make a good live encore one day.

At the end of the day... We went out for a curry, via the local supermarket to get out some cash to pay for the B&B and studio costs. During the meal we had a chance to discuss the day's events and decide on a plan for the next. After the most excellent curry we headed off to our B&B for some well-earned sleep. Alarms were set for an early start.

Day Two: Up early for a nice cooked breakfast then off to the studio. Got there to find Glen still having his breakfast.

Recording: Headed down to the studio, fired up all the gear and set to work, recording another 2 and a bit minidiscs worth of material. We even managed to get our sequencers to synchronise to each other, though this caused Steve problems as Reason insisted on jumping back to the first pattern set-up in it's sequencers, which unfortunately weren't the ones Steve wanted to use. Hopefully we will be able to avoid this next time we work together.

Packing Up: Finished at about 6:30 for a quick bite to eat and then started packing up at 7, which went altogether much more smoothly than the previous day's setting up. Managed to get everything packed in about an hour, then with help from Glen we got everything out to the cars and packed up ready to leave by about 8:30.

In conclusion: It has to be said that whilst the room was a bit smaller than we had expected and it wasn't that easy to get stuff in and out, Glen was extremely helpful and patient with our seemingly endless traipsing back and forth with piles of gear and said that next time we came we'd be able to use the larger control room, as he intended to swap the contents of the two rooms around.

The Music: From my point of view it was great playing and improvising music with someone else and though it was our first attempt I think that our styles complemented each other. We definitely had some inspired moments where it all came together, though there were also other pieces which were harder work. It was all good experience and hopefully with more practice we will be able to work together even better. It was something we'd both like to repeat, probably early next year. We each took a day's worth of recordings home to transfer to cd and exchange, prior to editing for compilation of the best bits into an album (or two)