Osmose Expressive E and the Uncanny Valley

The internet has been buzzing with demos of the Osmose Expressive E since they started arriving to VIPs studios earlier this year. I have been fascinated by it since 3D renders of it showed up in November of 2019. Four years later, I finally have it and now that I’ve had a day or two to allow my brain to reassemble itself I’m ready to say something about it.

There are many directions that artists will steer this machine. One is by leveraging physical modeling to emulate acoustic instruments. Doing this requires developing the techniques and having the knowledge to work the Osmose into matching the range and textures of the target instrument. Secondly it requires expertly designed patches that can translate the subtleties of the player’s expression into the expected nuances. Benn Jordan has a great video here that goes into detail about how this can be done. I do not intend to address the debate regarding “should this be done?” in this article, other than to state that there is an ongoing debate (perhaps since music was electrically amplified) along with far reaching consequences to musicians and the music industry at large of which we all ought to be aware. Continue reading

Mothership Solo Album Release

On Black Friday, 2021 I released a solo album of 20 tracks, all recorded as a response to the despair of isolation and the horrors of… space. Yes, they were also recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and although the “despair of isolation and the horrors of” the global disease were (and are) a daily realty, working on this album was a way to escape.

The music was inspired by Mothership, a sci-fi horror tabletop role playing game, from which I borrowed the title. More accurately, it was inspired by group of friends with whom I played Mothership (the game) via video chat. I started with one dark ambient piece to get us in the mood for the game, which led to another, and another until the album was complete. Mothership (the album) is available by the good graces of Æther Sound. Read on for the liner notes: Continue reading

Parochial Dissonance by John C.S. Keston

Parochial Dissonance (Æther Sound, Dec. 4, 2020) – The title of this release describes the tragedy, loss, and suffering experienced when we narrow the scope of our worldviews. The album is a series of solo pieces captured from three streaming performances during the COVID-19 pandemic, and two live performances just before. Each piece was improvised within sets of rules applied to process, time, texture, and tonality. The pieces were performed on various synthesizers and Rhodes electric piano with occasional use of looping, arpeggiation, and signal processing. Continue reading for a look at the liner notes. Continue reading

Video: REV2 Patch Degrader Demo & Sounds

This video describes and demonstrates the device I designed to create most of the patches in the REV2 Experimental Sound Set available here on AudioCookbook.org:

https://audiocookbook.org/prophet-rev2-patch-set/

I am hoping to make it available sometime in the next few months if I can gage enough interest for a release. To hear five minutes of just the patches (no talking) please skip to 9:56. Also a complete playlist of all 128 patches is available on SoundCloud:

Playlist Started for Rev2 Experimental Patch Set

This incomplete playlist will eventually feature all 128 presets from the AudioCookbook.org Experimental Patch set for the Prophet Rev2. This collection includes experimental, glitch, special effects, and a few conventional patches. All the patches are entirely original creations built from the ground up or through custom morphing software developed in Max for Live for the Rev2. I’ll post more tracks to the playlist soon. Let me know if you have questions or if you’re interested in the set. Thanks!