About John CS Keston

John CS Keston is an award winning transdisciplinary artist reimagining how music, video art, and computer science intersect. His work both questions and embraces his backgrounds in music technology, software development, and improvisation leading him toward unconventional compositions that convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. Performers are empowered to use their phonomnesis, or sonic imaginations, while contributing to his collaborative work. Originally from the United Kingdom, John currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he is a professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of St Thomas. He founded the sound design resource, AudioCookbook.org, where you will find articles and documentation about his projects and research. John has spoken, performed, or exhibited original work at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2022), the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2022), the International Digital Media Arts Conference (iDMAa 2022), International Sound in Science Technology and the Arts (ISSTA 2017-2019), Northern Spark (2011-2017), the Weisman Art Museum, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Institute of Art, the Eyeo Festival, INST-INT, Echofluxx (Prague), and Moogfest. He produced and performed in the piece Instant Cinema: Teleportation Platform X, a featured project at Northern Spark 2013. He composed and performed the music for In Habit: Life in Patterns (2012) and Words to Dead Lips (2011) in collaboration with the dance company Aniccha Arts. In 2017 he was commissioned by the Walker Art Center to compose music for former Merce Cunningham dancers during the Common Time performance series. His music appears in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) and he composed the music for the short Familiar Pavement (2015). He has appeared on more than a dozen albums including two solo albums on UnearthedMusic.com.

Sequential Circuits Pro-One Restoration Part 2

Posted on March 23, 2010 by John CS Keston

Although I had seen photos of the Rev 1.2 mushrooms (mine was made prior to Rev 1.2), I didn’t expect to see Chenrezig, the Tibetan Buddha of Compassion, silk screened onto the circuit board of my Sequential Circuits Pro-One, or the Buddhist mantra, “Om Mani Padme Hum”, etched into the board in Tibetan characters. Even better, Sequential Circuits founder and MIDI pioneer Dave Smith initialed the circuit board twice in the upper left hand corner.

I should mention that this is my second Pro-One. The first one was stolen, and I bought the second one to replace it since I needed that exact sound for the band I was in at the time. The new one was missing a mod wheel. Later one of the knobs was broken off at a show or studio session, so I’m pretty excited to have it restored to it’s former glory.

Checkout the gallery to see the photos of the restoration process. The second and final session of the restoration happened the moment I received the missing parts. These included a replacement modulation wheel (although I think it turned out to be a pitch wheel), a replacement potentiometer, and a missing knob.

The first thing I did was install the mod wheel. Then it was time to swap out the broken pot. I had to remove the circuit board to do this, so while I had it out I thought it would be a good idea to clean things up a bit, so that was the majority of time spent. Finally I removed the old pot, replaced it, and reassembled everything, cleaning things up along the way. Before I put all the screws in I gave it a quick listen to make sure it still worked and the new parts were functional. It was an evening’s work, but more like fun to be honest. Enjoy the pics.

Four Oscillator Drone Produced with the WSG

Posted on March 20, 2010 by John CS Keston

What good is a Weird Sound Generator if you’re not using it to make weird sounds? Sometimes it is nice to just hold it on your lap and stroke it gently. That aside, it’s quiet useful once you plug it in and start twiddling the knobs. Here’s a piece I created by tuning the each of the four oscillators on the WSG and then fiddled with the filters. At the same time I made some adjustments to a phaser that I was running it through in Ableton Live and topped it off with ping pong delay.

Four Oscillator Drone

WSG Build Gallery

Posted on March 17, 2010 by John CS Keston

I’ve created a slideshow that illustrates the process of building my Weird Sound Generator, from the unopened box through completion of the project. The third photo in the series (shown below) shows the items that came out of the box including all of the components for the WSG and a CD by Ray Wilson titled Electroluminescence.
Continue reading →

Korg MS2000 Bricked by Firmware Update

Posted on March 16, 2010 by John CS Keston

ACB readers are sure to be aware from previous posts that my Korg MS2000 is one of my favorite and most indispensable synths. Embarrassingly I seem to have turned it into a drink stand during a firmware update. I used the firmware upgrade utility on korg.com to attempt the update. The process failed part way through and now my beloved instrument is a brick, well more like a cement block, that shows a blank back-lit display after turning it on. I’ve tried resending the update at all the available speeds that the utility allows with no impact on the results. I also tried a factory reset to no avail. I’m going to try again tomorrow with a different MIDI interface, but I’m afraid that this isn’t going to be an easy fix. I’ve searched the forums for a solution, but haven’t found anything. If anyone has any suggestion, please let me know. I’m desperate to get this thing up and running again.

Weird Sound Generator

Posted on March 15, 2010 by John CS Keston

This weekend I completed building a Weird Sound Generator, or WSG, component kit from Music From Outer Space. The kit comes with a printed circuit board and all the electronics, including resistors, capacitors, diodes, ICs, potentiometers, switches, and wires. The rest, like the housing, faceplate, and soldering is up to the builder.

I built a box similar to the recommended specifications and cut the faceplate out of an old computer case. The wood I used was scraps that I held onto and recycled. In fact, I managed built the entire instrument without buying anything beyond the kit itself. Even the stain, nails, glue, screws, and backing board were materials that I had hoarded from previous projects over the years.

It took me about thirteen hours to complete. But, it was a fun thirteen hours of playing with my soldering iron and power tools while following instructions, or coming up with a way to cut through metal, or mount a nine volt battery inside an already cramped case. And, although the case isn’t perfectly square, and the leads are more than a bit tangled, I’m pleased with the little noise maker that I now have at my disposal. In the next entry I’ll illustrate the sequence of events that took place in building this device. Oh yeah… and sounds.