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.

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.

Exploring The Sounds of Ice

Posted on March 14, 2010 by John CS Keston

This is one of the coolest (no pun intended) sound design projects ever. Marlin Ledin rode his bike and camped around the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior covering about 150 miles on the ice recording the creaks and groans of the shifting ice plates. Listen to his recordings and checkout photos and videos of his expedition at www.bikingtheapostles.com. Marlin describes the ice sounds:

The Lake Drums, as some people call them, are an amazing phenomenon that rank right up there with Aurora Borealis. Lake drums, or drumming perhaps, occurs when a shift in the ice creates friction between sheets of ice, like tectonic plates of the earths crust. The unique sounds created come after these shifts in the ice. I ventured out and captured some of these sounds with modern recording techniques.

Sequential Circuits Pro-One

Posted on March 12, 2010 by John CS Keston

I have finally started restoring my Sequential Circuits Pro-One. My plan is to get it as close to mint condition as possible and start using it again for recording and perhaps performing. Once I started using the Korg MS2000, I neglected the Pro-One and it fell into disrepair. Over time the key contacts became dirty and inconsistent. At some stage one of the knobs was broken off and lost, leaving a stub of potentiometer protruding uselessly from the control panel.

The first thing I did was clean the pots. For you laymen, pots is short for potentiometers. In other words, I wasn’t diverted by dirty dishes. To clean the pots I removed the knobs and then squirted a few drops of a greaseless lubricant called LPS-1 around the post. The stuff works wonders on crackly volume knobs and was recommended to me by the electronics experts at AEI Electronics in Minneapolis years ago. I’ve been using it ever since. After applying the LPS-1 I made thirty or more rotations of the pot from zero to maximum so that the dirt particles were worn away by the fluid.

I put the thing back together and did some tests. The knobs no longer had anymore crackling going on, so that was fixed, but the keyboard was horribly inconsistent. The Pro-One uses a J-wire keyboard with open air connectors that are prone to collecting dirt (or residue from malted beverages spilled over the keys). For a close up view of the Pro-One J-wires check out this post on MaxtrixSynth. Another problem is that the J-wires can become less springy, making the connections a bit weak. I used used q-tips with a drop of LPS-1 to clean each J-wire and the metal bar that they connect to when the key is depressed. I also bent the J-wires slightly to improve the tension. After all that I tested it again to find it working flawless, although still a little difficult to tune. Next up I’ll be replacing the missing mod wheel, the broken potentiometer, and the missing knob.

Social Sound Design

Posted on March 8, 2010 by John CS Keston

Social Sound Design is a Q&A site for sound designers recently created by Andrew Spitz of { sound + design }. It looks like it has the potential to be an excellent resource. If you’re not familiar with Andrews site { sound + design } I recommend that you check it out as well. From SSD:

SSD is a Q&A site encompassing all the wonderful disciplines of sound design: film, game, art and installations, sound effects, new media, software, programming (Max/MSP; Pd, etc.), Arduino and micro-controllers, gear, feedback, recording, techniques and tips… as long as it involves sound design it is welcome here!