Art + Music + Technology

Posted on September 14, 2015 by John C.S. Keston

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Recently I had the honor and pleasure of having a discussion with Darwin Grosse for his podcast Art + Music + Technology. If you’re not familiar with his interviews I suggest that you check out his program. Darwin’s straight forward conversations with a broad range of media artists seem to fill a void that no other programs do. It’s hard to single out any of the programs specifically because they are all entertaining (and educational), but some of my favorites (sorted alphabetically) include:

Brian Crabtree
Richard Devine
R. Luke DuBois
Mark Henrickson
Andrew Kilpatrick
Keith McMillen
Ali Momeni
Pauline Oliveros
Gregory Taylor
David Zicarelli

BYOB: Carnage, E-Turn, and Ostracon at the Dakota

Posted on August 28, 2015 by John C.S. Keston

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This Saturday, August 29, Carnage the Executioner presents B.Y.O.B. at the Dakota in Minneapolis. B.Y.O.B. stands for “Be Your Own Band”, and that title will make complete sense once you hear about the artists on this bill.

Carnage aka Terrell Woods can only be defined as a multi-instrumentalist even though he performs exclusively with his own voice. Carnage uses his vast vocal range to emulate bass, drums, synth lines, samples, percussion, turntablism, and more, layering and synchronizing the arrangements with nothing but an off-the-shelf loop pedal. On top off all that he stacks his extraordinary rhyming facilities.

Orlando based artist E-Turn is a mega-talent who often combines forces with DJ SPS and many other notable artists. E-Turn effortlessly generates an orchestra of music and vocals during her performances while drawing from her hiphop influences, Persian vocals, and Iranian poetry.

Ostracon is myself on synthesizers and Graham O’Brien on drums. The two of us perform evolving compositions that fuse rich analog electronics with dynamic live drumming. You’ve heard plenty about us here on audiocookbook.org, but at this show we will be presenting new tracks that we recently recorded for our next album.

What all of us on this very special bill have in common is a drive to make music that is bigger that we are. Hence, “Be Your Own Band”. Music starts at 11pm. Cover is $7 and ages 18 and up are admissible. Don’t miss it!

MNKINO Film Fest: Familiar Pavement with Aaron Marx

Posted on August 27, 2015 by John C.S. Keston

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On August 13 I had the pleasure of performing an original film score to picture at the Landmark Center in St. Paul for MNKINO Film Fest 2015. The event featured more than twenty short films with original scores. Most of the scores were performed to the films by a talented orchestra assembled for the event. I wrote and performed the music for the film Familiar Pavement by Aaron Marx.

Performing my four minutes of electronic to the film in real time was quite challenging. I did not use any time lock, relying on the original BPM and finding a good starting point to get the timing right. What made the timing critical (and a little tricky) was that I had processed the original film audio with filters and reverb so that it sat well within the arrangement. However, once I found a good marker in the film and practiced it several times I was well prepared.

The original score used the DSI Tempest for all the drums and the Elektron Analog Four for bass, pads, and an arpeggio. The melody line was sequenced on the Analog Four control voltage track and played on a Korg Monotribe (if you didn’t know that was possible read this). At the event I added the Moog Sub 37 to the setup so I could harmonize and embellish the melody lines.

TX81Z Patch Degrader with Interpolation

Posted on August 10, 2015 by John C.S. Keston

This quick demo illustrates how TX81Z Patch Degrader is interpolating between previous and newly generated parameter values. TX81Z Patch Degrader is a Max for Live MIDI effect that chips away at patches on the TX81Z by randomly changing (or degrading) parameters at a specified rate. What makes the process interesting is that it is possible to ramp up or down (interpolate) to the new value rather than changing it instantaneously.

To create the Max for Live MIDI instrument I started with TX81Z Editor 1.0 by Jeroen Liebregts who was kind enough to share his work on maxforlive.com. I added in the degradation process features and made some adjustments to the interface to make room for the controls. Once I get things shaped up I’ll be happy to share the patch if anyone is interested.

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The features I added are visible in the second panel of the TX81Z Patch Degrader Max MIDI effect. I’ll describe them from the top down:

Level bypass prevents the operator levels from being included in the degradation process so that the sound doesn’t completely die out.
When the interpolate switch is on new values (as long as they have an adequate range) are ramped up or down to the new value based on the rate.
Loop causes the degradation to continue indefinitely by reshuffling after all 73 parameters included have been degraded.
Free/sync toggles between changing the parameters at an arbitrary pace set by rate, or note divisions based on the project’s tempo (therefore sync will only degrade while playing)
Rate adjusts the rate of degradation when in free mode, and the time it takes to ramp up or down to new values when interpolate is on. Rate is milliseconds and ranges from 15ms to 2000ms.
Below rate are the note durations for sync mode ranging from a 1/128th note up to a dotted whole note.
Finally the degrade button starts the process while interrupt stops everything so when you hear something you like you can save the patch on the TX81Z.

The TX81Z has a fairly small buffer for MIDI values, so spraying values at it too quickly will generate the “MIDI Buffer Error”. However, even after getting the error it will continue listening to the incoming data, so even though it might be skipping a parameter here and there it lets me keep throwing things at it. The video below shows how the LCD display responds to the stream of values coming at the machine.

TX81Z Patch Degradation with Interpolation! #glitch #fmsynthesis

A video posted by John Keston (@jkeston) on Aug 8, 2015 at 1:31pm PDT

I’ve saved quite a few very interesting effects so far and have nearly run out of the 32 patch positions available on the unit. Perhaps the next step is to add a library feature especially since I’m not thrilled about the idea of saving patch banks to cassette!

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How Kindohm Makes Wicked Breaks in Tidal

Posted on August 4, 2015 by John C.S. Keston

It you’re familiar with live coding (performing music through the process of writing code) then you’ve probably heard of Mike Hodnick (aka Kindohm). Mike and I have had the pleasure of performing together on several occasions and I’m thoroughly impressed with his technique and aesthetic. In this video Mike goes in-depth on how he creates breakbeats using Tidal, one of several languages commonly used to do live coding.