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.

Monotribe Meets Pro-One Part 10: Grooved Sync

Posted on March 20, 2012 by John CS Keston

This is the latest piece from a group of microtracks that feature the Korg Monotribe synchronized in various ways with the Sequential Circuits Pro-One. In this case, to create the swing on the Pro-One, I ran it’s sync track through an eighth note triplet groove setting. In post I took the liberty of adding some delay during the outro and reverb in a couple of places.

Monotribe Meets Pro-One Part 9: Delayed Sync

Posted on March 19, 2012 by John CS Keston

For this experiment I recorded the Monotribe sync signal into Ableton Live, then I made two separate tracks of warped sync output – one to drive the Monotribe and one to drive the Pro-One. Not only does this give me the capability to set the tempo in Live, but I can also manipulate the sync signal independently for each device.

Notice the galloping shuffle on the Pro-One bass line? This was created by adding a delay to the sync signal that is going to the Pro-One. Using this technique I can instantly add groove, double-time, or triplet feel to either or both of the instruments. Who knew these instruments, 30 years apart, would pair so well together.

Monotribe Meets Pro-One Part 8: Plus Monotron

Posted on March 17, 2012 by John CS Keston

This is my favorite from the series of microtracks featuring the Korg Monotribe synched with the Pro-One that I’ve produced so far. For this experiment I also plugged my Korg Monotron into the Monotribe’s audio input. This can be heard as the higher pitched drone following the bass line. At around 0:15 the Pro-One arpeggiator fades in. Finally at about 0:54 the Monotron pitch ramps up about an octave, goes a little sharp, goes at little flat, then rests fairly close to the octave as the feedback on the Memory Man saturates the Pro-One notes.

Monotribe Meets Pro-One Part 7

Posted on March 16, 2012 by John CS Keston

Here’s one more from a group of microtracks that feature the Korg Monotribe synchronized in various ways with the Sequential Circuits Pro-One.

Now You Can Control the World’s Largest Synthesizer

Posted on March 15, 2012 by John CS Keston

Motherboard.tv has an article on what is probably the world’s largest synthesizer (let’s not forget T.O.N.T.O) created by Joe Paradiso over about twelve years starting in 1974. It has recently been installed at MIT. What is amazing is that you can listen to long audio files of patches that Joe creates every couple of weeks, or (now for the really crazy part) visit an online interface to literally control the synth remotely with other users doing the same thing!