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.

Arppegiated Polysynth Sans Subs

Posted on May 6, 2011 by John CS Keston

Here’s the same passage from the last entry without the subharmonics for comparison purposes.

Arpeggiated Polyphonic Subharmonics

Posted on May 5, 2011 by John CS Keston

Here’s another example of manually applying subharmonic frequencies to a musical phrase. I used the Bitstream 3X arpeggiator to drive the Roland MKS-80 then duplicated the track. On the second track I dropped the frequency by twelve semi-tones and ran it through a low-pass filter effectively eliminating upper harmonics and creating subharmonic frequencies based on the original piece. Although this technique sounds good, it’s not exactly practical, so soon I repeat the experiments with some processors that are designed specifically to do this.

Arpeggiated Poly Subs

What Do You Use to Generate Subharmonic Frequencies?

Posted on May 4, 2011 by John CS Keston

Played these chords on the Super Jupiter the same day I recorded the last sound. As is my habit, I programmed the patch without saving it, so this will be a one off microtrack unless I decide to reverse engineer the sound for one reason or another. Again, I decided to apply the same technique to add the bass frequencies as I did before (adding it to another layer, dropping the pitch an octave, and running it through a low pass filter). Out of curiosity, what processors do you use to create subharmonic frequencies in your work? Do you use hardware or software? What in your opinion are the advantages and disadvantages of each?

Polyphonic Synth with Subs (Part 2)

Polyphonic Synth Passage with Subharmonics

Posted on May 3, 2011 by John CS Keston

I played this passage of notes on the Roland MKS-80 after spending a couple of days programming sounds. Listening back I wanted to hear more bass, so I looked around for a good subharmonic generator plugin, but didn’t find anything and decided to just add it to another layer, drop the pitch and then run it through a low pass filter. After some customized chorus settings, delay, and reverb, this is what I ended up with.

Polyphonic Synth Passage with Subharmonics

Upcoming Ostracon Debut

Posted on May 2, 2011 by John CS Keston

I am excited to announce the debut album, Unauthorized Modifications by Ostracon, my duo project with drummer Graham O’Brien. It is scheduled for release on Tuesday June 21, 2011 with a release show happening on Friday, June 24, 2011. I will be posting excerpts from each of the tracks weekly leading up to the event, which I will have more information about soon.

Probability Defect (excerpt)