Category Archives: Audio News

Audio news stories and sound technology in general

Searching for the Perfect Stage Piano (Part 2: VTines MK1)

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A recent setup for John C.S. Keston with a Rhodes EP at the McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

As I continue my search for the “perfect” stage piano (spoiler: there isn’t one) I have been asking myself if it is practical and/or desirable to use a VST instead of a dedicated hardware instrument. This is an approach that I have used in the past, and one that many professionals choose, so I have decided to explore a few modern examples of this possibility in detail.

Since the Rhodes (the actual 130lbs version) has been the instrument of choice for me for many years, the first thing I wanted to determine was if there was an electric piano VST that could emulate the Rhodes well enough to satisfy my ears. Over the years I have used Lounge Lizard (Electric in Ableton Live), Arturia’s Stage-73 V, and several others with limited success. This article is a reflection on a new-to-me VST that might just work in my weird and atypical performance and studio setups. No emulation has the ability to replace the Rhodes, but I’m hoping to find a satisfactory facsimile for live performances.

The latest Rhodes VST that I have found interesting is VTines MK1 from Acousticsounds. Although VTines MK1 provides only one electric piano model, is it by far the most adjustable of the examples I have used. For example VTines MK1 allows for the adjustment of around 9 parameters on a per key basis! In other words you can adjust the virtual “pickup distance”, “tine height”, and more for individual notes on the instrument. Continue reading →

Mothership Solo Album Release

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On Black Friday, 2021 I released a solo album of 20 tracks, all recorded as a response to the despair of isolation and the horrors of… space. Yes, they were also recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, and although the “despair of isolation and the horrors of” the global disease were (and are) a daily realty, working on this album was a way to escape.

The music was inspired by Mothership, a sci-fi horror tabletop role playing game, from which I borrowed the title. More accurately, it was inspired by group of friends with whom I played Mothership (the game) via video chat. I started with one dark ambient piece to get us in the mood for the game, which led to another, and another until the album was complete. Mothership (the album) is available by the good graces of Æther Sound. Read on for the liner notes: Continue reading →

Bloodline: The Central Planes

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November 8, 2021 marked the debut release from the trio Bloodline (Cody McKinney, Peter Hennig, and myself). The album was recorded in December, 2016 – a foreboding moment just before the world was plunged into the chaos of neo-nationalist politics. It took five years of sporadic listening, discussing, editing, mixing, and mastering to finally release it. Despite the delays, the music is just as relevant to me now as it was then.

Largely based on a series of graphic scores titled, Grocery List, by Cody McKinney The Central Planes is a raw, visceral, free, and exhilarating journey into the unknown. My endless gratitude goes out to Peter Henning and Cody McKinney for including me in this grand experiment, Steve Kaul for ingeniously engineering these weird sessions at Wild Sound Studio, Adam Krinsky for his tirelessly creative mixing, Huntley Miller for his expert mastering, and _you_ for daring to listen.

Bloodline is:
Peter Hennig (drums, cymbals, percussion, prepared piano)
John CS Keston (Rhodes, Piano, synth, electronics, prepared piano)
Cody McKinney (bass, vocals, electronics, various noisemakers, prepared piano)

Recorded at Wild Sound Studio, NE Minneapolis MN – December 2016
Engineered by Steve Kaul
Mixed at Bellows Studio, St Paul – Summer 2021
Mix Engineer – Adam Krinsky
Mastered by Huntly Miller at HM Mastering
Album art – John CS Keston

Searching for the Perfect Stage Piano

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I expect this post to have several follow ups, but since writing The Democratization of Piano? I have been digging deep in my search for a an alternative to lugging my ailing Rhodes Mark I to every gig I play. Now that COVID-19 vaccines are widely available and live music is starting to happen again, I have started performing more frequently.

For the time being I have put together a setup that is quite satisfying, but I don’t consider it a long term solution. Instead of using by beloved Rhodes I am using the Arturia Keylab 88 to control a Yamaha Reface CP. The “RdI” setting on the Reface CP sounds remarkably similar to the Rhodes Suitcase 73 that doesn’t leave my studio. The Reface even has a few keys that sound a little different, brighter or quicker to bark, than the others, just like the real instruments usually do.

The effects on the Reface CP are limited in parameters, but you can have five of them on at once and still maintain 128 note polyphony. I’m not going to get into everything that the Reface CP can do, but it is a very capable little instrument with just the right sort of limitations. The Arturia Keylab 88 makes the Reface CP feel much more substantial. The Keylab 88’s fully weighted keybed is quite heavy but not sluggish allowing you to dig into it.

I have expanded the capabilities of the setup with the Blokas Midihub. The Midihub is a fantastic, standalone, programmable, MIDI processor and interface. I have set it up with a flexible arpeggiator, and several LFOs that I have mapped to things like delay time. Using the Midihub I also mapped the aftertouch on the Keylab to the rate of the tremolo on the Reface CP, so that I can speed it up by pressing down on the keybed.

So if it’s so great, why isn’t it long term? Why seek out a stage piano? The main reason is because the setup is complex. Not overly so, but enough so that a bad cable, the wrong setting, or any manner of other issues could delay soundcheck or bring things to a halt. There are other limitations. And I want limitations because I understand too well how too many possibilities can paralyse creativity. However, combining the keybed with the sound engine and having a bit more access under the hood will streamline my setup and allow me to fine tune my sound. In the next article I’ll explain a bit more about my interim setup, discuss some of the instruments I’ve tried and researched to replace it, and explain exactly what I’m after in a stage piano. All the best!

Parochial Dissonance by John C.S. Keston

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Parochial Dissonance (Æther Sound, Dec. 4, 2020) – The title of this release describes the tragedy, loss, and suffering experienced when we narrow the scope of our worldviews. The album is a series of solo pieces captured from three streaming performances during the COVID-19 pandemic, and two live performances just before. Each piece was improvised within sets of rules applied to process, time, texture, and tonality. The pieces were performed on various synthesizers and Rhodes electric piano with occasional use of looping, arpeggiation, and signal processing. Continue reading for a look at the liner notes. Continue reading →