Breezy Cottonwood Ambiance

Posted on May 23, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

Cottonwood Leaves Plains cottonwood (Populus sargentii) grows near water, and tends to mimic water in several ways. Visually their leaves ripple in the wind like water rippling on a fairly still pond. The sound of the wind through their leaves also mimics water flowing in a stream. I recorded a gentle wind passing through a small grove of cottonwoods near a swamp full of cattails, birds, insects and amphibians. My wind sock for the PCM-D50 didn’t provide all the wind noise protection I would have liked, but I got a good few seconds out of it anyway.

Breezy Cottonwoods

Tonight: MAW at the Mobile Music Symposium + GMS

Posted on May 22, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

inna Tonight (Friday, May 22, 2009) MAW will be projecting at a party for the Mobile Music Symposium outside of the Nomad World Pub in Minneapolis from 9:00 PM to midnight. The artists include Jenny Schmid, Ali Momeni, David Steinman, Andrea Steudel, Rachel James, and Robin Schwartzman. I’ll be providing musical accompaniment using my gestural music sequencer, perhaps creating something similar to the following segment.

GMS Performance Excerpt #3

Woody Synth Bass

Posted on May 21, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

Here’s a synth bass line with a nice woody tone, but a complete lack of accurate timing. Let’s call it atemporal.

Woody Bass Synth

Stop Motion Video: Leggy

Posted on May 20, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

I made this stop motion video using a tool developed in Max 5 by Ali Momeni. All the sounds effects and music were previously posted on ACB. The sound at the beginning is the wind up toy from Weird Noisey Spark Shooting Guy. The backyard ambiance is from Normalized Binaural Back Alley Ambiance. The cave sound is pitched down water dripping from Snow Melting into Lake Superior. Finally, the music at the end is from Processed Rhodes Pedal Noise.

ACB Reader Involvement Requested

Posted on May 19, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

I have agreed to release my solo album with Unearthed Music on July 28, 2009. This will correspond with exactly one years worth of entries in the One Sound Every Day category on ACB. Since all of the pieces included in this work were inspired by my almost-daily-sound-experiments, it’s a fitting date to release the fruits of my labor. The album is nearly finished and will be released under my Ostraka moniker. Before I master the album I would like to involve ACB readers in the production process by polling you for suggestions.

What are your favorite sounds or micro-tracks that I’ve shared with you during this period? I plan on including four to six pieces from the ACB archives on the release. If you have an opinion about what should go on the album, please respond with a link to the post that has the sound in a comment to this entry. Thanks!

Here’s my latest mix of Blitzen Machine to give you a taste of what to expect from the album.

Blitzen Machine