Live Music by John Keston at the WBSC

Posted on December 4, 2009 by John CS Keston

wbsc_js This Wednesday, December 9, 2009, 7pm – 10pm I’ll be performing music at the West Bank Social Center. The space can be found above the Nomad Bar, 501 Cedar Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and is accessible by an exterior door on the north side of the building. These events are entertaining mash-ups of creative ideas from a variety of artists producing interactive projection pieces. Checkout the video documentation from the last event where I played. I’ll probably be using a combination of vintage Hammond organ through laptop, gestural generative sequencing, and custom grain table madness, all arranged in real-time in Ableton Live.

Ostraka with Dial System Performance

Posted on November 22, 2009 by John CS Keston

ostraka_at_kck My new experimental music project with Graham O’Brien, Ostraka with Dial System, will be performing on December 20, 2009. Originally I had written that we were performing on December 8, 2009 as well, but that performance has been canceled due to a prior engagement.

Ostraka with Dial System is myself on laptop using my custom developed application, the Gestural Music Sequencer (GMS), and Graham O’Brien on drums. For more details, including audio examples and video produced using the GMS, checkout the GMS category. There’s also a Gestural Music Sequencer Documentary Short produced by Josh Clos, that does a good job of illustrating what the software does.

Physically Modeling Multitouch Controls

Posted on October 19, 2009 by John CS Keston

For the last two weeks I have been working on a performance application that I’m developing in MaxMSP controlled with TouchOSC on the iPhone or iPod Touch. The application is coming along quite well. I have the granular traversal piece working how I want, as I described in Traversing Samples with Granular Synthesis.

Now I’m working on another feature of the application designed to allow the user to play samples with a rotary dial; not unlike manually spinning a record on a turntable. The basics of getting this going were pretty simple, but I also wanted to be able to spin the dial and have it continue to rotate based on the acceleration applied. Secondly, I wanted to have a slider that would adjust the amount of friction, from frictionless to instant braking.

This essentially involved physically modeling the control to behave like a turntable or other spinning device. After trying four or five techniques using standard Max objects I managed to get it working, but it wasn’t pretty. Instead I decided to try using a few lines of Javascript to do the calculations and adjust the position of the dial. This worked much better and only required about 35 lines of code. The best way to illustrate this application will be with video. I’ll shoot a few minutes to get the point across and share it here soon. For now here’s a recording made with the modeled controller I described and just a small amount of friction.

Percussion Loop Spinning

MAW Media Mash-up at the WBSC

Posted on September 25, 2009 by John CS Keston

Earlier this month I shared an excerpt of music from a performance at a recent Minneapolis Art on Wheels exhibition. MAW artist, Andrea Steudel, did some excellent video documentation that highlights the artwork and sound that transpired at the event.

The audio quality is quite good, considering the conditions in the space, and goes a long way to illustrate the ambiance during the night. Please enjoy the video and checkout the original post at http://minneapolisartonwheels.org/content/media-mash-wbsc.

GMS Beta Release, September 28, 2009

Posted on September 23, 2009 by John CS Keston

gms_grab I have decided on September 28, 2009 as the release date of the GMS, coinciding with my performance with Graham O’Brien, and my birthday. We can call it a combination Ostraka with Dial System and DJ Zenrock show, GMS beta software release, and birthday party. Currently I am releasing a binary version of the software for Mac OS X only. A windows version is in the works, with no prediction of when it’ll arrive.

The GMS is a Gestural Music Sequencer that I developed in Processing (processing.org). The application samples video and displays it either normally or inverted so it looks as though you’re looking into a mirror. Each frame is analyzed for brightness, then the X and Y data of the brightest pixel is converted into a MIDI note. These notes produce a non-repeating sequence based on movement within the range of the capture device.

For more details, including audio examples and video produced using the GMS, checkout the
GMS category. There’s also a Gestural Music Sequencer Documentary Short produced by Josh Clos, that does a good job of illustrating what the software does.