Duet for Synthesizers and Mobile Conductor (2013)

Posted on November 11, 2013 by John CS Keston

Duet for Synthesizers and Mobile Conductor is a piece composed and performed by John Keston in collaboration with David T Steinman who also performs in the piece as the mobile conductor. Steinman creates a real-time audiovisual score that is broadcast into the performance space from a remote location. This score consists of textural, atonal, and arrhythmic “sound features” produced with artifacts from Steinman’s apartment. The imagery and amplified sound become content within the music as it is interpreted through improvisations by the synthesist, John Keston. Keston accompanies the sound features while controlling three analogue synthesizers (Novation Bass Station II, Korg Monotribe, and Korg Volca Keys). This use of an audiovisual score is a means to harness the sensory influence of non-musical sounds and images in our environments, elevating these sources to compositional structures.

Duet for Synthesizers and Mobile Conductor was performed on November 7, 2013 at the Strange Attractors festival, St. Paul, Minnesota. This video was captured during a private performance made shortly after the public showing. The piece is the first in a series of new Duets by Keston made possible by a grant from the American Composers Forum with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation.

Duets Setup

The shot above shows the setup I chose to use for this project. Although it is possible to synchronize these instruments, for this piece I decided to run them independently creating poly-temporal accompaniment for the atemporal audio I received from Steinman’s mobile conducting. Multiple free-running clocks were involved. For example, on the Bass Station II there are two LFOs, BPM for the arpeggiator and sequencer, and the second oscillator can be routed to modulate the the filter frequency. Both the Monotribe and the Volca also have BPM for their sequencers and a free-running LFO. In addition the Volca and Memory Man delays produced unsynchronized repetitions. All of these independent time sources helped create chaotic, non-interlocking rhythms that mimic and/or contrast the audiovisual score.

Mobile Rig

The sound and video from the mobile conductor was broadcast via UStream using a Logitech Broadcaster camera. This technique makes it possible for the mobile conductor to choose content for the piece from anywhere with internet access and still perform in near real-time with the ensemble. This made our performances with DKO at Northern Spark 2013 and WAM Bash 2013 possible. It also means that the quality of the video and audio from the broadcast is limited. Other examples of Duets (Duet Under Bridge, Duet for Synthesizer and Spin Cycle, Duet for Synthesizer and Rail Cars) do not have this requirement and do-have/will-have better sound and video quality than the Instant Cinema series.

Novation Bass Station II Self Oscillating Filter Demo

Posted on November 1, 2013 by John CS Keston

I have recently been trying out a Novation Bass Station II monophonic analogue synthesizer. I am quite impressed with this big sounding synth in a small package. While digitally controlled, Novation have focused on packing in proper synthesis features rather than trying to gloss over the sound with onboard effects. For example, as I have illustrated in the video, the filter self oscillates nicely with a clean sine wave that can be modulated in unique ways especially with distinct features like oscillator slew.

The video starts with the self oscillating filter getting modulated by LFO 2 using the triangle wave. After that I switch to using the sample and hold setting creating the well-known 60s computer sound of random notes. Here’s where it gets interesting though. Once I switch the LFO to sample and hold I start turning up the oscillator slew I mentioned earlier. What this does is variably smooth the wave shapes created by the LFO. You’ll hear this come in at 0:28. It sounds like portamento. At 0:35 I switch the LFO to the square wave, but with the slew on it sounds more like a sine. As I reduce the amount of slew the square wave regains its recognizable character. Next I switch it to the saw tooth wave. The nice thing here is that the LFO amount can go into negative values allowing the saw to be reversed.

Another distinctive feature is the oscillator filter mod setting. This modulates the filter with oscillator 2. Since the oscillators range from subsonic to almost supersonic this feature offers modulation effects that are not possible with the LFOs. At 1:29 you will start to hear the oscillator filter mod come in using a pulse waveform. What makes this interesting is that while oscillator 2 is modulating the filter it can also have the pulse width modulated by LFO 1. This can cause bit-reduction-like effects that can be heard between 1:49 and 2:19. At 2:20 I start tapping the octave and waveform buttons on oscillator 2 illustrating what happens when the modulation source is instantly shifted an octave at a time. After a bit more messing around I added a final, manual filter sweep at 3:20.

Instant Cinema Featuring DKO at the Big WAM Bash 2013

Posted on October 4, 2013 by John CS Keston

For several months I have been preparing for a performance commissioned by the Weisman Art Museum to celebrate their 20th anniversary in the iconic Frank Gehry-designed building. We will be staging an instance of Instant Cinema featuring DKO and mobile conductor David T. Steinman. The full crew includes myself (director / performer), David T. Steinman (mobile conductor), Jon Davis (bass / bass clarinet), Graham O’Brien (drums), Eric Dowell (technical lead), and Jon Steinhorst (Documentation). Please click the link for more info.

Korg Volca Keys Freakout

Posted on October 4, 2013 by John CS Keston

This little freakout on the Korg Volca Keys was played using the poly ring modulation mode. Modes include poly (up to three notes), unison, octave, fifth, unison ring, and poly ring. I also laid on several motion sequences that were tracking the cutoff, LFO rate, delay feedback, and EG decay.

Low Latency Wired MIDI with iPad, Bitstream 3X, and QuNexus

Posted on October 2, 2013 by John CS Keston

Like many of you I have experimented with MIDI over wifi on the iPad. Mainly so that I can use a proper keyboard to play some of the splendid virtual instruments available on iOS. However, connecting to the iPad this way requires a computer on the same network, or instantiating an ad hoc network for the MIDI I/O. Secondly, although it can be stable it is usually slower and suffers from wireless network traffic congestion, hence more latency than a wired connection.

So what are the options? Over at CDM there’s a really great article from Nicolas Bougaïeff, the creative director at Liine (makers of the Lemur app and LiveControl) that explores a wide range of possibilities. Here my intent is to share what I have found works for me with a minimal investment in iOS specific hardware. Specifically, the Camera Connection Kit (CCK). The CCK essentially provides USB I/O for the iPad allowing class compliant MIDI devices to be connected and used. This works great, if you have such a device and all you want to do is use a hardware controller with the iPad.

The problem with the CCK is three fold – integration into more complex MIDI setups, class compliance, and power restrictions. Most USB MIDI devices only have a single USB port, so you can’t have a computer connected to the same controller to record the MIDI, or otherwise interface with iPad apps. As a result, two MIDI interfaces are required – one for the iPad and another for the computer for wired communications between them to be possible.

Secondly, many iOS hardware solutions are costly and impractical especially if you’d rather make use of equipment that most experienced producers have already invested in. Hardware that could work perfectly if only there were drivers available for iOS (I can dream, right?). One of my MIDI keyboard controllers, for example, is not class compliant over USB (an admittedly crappy CME UF7).

Third, beyond Apple’s sandboxing of iOS, even if your device is class compliant, they have set a very low limit on the power draw (10-100mA) often causing an annoying error to come up stating “The connected device requires too much power.” Fortunately there’s a hack/workaround for this problem. Simply attaching an unpowered USB hub between the CCK and your MIDI controller prevents the error from popping up and allows you to use your class compliant hardware. As an added benefit, the USB hub allows you to use multiple devices with your iOS device as long as they are either powered on their own, or they can draw enough power from the iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone. Side note: this works on iOS 6, but I do not know if it works on iOS 7 since I’m still waiting to do the update, so I’d love to hear from someone who has tried this.

Lately I have been researching potential solutions, and digging through my old MIDI hardware to see what kind of setup will work the best for me take to advantage of my favorite iOS music apps. Recently the thought occurred to me that perhaps I could use the Bitstream 3X MIDI controller (BS3X) with the iPad. I bought the BS3X back in the Spring of 2011 specifically to use as a controller for my Roland Super Jupiter MKS-80 analog synth, and therefore it is consistently available in my studio setup.

The BS3X is one of the most flexible and programmable MIDI controllers ever designed. It has traditional MIDI I/O including an in, two outs, and a thru jack. It’s even got a pre-MIDI Sync-24 jack. More importantly to this conversation is that is has class compliant USB MIDI I/O. The BS3X is designed to be an interface and controller in one and works perfectly to bridge my old hardware, iPad, and MacBook Pro together. Since everything is wired there’s little to no noticeable latency when playing a synth app with any MIDI keyboard plugged into the BS3X. Also, thanks to the plethora of I/O options on the BS3X, I can use the iPad and a collection hardware controllers (including my non-class compliant devices) with or without a computer in the chain. Furthermore integrating the iPad into this setup does not interfere with BS3X controlling the Roland MKS-80 because those controls send system exclusive messages (sysex) to the channel I have dedicated to the MKS-80.

In the video I have focused on illustrating how one might use two iPad synthesizer apps and a hardware synthesizer together including Cassini, Sunrizer, and the MKS-80. The BS3X is used as both the iPad interface and MKS-80 controller. No computer is required, but a simple change of cable allows for a computer to be integrated into this setup because the MOTU UltraLite interface and standalone mixer has MIDI I/O. In other words two MIDI interfaces are still necessary with a computer, but prior to this experiment I was only using the BS3X as a controller for the MKS-80 and bypassing the class compliant USB MIDI interface functionality. Since the USB hub was required I also added the QuNexus to the setup. This was dedicated to feeding notes into the arpeggiator in Cassini. The keyboard controller was split so that in the low end I could play the MKS-80 effect then tweak it with the BS3X knobs and sliders as it decayed. In the upper end of the same keyboard I played a lead sound programmed in Sunrizer.