Roland MKS-80 Super Jupiter Repair

Posted on March 6, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

I recently purchased a Roland MKS-80 in need of repair. Several things were wrong with it including the tuning knob, dynamics slider and “insert cartridge” errors when trying to change the patches from the front panel. Without being able to tune the synth or utilize the dynamics, the instrument was effectively unusable, but I decided to buy it anyway in the hope that it could be repaired. After several days and more than thirty hours of research, parts swapping, and troubleshooting I managed to get it working properly. Read on for an illustrated story of the repair process and audio from the fixed unit.
Continue reading →

VidiSynth Generates Audio from Light Sources

Posted on February 28, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

Expanding the VidiSynth Part III from paul sobczak on Vimeo.

Paul Sobczak has recently posted some videos documenting the VidiSynth. It’s has four independent oscillators that are controlled by either potentiometers or inputs from other sources. In this case he is using light dependent resistors or LDRs that suction onto a display. As video plays on the display the pitches change on all four oscillators based on the position of the LDR on the screen producing corresponding sounds. I’m not sure how Paul plans to use this, but I’m anticipating some interesting generative work with a synesthetic theme.

Weird Sound Generator Meets Memory Man

Posted on January 27, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

This evening I introduced the Weird Sound Generator (WSG) to the Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man delay. The two of them hit it off and the next thing I knew was that someones jack went into someones input and some completely unprotected signals went down. A little mood lighting later and… here’s the result of the union.

WSG Meets Memory Man

Example of Posc from Live Performance

Posted on January 16, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

I extracted this recording of the Posc from a performance of Words to Dead Lips at Intermedia Arts last November. I left the processing on it that I had used during the performance. At some point I’m going to acoustically record one of the “noise shields” that built for the dancers to use in the piece as a comparison. The “noise shields” have a distinctive sound tailored by the amplification, speaker, and the body of the instrument that is quite different for the direct sound below.

Words to Dead Lips Posc Example

Juno-106 Glitchy Drone

Posted on January 13, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

Here’s another excerpt from the glitches that I recorded while the voice chip was failing on my Roland Juno-106. In this section I was just holding a note without touching any other controls, so all the variations in the sound were caused by the autonomous shorting that was going on inside the faulty 80017a voice chip.

Juno-106 Glitchy Drone