GMS Leftovers

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

San Francisco Mask Shop If you have been wondering why ACB is a little bit on the slow side lately, it’s because I have been quite busy doing other things, like my night class at CNMAT and releasing my solo album, Precambrian Resonance. So, after presenting 365 sounds in 365 days, I’ve been having a bit of a rest.

But now I am ready to dive into some new projects, including my duet with Graham O’Brien (drums) that we’re calling Ostraka with Dial System. We recently performed at a club in Minneapolis, but I neglected to record the show. However, I saved my document with the GMS clips I had captured. Here’s a short mix of a few of the remnants from the performance, unfortunately lacking the drums.

GMS Leftovers

500 Million Years From Now

Posted on August 11, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

dots It was recently estimated by Edward Guinan at the XXVIIth General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union that our lonely planet is nearing the end of its habitability for life as we know. Albeit, on a cosmological timescale. Between .5 and 1 billion years from now, increases in the Sun’s temperature will cause the Earth’s oceans and atmosphere to evaporate.

Shortly after reading this article I opened up my Ableton Live set from Sunday night to listen to some of the loops I had captured with the GMS during the show. After opening the document I pressed play and heard a stark landscape of reverberation. I saw visions of a lifeless, peace 500 million years from now.

What had happened was that when saving the document I had left all my master effects in their last position. I decided to capture these sounds and vary them over time. The effect chain on the master track included a low pass filter, bit reduction, delay, and reverb with nine parameters mapped to knobs on a controller. Here’s what I ended up with on the second take.

500 Million Years From Now

Precambrian Resonance on iTunes

Posted on August 10, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

Recently my solo project, Ostraka, became available on the iTunes Store. Now it’s possible to buy individual tracks. My label partner, Unearthed Music, only sells full albums rather than individual tracks. At such a low volume the transaction fees make individual track sales impractical. That’s why we let Apple handle it for us. Right now the album is floating around in the lonely outskirts of cyberspace, with no ratings or reviews. If anyone is so inclined, please consider visiting the link below to deposit feedback.

Precambrian Resonance on iTunes

Getting Reacquainted with the GMS

Posted on August 6, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

triquetra_rehearse I have had a number of problems migrating my Processing.org application known as the GMS from my old MacBook Pro running OS X 10.4.11 to my new one running 10.5.7. The first issue was alack of support for the IAC drivers in Java, next were some funky conflicts with the Java class I was using to load and save presets. With the help of Grant Muller I have solved these problems.

While I was at it I took on a couple of other issues as well in preparation for my performance on Sunday. All that’s left is for me to become reacquainted with the application in tandem with Ableton Suite 8.

This is actually the hard part because I have use the application effectively as an instrument and real-time visualizer. One problem is running out of hands and fingers while producing the visuals and capturing the MIDI clips. Another danger is the music becoming repetitive while making adjustments. Here’s a quick recording I made while practicing.

Reacquainting Myself with the GMS

Ostraka with Dial System Live

Posted on August 4, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

5tgr5tdry My new duet, “Ostraka with Dial System” (John Keston and Graham O’Brien) is performing at the Kitty Cat Klub in Minneapolis on Sunday, August 9, 2009. This group combines the stochastic, angular melodies produced by the GMS with live drumming. Gestural video input is simultaneously projected onto a screen and processed into musical data. The results are captured in real-time and molded into spontaneous compositions. Special guests include DJ Zenrock and Terr the Om.