Bloodline: The Central Planes

November 8, 2021 marked the debut release from the trio Bloodline (Cody McKinney, Peter Hennig, and myself). The album was recorded in December, 2016 – a foreboding moment just before the world was plunged into the chaos of neo-nationalist politics. It took five years of sporadic listening, discussing, editing, mixing, and mastering to finally release it. Despite the delays, the music is just as relevant to me now as it was then.

Largely based on a series of graphic scores titled, Grocery List, by Cody McKinney The Central Planes is a raw, visceral, free, and exhilarating journey into the unknown. My endless gratitude goes out to Peter Henning and Cody McKinney for including me in this grand experiment, Steve Kaul for ingeniously engineering these weird sessions at Wild Sound Studio, Adam Krinsky for his tirelessly creative mixing, Huntley Miller for his expert mastering, and _you_ for daring to listen.

Bloodline is:
Peter Hennig (drums, cymbals, percussion, prepared piano)
John CS Keston (Rhodes, Piano, synth, electronics, prepared piano)
Cody McKinney (bass, vocals, electronics, various noisemakers, prepared piano)

Recorded at Wild Sound Studio, NE Minneapolis MN – December 2016
Engineered by Steve Kaul
Mixed at Bellows Studio, St Paul – Summer 2021
Mix Engineer – Adam Krinsky
Mastered by Huntly Miller at HM Mastering
Album art – John CS Keston

Searching for the Perfect Stage Piano

I expect this post to have several follow ups, but since writing The Democratization of Piano? I have been digging deep in my search for a an alternative to lugging my ailing Rhodes Mark I to every gig I play. Now that COVID-19 vaccines are widely available and live music is starting to happen again, I have started performing more frequently.

For the time being I have put together a setup that is quite satisfying, but I don’t consider it a long term solution. Instead of using by beloved Rhodes I am using the Arturia Keylab 88 to control a Yamaha Reface CP. The “RdI” setting on the Reface CP sounds remarkably similar to the Rhodes Suitcase 73 that doesn’t leave my studio. The Reface even has a few keys that sound a little different, brighter or quicker to bark, than the others, just like the real instruments usually do.

The effects on the Reface CP are limited in parameters, but you can have five of them on at once and still maintain 128 note polyphony. I’m not going to get into everything that the Reface CP can do, but it is a very capable little instrument with just the right sort of limitations. The Arturia Keylab 88 makes the Reface CP feel much more substantial. The Keylab 88’s fully weighted keybed is quite heavy but not sluggish allowing you to dig into it.

I have expanded the capabilities of the setup with the Blokas Midihub. The Midihub is a fantastic, standalone, programmable, MIDI processor and interface. I have set it up with a flexible arpeggiator, and several LFOs that I have mapped to things like delay time. Using the Midihub I also mapped the aftertouch on the Keylab to the rate of the tremolo on the Reface CP, so that I can speed it up by pressing down on the keybed.

So if it’s so great, why isn’t it long term? Why seek out a stage piano? The main reason is because the setup is complex. Not overly so, but enough so that a bad cable, the wrong setting, or any manner of other issues could delay soundcheck or bring things to a halt. There are other limitations. And I want limitations because I understand too well how too many possibilities can paralyse creativity. However, combining the keybed with the sound engine and having a bit more access under the hood will streamline my setup and allow me to fine tune my sound. In the next article I’ll explain a bit more about my interim setup, discuss some of the instruments I’ve tried and researched to replace it, and explain exactly what I’m after in a stage piano. All the best!

The Democratization of Piano?

Although I use them on occasion I’ve always been indifferent to digital pianos and piano virtual instruments, and prefer to play acoustic pianos and Rhodes electric pianos. Recently I’ve been experimenting with a handful of piano VSTs and I’m quite inspired with the sounds, the response, and the ability to adjust these instruments. Now I find myself interrogating my former apathy toward these simulacra of the acoustic instrument I have spent my life playing.

Of course there are many technical justifications, but I’m more interested in the underlying statements that one’s “choice” between acoustic and digital pianos might infer. Choice in quotes because it isn’t possible to choose without means. I have had the privilege of recording and performing with a few amazing instruments over the years and hope to do so again, but I don’t have unfettered access to pianos of concert or studio grade. And neither do most people who play, including many talented professionals. Access to what might be considered the best instruments is sometimes based on merit but more frequently based on economics. And when there is a meritocracy, who is making those judgements? We all know how that can go wrong.

I’m not suggesting that everyone who wants one should get a 9′ concert grand delivered to their apartment. However, shouldn’t we weigh the value of a performance over the price tag of the instrument that was employed? By and large we value musicianship over the prestige and expense of an instrument. But, like it or not there are elitist undertones that go along with the aesthetics and name recognition of prohibitively expensive pianos and other instruments.

Over the last two decades there’s been a lot of discussion in the music tech world regarding the democratization of music production and the pros and cons of high quality recording being available to the “masses”. As a result of this and other factors (social media, music downloads/streaming vs physical distribution, etc.), there’s no question that the industry is undergoing significant transformations. But, what impact has the access to sounds that closely emulate the “keys to the kingdom” (AKA piano) with so much variety and accuracy had on music?

Whether or not digital pianos have democratized the instrument, they have made acoustic piano sounds more accessible. I would argue that accessibility, convenience, flexibility, and affordability are their most transformational characteristics. Piano VSTs are ubiquitous. They come built-in with most DAWs. They merely require the software, a computer, electricity, and a MIDI controller, things that most musicians already have on hand. One needn’t look far to find artists like DOMi, Cory Henry, Jesus Molina, and countless others bringing digital pianos to life.

I feel that I will always prefer acoustic pianos to digital versions, even/especially if they are old, worn, and slightly out of tune. There’s something magical about a complicated combination of aged wood, metal, and felt at your fingertips. I love playing acoustic pianos, preparing them, recording them, performing with them, and all the difficulties they present. Yet, the digital variety has a magic of its own. They are virtually (pun alert) immune to changes in the environment. They can be virtually weightless, or at least no heavier than a mobile device. Recording them doesn’t require microphones or a quiet room. And, they can sound like an old upright, a majestic concert grand, or anywhere else on or off that spectrum.

Ultimately as virtual pianos get closer and closer to their organic counterparts we will hear them even more frequently. That said, they will not replace acoustic pianos. As far as I know there hasn’t been a digital piano made where you can reach under the lid and mute the strings, tap on the sound board, or perform any other manner of extended techniques. Most classical and jazz pianists still prefer performing on acoustic instruments. On the other hand, perhaps having the humility to accept the compromises (and convenience) of digital pianos is a nobel aspiration. As an artist, that still feels like a difficult ask, but as a listener I feel that I can dismiss the origin of the instrument when the music is inspiring.

This is a highly subjective area of inquiry and I do not pretend to have adequate answers (or questions), but I do hope that asking might start an interesting discussion, or spawn creative work. Here’s an improvised piece I recorded recently using my Keylab 88 to control the Japanese Jazz Studio preset in Arturia’s Analog Lab 4. Although clearly a digital piano, the preset has surprising dynamic range and tone quality. Listening back I get the sense that I’m peeling away old wallpaper to get a glimpse into a forgotten room within the decaying, haunted mansion of my mind.

Parochial Dissonance by John C.S. Keston

Parochial Dissonance (Æther Sound, Dec. 4, 2020) – The title of this release describes the tragedy, loss, and suffering experienced when we narrow the scope of our worldviews. The album is a series of solo pieces captured from three streaming performances during the COVID-19 pandemic, and two live performances just before. Each piece was improvised within sets of rules applied to process, time, texture, and tonality. The pieces were performed on various synthesizers and Rhodes electric piano with occasional use of looping, arpeggiation, and signal processing. Continue reading for a look at the liner notes. Continue reading

Introducing Hydramorph 1.3.0

A major update to Hydramorph, version 1.3.0 is now available. It now supports morphing up to six-hundred-seventy-four parameters on the ASM Hydrasynth. This includes all of the parameters in the MACRO Editor. The MACRO assignments have also been added to the Send menu in Hydramorph, so that it is possible to send a predefined MACRO setup to any patch on the Hydrasynth. Here are some of the other features new to v1.3.0:

New File menu options have been added to “Select All Params” and “Deselect All Params.” This allows for including all of the parameters in the morphing process with one menu option. “Deselect All Params” instantly unchecks all the checked parameters. It is now possible to edit and randomize all 64 steps in the LFOs. The interface allows users to draw in the step as numbers or pitches and edit the steps numerically or as note values. Support has been added for updates and bug fixes in the Hydrasynth 1.5.2 firmware including several other features and enhancements. Please visit Hydramorph for more details.