Cymatics Test: Mustard Seed and the WSG

Posted on February 11, 2011 by John CS Keston

I recorded this sound during a cymatics experiment that I conducted with Pramila Vasuvedan of Annichia Arts to see if patterns in mustard seed would emerge. To generate the tones I connected my WSG to a simple amplifier and then to a twelve inch speaker with a platform suspended above the speaker cone. Mustard seed was poured onto the platform as we tested different frequency and amplitude combinations. This experiment was not quite successful, probably becuase the WSG has multiple oscillators, but we learned a few things in the process and created some interesting sounds, as well as some unbearable ones that I’ll refrain from sharing. Listen for the hiss of the mustard seed vibrating on the one eighth inch thick panel of plywood that we used as a platform.

Cymatics Test: Mustard Seed and WSG

Arpeggiated Self Resonance Part 2

Posted on February 10, 2011 by John CS Keston

Here’s another example of arpeggiated self-resonance from the Juno. This time instead of adjusting the settings on the synthesizer, I made adjustments to the arpeggiator. Basically I adjusted the style, steps, and distance in Ableton Live’s arpeggiator. It includes a total of eighteen unique arpeggiator modes or styles. I used “Pinky UpDown”, “Thumb UpDown”, “Random Once”, “Random”, “Chord Trigger”, and “Con & Diverge”. Perhaps a couple of others as well.

Arpeggiated Self Resonance 2

Arpeggiated Self Resonance

Posted on February 9, 2011 by John CS Keston

This sound was programmed on the Juno-106 with the oscillators off and the VCF resonance all the way up, which puts the instrument into self-resonance as was discovered in the article Eerie Pseudo Oscillator Microtrack. Right around 0:42 I turned on the sawtooth wave and manipulated the LFO, then at 0:57 I turned it back off again.

Arpeggiated Filter Self Resonance

Speaker Rattling Filter Sweep Saw Octaves

Posted on February 7, 2011 by John CS Keston

This is part of the bass line from a synthesizer waltz that I’m composing. The sound was played on the Roland Juno-106, which I can’t seem get enough of these days. No processing was applied. All you hear is the chorus along with the LFO modulating the VCF for a long, slow filter sweep. Oh yeah, and I was manually tweaking the cutoff, and probably the envelope amount as well.

Speaker Rattling Filtered Saw Octaves

Wanted: Roland Super Jupiter MKS-80 with MPG-80 Programmer

Posted on February 7, 2011 by John CS Keston

Dear ACB readers, I am looking for a Roland MKS-80 rack mount synthesizer preferably with the companion MPG-80 programmer as shown in the photo above. I have a very specific project in mind using the GMS and something like the MKS-80 together. There are several of these synths available on eBay and even a few on craigslist (although not in my area). Unfortunately the prices seem somewhat inflated, so I am asking around the old fashioned way. Please contact me directly (keston [at] audiocookbook [dot] org), or in the comments, if you know of one available for sale. If you sell me yours you’ll have the pleasure of being able to hear sounds and phrases that I produce with it here on ACB, and a mention in the liner notes for the second Ostracon album. Thanks!