Chromatic Currents Part I

Posted on April 19, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

Here’s a segment of sound from another GMS video I produced yesterday called Chromatic Currents. Once again I was letting the visuals drive the piece, while I controlled parameters in the GMS. On Sound Globules I used the circle of fourths with probability distributions so that C was the most frequent note followed by F, Bb, Eb and so on. I really liked the rare dissonant pitch making its way into the sequence, so I tried a similar technique for Chromatic Currents. The scale was strongly C minor pentatonic, weighted with the Dorian mode by adding less-likely probabilities for D and A. However, every note that was not part of the scale still had a small possibility of occurring. This led to occasional blue or dissonant pitches in the stream of notes. The possibility of having any note within a chromatic scale occur in the stream led me to the title.

Chromatic Currents

GMS Videos and Interface

Posted on April 18, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

Today I made two more videos with the GMS using a different technique than in Dodger of Red Lights. This time I wanted to explore what could be produced using visual input that I wasn’t directly controlling. The obvious, albeit cheesy, lava lamp came to mind, so I turned it on and went to work.

I connected a separate video camera via firewire, leaving a screen with all my interface controls available for me to tweak while recording. I recorded the video to MiniDV on the external camera, and as before recorded the output onto my PCM-D50 to free up the CPU for Reason and the GMS. Since I was recording the video on the external camera I had to the flip the video so that the image corresponded properly with the sound. This led me add a feature for toggling the mirroring in the GMS.

Click the image to see a full sized screen shot of the interface. All three videos are available on the Unearthed Music Vimeo account. Here’s an excerpt of audio from the piece titled Sound Globules.

GMS: Sound Globules

GMS Piece: Dodger of Red Lights

Posted on April 17, 2009 by John C.S. Keston

Today I decided to see if I could create a version of what I performed at the MAW outing last night, as a streaming video with good quality sound. I opted not to use screen capture software so that all the processing on my Macbook Pro could go into rendering the images and sound. The imagery was created by manipulating a red, LED, bike light near the lens of the camera. The screen was then shot with a second camera while the audio was recorded externally using my PCM-D50.

I built a pentatonic scale using the note probability distribution feature in the GMS. The most likely note was a C followed by D, G, G#, and then B natural. I also used the probability distributions on the durations to get some stumbling rhythms centered around sixteenth notes.

Dodger of Red Lights from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.

MIDI Arpeggiation in Ableton Live

Posted on December 13, 2008 by John C.S. Keston

I recenty had the opportunity to take a good long look at Ableton Live’s Arpeggiator MIDI effect. I have used it here and there in the past, but recently discovered how flexible it is. There are many more algorithms (labeled as styles) than I have seen on other arpeggiators (a total of eighteen styles) for a broad variety of patterns. This example uses the “Thumb UpDown” style. Imagine playing a sequence of notes on your right hand starting with your thumb, then index finger, back to thumb, then middle, etc. and that’s kind of what this particular style does to the notes fed into it. Other capabilities of the arpeggiator include a velocity ramp to manipulate the dynamics of the patterns, and typical parameters like retriggering, gate, and groove.

Solar Arpeggio

Video Game Music Remixes: Tetris

Posted on December 2, 2008 by John C.S. Keston

As I have mentioned in previous entries I give an assignment in my audio production class on importing MIDI files and producing music using Propellerheads Reason. The goal of the assignment is to learn about MIDI as an interface, protocol, and file format, and to learn some of the basics of Reason.

Usually I demonstrate how to do this with a MIDI file from Classical Archives, but I also use popular music examples from mididb.com, and I always get an enthusiastic response when using a MIDI file from a video game. A great site for video game MIDI files is vgmusic.com.

Consequently, many of the projects turned in are remixes of video game music. This quarter I have a student who is planning on submitting his work to Overclocked Remix, a site dedicated entirely to remixes of video game music. Another talented student named Ben Siegel produced this excellent version of the theme from Tetris that starts out with piano and then builds into a disco classic.

Tetris Remix by Ben Siegel