Gestural Music Sequencer Documentary Short

Posted on June 23, 2009 by John CS Keston

Josh Clos produced this documentary short about the GMS recently. He and his colleagues Julie Kistler and Brian Smith shot video during my performance in Downtown Minneapolis with Minneapolis Art on Wheels on May 13, 2009. Later Josh interviewed me in the audio studio at Art Institutes Minnesota where I teach interactive media and audio production. As a student in my audio production class, Josh edited the sound and video together with minimal input from myself. His short illustrates what the GMS does and how I’ve been using it to compose music in real-time. Thanks, Josh, for a job well done!

Speaking of the GMS, I have recently slowed down its development, and I’m considering releasing a beta version of the application in a few months. Soon afterward I plan to release the code as Open Source so that the application can be developed further by artists interested in creating music through gestural input.

Stop Motion Video: Leggy

Posted on May 20, 2009 by John CS Keston

I made this stop motion video using a tool developed in Max 5 by Ali Momeni. All the sounds effects and music were previously posted on ACB. The sound at the beginning is the wind up toy from Weird Noisey Spark Shooting Guy. The backyard ambiance is from Normalized Binaural Back Alley Ambiance. The cave sound is pitched down water dripping from Snow Melting into Lake Superior. Finally, the music at the end is from Processed Rhodes Pedal Noise.

Subprime by Beeple with Sound Design by Kyle Vande Slunt

Posted on April 29, 2009 by John CS Keston

Minneapolis based sound designer and Nobot band member Kyle Vande Slunt recently alerted me to an excellent animated short titled Subprime – “watch the american housing market spiral out of control”. The animation was produced by Beeple, otherwise known as graphic designer, short film and music video producer Mike Winkelmann.

The music was produced by Nobot and the sound design by Kyle Vande Slunt. Kyle is a talented musician and sound designer working actively in the industry. You can view his demo reel and hear examples of his work at standingwavesound.com. He has also offered to contribute to ACB, so keep a lookout for an article or two from him soon.

Subprime from Beeple on Vimeo.

External Sync Feature Added to the GMS

Posted on April 21, 2009 by John CS Keston

With some expert help from Grant Muller I have successfully added the capability of synchronization with an external MIDI signal to the GMS. This feature opens up vast possibilities for performance and collaboration with the tool. To test the feature I sent external sync from Ableton Live to the GMS, which in turn routed note information back through the IAC drivers into Ableton to drive a VST FM synth. I started by live looping a few phrases from the sequencer including a bass line, mid-range arpeggio, and some heavily delayed FM clav, then put it together with a recycled beat into a two minute micro-track. Everything heard, except the drums, are notes output from the GMS via video stimulus.

GMS External Sync Test

Chromatic Currents Part II

Posted on April 20, 2009 by John CS Keston

This second part to “Chromatic Currents” was produced with the GMS by using a string of lights placed into a large glass vase. I moved the camera around the vase to direct the flow of musical phrases with one hand while I adjusted transposition and note duration settings in the sequencer with my right.

You might notice that the video stimulus does not resemble lights in a vase. This is because I applied a negative filter to the video after capturing the performance. Once again I used a pleasant pentatonic scale interspersed with rare dissonant notes and probability distributions in the note durations to give it an eerie awkwardness.

GMS: Chromatic Currents Part II from Unearthed Music on Vimeo.