julean simon - wax

This is a project-suite containing mainly solo-works, where i test special hard- & software, playing techniques, etc. it is my understanding that you have to really dive into an instrument to master it and to appreciate its particular character. i oppose the common praxis of fetching things from the supermarket-shelve, barely scratching the surface and rendering them interchangeable.

081005
midrange PIANO TEQniqes
- testing MODARTT's pianoteq - physicaliy modelled piano (software) -with a WX5

liner notes:

thats the newest issue of my instrument-testing-suite. someone recommended to have a look at pianoteq, when he heard my piano-cd "grand" (which i played on tweeked lowtec piano-soundfonts - kind of prepared-piano style). i downloaded the pianoteq-demo some months ago but experienced quite a lot of latencies at that time (i guess wrong setup). when i tested it again a few days ago, there was significantly less latency. especially after turning down polyphony: i play a wind-controler, so thats monophonic anyway.

playing piano (or any percussion-type sound) is counter-intuitive for a wind-instrument-player. since at the point a tone is once started, he doesnt have too much control over it any more. while with wind-style sounds you can do a lot. so playing piano with a windcontroler needs an unorthodox approach, psychologically. and a lot of practice with regard to placing attacks in time, etc. and it also needs a lot of fiddling with the breath- and lip-pressure settings on the controler (yamaha wx5). also, i have to do a lot of tricks to compensate for the lacking polifony. but this also makes it a very special sort of piano-like musik. and i like to emphasize this difference.

i recorded (cubase, G4 1.67Mhz) four sessions with different instrument-parameter settings (pianoteq). i kept the best pieces and arranged them in the order of recording. pieces have not been edited, except for using waves-IR reverbs. its all improvisation. the main purpose was to get used to attacktime, responsiveness, to check sound-variability, dynamics, play with quasi-poliphony with close notes, rhythmical patterns, etc. - that is, to get comfortable with this instrument. facit: this is a great piece of software. well made, sounding nice and physical modelling is the right approach! thanks go to Philippe Guillaume and Julien Pommier.

of course there are some issues: mostly i used the jazz-preset and modified it. i dont see immediately why it sounds significantly better than others. also i found, the reverb could be better. perhaps i just did not find good settings. or behaps i am too much used to waves IR. it is hard to play controlled soft and slow notes (that is mainly a controller-related problem). i hear something like pitchbends here and there, although i had disabled pitchbend in pianoteq. in the cubase-recording i had to delete the pitchbend track (of course).

i really would like to see a max-msp-object version of this software, to embed it into my performance-program (which might be already possible, since there exists a vst-object, but still...) and of course i'd like to see other instrument-types, e.g.bowed strings? but with a generic approach just like in pianoteq... (i am a fan of physical modelling)

this test-CD has been produced with the demo-version of pianoteq, which lacks halftones in the higher and lower registers. thats the reason i called it "midrange". perhaps there will also be a "fullrange" one day... > comms

longterm-project programming a cello-voice on the VL1m and learnig to play it :

031202
the hypercello november workout

070307
casals -10

I read, casals once said that you need to be 60 to play the cellosuites. we have now about 50 years of electronic music, so i have another 10 years to improove this cello-voice. yet, the target is not imitation of sound, but variability and playability of the voice. This voice-programming led me to choose classical music for testing. Meanwhile playing the cellosuites is a continuous practice for me, to keep my electronic music-making in touch with music tradition and it is both an enjoyment and a challenge concerning interpretation and playing technique...bach>

i programmed several guitar-voices on the VL1m (physical modelling) and used these projects to learn them to play...

070114
g.070114 guitar series

CD 60min 1track
A solo-improvisation to test a guitar-ish voice, on which I have been working on for some time, programming- as well as playing-wise. Playing typical guitarmusic I try to control attack-time, which is more difficult than in wind-style voices that have a more continuous attack. Also I have been looking for possibilities for dynamic modulation. It is a one-hour session, un-cut, no post-production, shows the process of developing control and confidence on a new instrument - Although a practicing session, this project found quite a lot of fans for its musical content.

070320
g.070320

CD 66min 21trax
The second impro-session of my g-project with more advanced guitarish voices, allowing more modulation in the attack-phase compared to g.070114. On some piece two unison voices and polyphonic later. Nice development throughout the 21 pieces: lyrical at the beginning percussive and atonal for the finale.

projects testing various piano-soundfonts. a soundfont is a format for sampled sounds to be played via midi. i especially like to play on lowtec soundfonts. i have written a realtime editor in max/msp (on the basis fof the fluidsynth-object) that allows to alter various paramters so that you get an electronic version of a prepared piano.

051111
grand() - synthetisch/analytische etueden

36 little pieces for "prepared piano". One of my favorite projects - I am glad it worked out so well on all levels, voice-programming, playing-technique, the composition...grand>

050730
33 short piano pieces

similar project with percussion-soundfonts:

070405
studies for electronic percussion