I recently recorded a song I composed years back. The words are by Edgar Allan Poe -- from his poem "The Lake"
Ana Carolina Scott sings here, and I am performing using Pianoteq's Model B. I warmed the piano up a little bit to taste. I also recorded this in a very non-traditional way, but think it turned out quite nicely. Here are the results of my experiment:
Very nice Nathan -
Lanny
Thanks Lanny.
By the way, I ended up layering one of the standard Model B presets along with a darker/warmer modification. To my ears this helped the darker version sound a little less artificial, especially in the lower range and very top octave and a half or so. The standard preset generally has very good realism, but just sounds a little too hard/thin in the higher range for this particular piece (would be fine for other music).
I've finished a new CD which will be released in late October. It's primarily acoustic piano (an 1890's Knabe), but also includes this piece, a 'Suite for Harpsichord' (French double-manual), but also a 'Suite for Synthesizer' which features 3 heavily modified Pianoteq instruments: Bluethner, Harpsichord, and Pianet. I'll post the synth suite when the video's ready.
Awesome.
This is really good stuff. Thanks for posting!
Nathan -
Much enjoyed. The music is mysterious and inviting. I wish the piano were a little more in the background so we could hear and take in every syllable of the vocal. or perhaps the lyric could be superimposed over the visuals. Of course, what you have created is pretty fantastic - the chromaticism and modality all working so beautifully together, the piano and vocal in conversation. Did you study composition at college?
gpt
Lovely in many ways. You mentioned recording it in an unconventional way. Will you be sharing your method?
Thanks, I appreciate it.
I consider this recording very much an experiment. The original is written for soprano, and so the piano part is transposed here, which poses some issues. We recorded this together in real-time -- I was attempting to get a classical (non studio) sound. Ana Carolina was recorded with the visible LDC mic, plus two distant SDC omnis about 10 feet back. The mechanical thudding of the Kawai MP8 I used was so loud it posed some issues in post, so I had to make some compromises there as well. I knew I could eliminate that issue if we recorded separately, but that was a big part of my goal in this experiment.
So while I'm happy with how it turned out, I've certainly learned quite a bit from doing it and might take another stab at it some time.
I studied both composition and piano performance in college. But I studied with my primary composition teacher privately, outside of college -- she was a student of Khachaturian (and I'm partial to Russian music so it was a good fit).
Below is the original piece if you're curious. This recording is probably about 15 years old now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38nlMfPC2Ns