The Kurzweil PC88: My Present-Day Gig Instrument

Today I’d like to talk about my present band practice and gig instrument, the Kurzweil PC88 Performance Controller Keyboard. Why would I do so? Because I like this instrument very much, plain and simple. For any of you out there looking for a review of this fine instrument, read on.

Before I discuss the ins and outs of this instrument, I’d like to tell a brief history about how I stumbled across this “portable” stage piano and eventually became its owner. I was looking for a portable 88-key replacement for a Yamaha SY-77 I had sold a few years back. In July 2012, I browsed through the Philmusic classifieds and found a seller who was selling a PC88. The price seemed reasonable, and then I thought to myself I could use something a bit similar to Jordan Rudess’s Kurzweil K2600. To cut the long story short, I bought it and have been using it since then.

The Kurzweil PC88 was exactly what I was looking for, a keyboard with a pianistic range and some very good sounds. My favorite patches in it are “Classical Piano”, “Suitcase E. Piano”, a number of organ sounds and the “Slow Digital Pad”. In my mind, these sounds should serve as my bread and butter presets. My particular unit is the “MX” variety so it also has a general MIDI bank and a generous 64-note polyphony. Because it’s not a synth, its selection of sounds is limited but it has powerful layering capabilities via the “MIDI Setup” mode where you can layer four sounds, each of which has its individual volume slider. In a limited way, you can create some fantastic patches with real-time control over each sound. Whether I’m playing progressive rock, praise and worship music, or jazz, I can pretty much cover good ground.

I’m not really doing multitrack orchestral stuff with it so 64 notes is pretty generous for my purpose. The feel or touch of its key bed is definitely weighted, similar to the feel of a Yamaha grand I had used about 4 years ago in a company Christmas party, but has a bit of a springy bounce that you will never find in an acoustic piano. How would I know? It’s because it feels very different from the acoustic upright piano I use at home. The rugged metal casing provides me with confidence that it would withstand the rigors of playing out.

As much as I love this instrument, it is not without its faults. I bought this particular PC88 used, and so some of the lead weights were loose. I had to hire a technician to have all the weights of the key bed fixed with a stronger adhesive. My technician said that the original adhesive used doesn’t hold up well to tropical weather, and that’s why they would become loose as the instrument ages. Given the fact that it’s not a synth, I could not use the sort of analog-ish lead sounds I enjoyed in my former Yamaha SY-77, and so I have to stick to organ or piano sounds for my leads.  Lastly, the PC88 is heavy! You will not enjoy climbing up stairs lugging this keyboard on your own. When I set this up in the church (UCCP-MCCD) where I occasionally play, I usually have to ask for assistance from friend and bandmate Pastor Chaz to carry it inside the church. Yes, Kurzweil didn’t lie when it said that the PC88 was portable. They forgot to write down a caveat that it’s only portable if you have a car, if a buddy to help you carry it, or strength comparable to a well-trained athlete. If you plan on carrying it around while commuting, I’d probably laugh at you.

So, in summary, other than the initial key bed lead weight issue, the lack of decent synth lead sounds, and the weight of the instrument, the Kurzweil PC88 is a great piano analog and an impressive MIDI controller.

“Archery” by Pixel Delight Studios, LLC Now Available

About a month ago, I was hired by Pixel Delight Studios, LLC as a sound designer for their latest game available for Android devices. This game is called “Archery – Shoot the Apple”. If you have dreams of shooting arrows towards a hapless individual with an apple on his head, this would fulfill such a wish.

The rules of Archery is simple: shoot an arrow towards an apple placed upon the head of a young man, and do your best to avoid hurting (or killing) said young man. As you advance in level, the distance between the archer and the apple increases.

To download this delightful game (and enjoy some sounds I had created for it), go to http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/archery-pixel-delight-studios-llc/1113938850?ean=2940043936332. It costs only $0.99 to download and be like William Tell.

“Love Rock” by Emi’s Eve: A Composer/Arranger’s Perspective

About 2 years ago, I wrote some music for Emi Waterson, lead singer and songwriter of Emi’s Eve (an original and covers band from Australia). Fast forward to today, the result of that collaboration is now here for your listening pleasure:

 

(“Love Rock” – Copyright 2012, Emi Waterson/Mark A. Galang/Jeni Wallwork)

 

“Love Rock” is a song that started out as a melody that Emi wrote. She sent me a recording of her singing the melody and I wrote music to accompany that melody. It’s a product of my first musical collaboration with somebody from outside of the Philippines, something that was unimaginable for me prior to the advent of the Internet.

The intro where the strings are sawing away was originally a guitar riff. I even wrote a shredding guitar run in the upper register prior to the part where the vocals kick in. The whole idea that I had in mind for the music was sort of a hard rock song for a pop singer. At the very least I was trying to put some hard rock integrity into the song in the same manner that a J-pop song would have a surprisingly technical twist that you would typically expect from a speed metal piece.

The great thing that I love about this recording is how Emi and the rest of her collaborators have tweaked the arrangement. I think most of the notes I wrote are still there, the most important ones being the riffs, the chord progressions, some of the licks and the basslines. The most surprising thing for me was how the Emi and the other arrangers  turned the main riff and some of the passages into something useful for strings. The string passages gave that sort of chamber music appeal like a Vivaldi concerto.

Since the record is intended for a mass-market/radio audience, I wasn’t really surprised that the guitar solos I wrote were edited although a semblance of which appeared as a lick towards the end. Maybe Emi’s guitar player wrote it himself and could have been influenced by the solo I wrote: I’m not really sure.

To sum it all up, I’m very happy to have worked with Emi on “Love Rock” and a few other songs (regarding which I’ll keep my mouth shut for now). I was really glad how the whole recording turned out. It is a pop song, that’s for certain, but it’s one that requires a good level of musicianship to perform, a rarity in today’s music scene where garbage can produce millions of dollars. Give “Love Rock” a listen and you’ll be happy to hear how amazing Emi and her band are.

To get to know more about Emi and Emi’s Eve, visit http://www.emiseve.com.

Kidoteca’s Magical Music Box: iPads and Android Tablets as Instant Mega-Music Boxes

Have you received a music box as a gift during your childhood years? Now you can go back to those sweet childhood memories filled with wonder and excitement through Kidoteca’s Magical Music Box. I would be quick to admit my bias when m writing this review (I worked on its music after all), but I just can’t contain my excitement over it. Truth of the matter is that I really love it, and I think most of you will too.

I just received a complimentary copy of the software from Stanislas Hauptmann of Kidoteca. As soon as I had it installed in my iPad, I couldn’t help but be filled with awe and excitement as all of the 16 piece of music that I arranged for this instrument came to life.

The present version of the Magical Music Box gives you a total of 6 different music box styles. Instead of a single diorama you might find in an actual music box, you can actually “dress up” your music box depending on your mood or whatnot. However, (again, here’s my bias going off), the most important thing about the Magical Music Box is the music itself.

I arranged a total of 16 pieces for this instrument. These piece range from the most serious of classical music pieces like “Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5”, children’s classics like “Old MacDonald” and others. Of all the selections in the Magical Music Box, “Swan Lake”, “Beautiful Dreamer” and “Invention No. 8” are my favorites.

One more great thing about the Magical Music Box is the interactive interface. Upon opening the music box, you can start cranking it up to produce sounds from it just like the real thing. If your iPad has a folder-style case, you’ll see that if you cover up the screen, the music box is going to stop playing. Again, this is the same as real music boxes where closing the lid would stop the mechanism from playing. If you’re not in the mood to crank up the music box, you could just press the gramophone icon so that it would play as if it was a player piano. Another cool thing about it is that you can access tiny bits of history regarding each piece of music in the Magical Music Box.

At the present time, there are two versions of the Magical Music Box. You can try out the Lite version for free before you decide to purchase a copy. I think you can get way more for your money if you purchase the full version, which is only $0.99 on the App Store at the present time.

You can get a copy of Kidoteca’s Magical Music Box through the following links:

iOS Users

Android Users

Kidoteca’s “Magical Music Box” to be Released on Apple’s AppStore Tomorrow

About a few weeks ago, I was working with Kidoteca, a publisher and developer of iOS and Android apps aimed at children, on a project called the “Magical Music Box”. My job consisted of arrangement and transcription of various pieces of music from standard notation or audio and into a special worksheet that Stanislas Hauptmann (one of the top guys at Kidoteca) and his crew developed. I can’t wait to be able to try out on the iPad and hear for myself the results of my work.

To give more details about my experiences while working on this project, Mr. Hauptmann provided me with a list of various pieces of music that he wanted for the app to run. The challenge for me was to rearrange a variety of music with varying complexity into versions that would work for an instrument with barely 3 octaves in range (C3 to C6). This component of the job is indeed challenging, especially when I had to slim down complex pieces like Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Act 1 Finale and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 into simple 1-minute pieces with a maximum of just 2 parts. It’s hard to do justice to such classics with those conditions, but I’m guessing I was able to pull that off.

The second challenge of the job was that I had to convert what I hear in my piano and read in the sheet music into Mr. Hauptmann’s specific code. He supplied me with a worksheet that essentially became a vertical step sequencer. I had to input notes according to scientific pitch notation, set a tempo and set a note value per beat. Seems easy on first look. The difficult part, however, was that I had no way of verifying by audio the results of my coding unless Kidoteca renders the worksheets as MP3s. I had to kiss the expectation of working like I do with FLStudio or Sibelius goodbye and instead try my best to accurately write down on the worksheet what I was hearing whenever I sight read or listen to the pieces that are assigned to me.

The third challenge was to curb my urge towards making complex arrangements. Complex arrangements do not work well most of the time when writing for the Magical Music Box as the notes tend to get muddy. There is a great emphasis on making the melody prominent and writing a simple yet driving bass line. There are at times when Mr. Hauptmann and I had a few differences over how the arrangements should go. Fortunately, we were able to settle things and figure out what works.

I also had the opportunity of writing descriptions for the pieces of music I arranged. It’s kind of like writing program notes for a recital except that this time it’s for an iOS app.

It seems to me that things are working out well as we’re going to see the release of Kidoteca’s “Magical Music Box” tomorrow. I just watched the YouTube promo video and it seems to have a really stunning interface. Of course, the music is *ahem* wonderful as well. Do check out the “Magical Music Box” by Kidoteca at the AppStore and Google Play. Turn your iOS and Android devices into a lullaby station or a mesmerizing kid’s music machine.

P.S. With this music box, you never have to wind it up to start playing plus it’s always at a constant tempo so the music doesn’t die down slowly.

The iPad as an Amazing Musical Tool

Just last week, my wife and I bought a new iPad from one of the shops at the SM Mall of Asia. I had been contemplating about getting a tablet computer or e-book reader for years given the advantages they have. I always thought that I could at the very least have one as a library or sheet music stack on the go. Upon getting an iPad, it opened up a whole new world to me.

The first thing about the iPad that was obvious to me was that I can use it as a musical instrument. This is due to Jordan Rudess’s influence, having seen him on many Dream Theater videos that feature the iPhone and then the iPad as an alternative to his Haken Continuum. Taking cue from that influence, my first app purchase was Wizdom Music’s Tachyon and MorphWiz. These two apps simply blew my mind away as it transformed my iPad into a new musical instrument, sort of like a fretless instrument with more controls. More toys for me to make a noise with then.

The second obvious application for the iPad was as a sheet music reader. I have plenty of sheet music in PDF format and so I got Adobe Acrobat Reader installed in the tablet, loaded up some of my sheet music in it, and there I go. I now have most of my sheet music with me in just a small package. No more folders or extra envelopes to bring with me then.

Reading all over the web, I realized that I can do more with it that those things I’ve mentioned. I have GarageBand in my iPad so theoretically I can perform multitrack audio and MIDI recordings with it. I have most of the things required to make that happen such as a couple of keyboards (from the massive Kurzweil PC88 to the Korg Nanokey), my trusty Technics digital piano, some guitars, and my Zoom H4n recorder. All I lack now is the digital camera connection kit for the iPad (essentially an iPad port to USB adapter). Since the Zoom H4n and the Korg Nanokey has been confirmed to work with the iPad, if I get that connector then boom! A recording studio on the go that’s more mobile than my laptop rig.

Since I’m a music transcriber, I’ve also thought about how the iPad would work as a scorewriter. It’s unfortunate that Sibelius for iPad hasn’t been written yet. However, there’s Symphony Pro and Notion for iPad. Since I’ve been reading reports about how both iPad scorewriters are prone to crashing, I held off the decision to purchase one or the other.

The iPad’s WiFi connectivity can turn it into a remote control surface for DAWs like Sonar, Logic Pro, Cubase, etc. This I haven’t tried yet but I’m assuming that it would be a good alternative to getting an actual control surface. I would have to admit though that nothing beats the actual hardware. But if you’ve got an iPad, it maybe worth trying out.

Having spent only a few days with the iPad, I now have an understanding of why a number of musicians prefer to use the iPad, iPhone, Mac Books and other Apple products for their music production needs. It’s easy to use, and it’s already optimized. I didn’t need to do any tweaks of sort to get things like MorphWiz running. With my PC-based music production gear, I had to spend hours tweaking various aspects of it to get them running smoothly. The big turn off for Apple products is the price. The iPad is not cheap, though I got mine lower since the New iPad just got released and I got the iPad 2. If I’ve already seen that much from just spending a few days with the iPad, I suppose there’s still a lot of exciting things for me to look forward to as this new device helps me in creating new music.

The Challenges of Writing Sleep Music

Sleep deprivation is a problem in contemporary society. The demands of today often call for long work hours that would stretch the strength and patience of anybody. What’s worse is that instead of being able to rest, some people couldn’t even sleep at all. This is where a variety of interventions come into play. You have the allopathic medical solution (drugs) and alternatives that include sleep music. As a musician, nothing can be more fulfilling than one person finding your music to be helpful. However, the ironic twist to that is making sleep music can be very challenging and tiring.

In my experience, composing sleep music gives me that dose of irony. I write music with the intent of inducing deep sleep yet sometimes I myself get sleep deprived working on it. This has to do with the fact that an 8-minute sleep music track can take around 16 hours to write, perform and record, mix and master. If you are a musician like me who does all of the music production processes, you know what I mean.

Melody is an important aspect of my music, and that’s why I try my best to introduce it in sleep music. However, composing a melody for sleep music is one heck of a challenge. It should be interesting enough to be appreciated yet it should be serene and calming to induce sleep. Put in the fact that prior to recording, I have to practice playing some of the instruments live myself. It can take up to an entire day to do just this.

When I get the chance to record the music, it’s all a mix of playing pre-composed written ideas and improvisation. Another challenge at this stage is to make an arrangement (or in many cases, improvise an arrangement) that would be serene and calming yet remain to be musically interesting.

As much as I love shredding on a guitar or playing runs like Chopin on the piano, you can’t do that in sleep music. At one point, I even tried to pull something out of Debussy’s book, a fast run that sounds smooth. My artist manager didn’t think that would fit in a sleep music context. What I learned here is another challenge to writing sleep music: restraint and control. While it may seem to be natural for players to insert fast runs into a seemingly slow piece of music, it takes a good amount of impulse control to prevent showing off while writing sleep music.

The last challenging thing I can think of at the top of my head when it comes to sleep music is mixing and mastering. These production processes also consume a lot of time. Imagine yourself having to listen to your track for 10 times or more, one segment at a time, in order to mix it. This is the equivalent of reading an embarrassing section of your diary over and over again. Mastering your own tracks is like that too except that you would be listening to two or more complete tracks over and over again to see if all of them fit well in an album. The repeating drone of a binaural beat, which is designed to make your brain shut down for sleep, doesn’t help much either in keeping your concentration up.

Writing sleep music shouldn’t be taken for granted. Just like playing prog, jazz fusion or modern classical music, sleep music has it’s own heavy set of challenges as well. It is good to know that one would easily reap the rewards of doing so.

Anyway, if you’re off to go to bed, check this latest easy sleep music track of mine from a7records: