Reviews article index
This section includes reviews of various keyboard instruments, software, musical gadgets, and web sites and services.
Review: Tripper for iPhone
May 11, 2009
A couple of days ago Xyster.net released Tripper for the iPhone.
Tripper is a fairly simple 16-step looping sequencer spanning ten distinct notes. All highlighted notes are played, together with colourful animation.
At present there’s just one sound, which could be likened to some kind of toy/electric piano. There’s not a lot of fancy stuff – you can’t swipe your finger to create runs of notes, alter sounds, change velocities, or do the sorts of things a Yamaha Tenori-On would offer you, but then you wouldn’t expect that from a 59p (99c) app.
One interesting feature is the ability to create “Game of Life” cell formations onto the board and have the melodic patterns evolve over time.
Used as a virtual instrument along with a sequencer and some of the iPhone’s other synth apps, this could be used to general an interesting, evolving base for mmore ambient/experimental compositions and performances.
A pause/edit button would be a useful addition to make it possible to build up a pattern without the instrument playing. It makes setting up accurate formations, particularly for use in “Game of Life” mode, very difficult.
It’s possible to save compositions for later playback, but although the app states that it’s possible to email these to other users, I’ve not found out how.
Another cool feature for power users on my wish list would be the ability to transmit notes via OSC, for hooking up to an external sequencer/sound generator, or the ability to save a composition’s MIDI file for later editing.
More sounds, of course, and maybe some other gestures, would be great, but this is the first version and it is a very inexpensive app. Good job from Xyster for fun and maybe a bit of inspiration too.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Sponsored Review: Lindeblad Piano Restoration
October 30, 2008
This is a review of the web site and services of the Lindeblad Piano Restoration company. It should be noted that I have not used their services personally, so my opinion is based upon the professionalism and attention to detail as portrayed on the web site.
The Lindeblad Piano Restoration company has been restoring quality acoustic pianos since 1920, and prides itself on using only the finest materials in order to restore an instrument to its former glory.
The company is wise enough to point out that not all pianos are worthy of restoration, and only the likes of Steinway, Mason & Hamlin, Knabe, Chickering, Baldwin, or Sohmer are likely to be able to withstand restoration.
There’s an excellent video on the site which walks you through the meticulous process of restoring a Mason & Hamlin grand piano. It really does show what’s involved in the labour of love that is restoration.
It takes about three or four months to restore a piano, including transportation times, and a replacement piano can be supplied by the company while another is being restored. Alternatively, new customers can approach Lindeblad to find them a restored piano.
If you’re in the market for a restored piano and are looking for a company that cares about the instrument, Lindeblad may be worth considering.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Sponsored Review: Virtual Sheet – Sheet Music Downloads Membership web site
October 17, 2008
This is a review of an online sheet music web site which also serves up MIDI and MP3 audio tracks of the available music.
Finding affordable and high-quality transcripts of classical music for a variety of instruments can be difficult, and buying individual pieces can get expensive.
The Virtual Sheet site aims to offer a wide variety of music for a low subscription. For $37.75 per year (around three dollars a month), the site offers virtually unlimited access to over 6,000 single sheets and collections. Non-subscribers can also download music on a pay-per-use basis.
Although I didn’t sign up for the complete service, the site helpfully allows some single page previews of the music to be viewed. Taking a look at some of Chopin’s work, for example, the print quality is of a high standard. Of course, it will depend on how good your printer and paper is as to how good the finished output is, but for home use, even a cheap inkjet printer should yield good results.
The range of music is fairly impressive, with plenty of music from well-known classical composers (Albinoni, Bach, Beeethoven, Chopin, Debussy, Elgar, Grieg, Handel, Mendelssohn, Strauss, Verdi, to name but a few) and for a variety of instruments.
Of course, I was most concerned with the availability of music for piano. A search shows that there are currently 237 piano solo items, 736 piano solo with other instrument items (many of these can still be played alone), and eight “piano for four hands” pieces. There are even 28 pieces for organ solo.
If you’re after high-quality, legally available printable manuscripts for classical music, with the inclusion of audio files so you can hear how it sounds, this may be a good site to try out.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Sponsored Post: Review of EZ-Tracks: Gospel
June 25, 2008
This is a review of EZ-Tracks Gospel, though this is just a subsection of the EZ-Tracks online music service as a whole.
EZ-Tracks promises to allow users to “download and listen to music carefree� and is 100% legal because it is supported by advertising. Herein lies the problem, though it depends on how you like to use the Internet.
Signing up for the service highlights the issue. I was forced to click through around four product advertisements before I could finish registering for the service and listening or downloading to music. Often, whole page adverts interrupt the download or preview process. While this is understandable, given that this is the only way for the service to generate revenue to cover royalties, it becomes rather annoying after a time.
The music itself is of variable, but generally acceptable, quality. MP3 files seem to be encoded at 128kbps, which is far from the highest quality available online, but not bad for a “free� service. There appears to be no DRM (copy protection) on the files, either, which is a blessing.
A few gospel tracks I downloaded suffered from poor vocal reproduction, particularly on sibilants, but this could have been a fault of the original recording rather than the encoding.
Sometimes, the 30-second sample of each song failed to load first time, at least on Safari on a Mac.
Users seem to get about 100 free song downloads upon signing up. To get more, users need to sign up for various deals offered by advertisers. This has the disadvantage that one could end up on a number of emailing lists.
EZ-Tracks seems to do what it was designed to do, but whether you’ll be able to bear the ads is up to you. Personally, I find it very difficult to use web sites and services with lots of advertising, and I’d prefer to see the option of paying a monthly fee to avoid the ads and get a download quota. Then again, there are plenty of other online music services which do this.
EZ-Tracks claims 30,000 music tracks, including a number of current popular hits, though to get at them all you’ll probably need to view a lot of ads.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Sonic State video reviews Novation Nocturn Control
February 4, 2008
I haven’t heard much about Novation recently, but here’s a video from Sonic State’s Rob Jones, who does a 6+ minute practical review of the Nocturn Control, a nifty little device making it easy to control plug-in parameters and other effects.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Piano Wizard versus Piano Hero
April 9, 2007
We’ve already covered the Piano Wizard software, and now Pianologist has written a comparison of Piano Wizard and Piano Hero.
What’s interesting is that it introduces Piano Wizard PREMIER, a more expensive package that allows unlimited download and learning of music in MIDI file format.
If you have any experience of either piece of software, you can leave your comments there.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Dustin O’Halloran Piano Solos Vol 2 reviewed at Gigwise
November 16, 2006
This release by Dustin O’Halloran is a departure from the guitar-based songwriters and features no songs, no guitars – just a solo piano of instrumental movements in a classical vein which cock a wink to inspiration from Satie, Debussy and Ludwig Van. With richness in it’s Eno-esque simplicity, there’s music here to sooth the jangled nerves of many a concrete-dweller and offers more comfort than a laced cup of cocoa. The ears that be decided to use two compositions for Sophie Coppola’s movie ‘Marie Antoinette’, such is their sumptuousness.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Miami Herald praises Jamie Cullum in concert
October 12, 2006
The Miami Herald has extolled the talents of young jazz pianist Jamie Cullum as he “gives Miami’s new Carnival Center its first pop concert in a terrific show”
“Think a fresher Harry Connick Jr., but with a hipper hairdo and some actual flair. But to these pop-seasoned ears, Cullum is much closer to the second coming of a young Elton John or Songs in the Attic-era Billy Joel for the way he treats the piano as a prop — pounding it with rock ‘n’ roll fervor, playing atop it and under it, all the while coaxing sonorous tones from its keys.
There’s a bit of Joel, too, in Cullum’s elastic vocal phrasing on his original songs like These Are the Days, a tuneful pop number from his first album, Twentysomething. Monday night, he turned it into an audience participation number, calling on half of the hall to act as saxophones, the other half to become trumpets carrying a melodic phrase. You won’t see that in the jazz loft at the Van Dyke. Jazz is largely mired in the past. Cullum, lacing his original tunes with modern hip-hop, rock or even folk accents, feels more like the future.”
Popularity: 2% [?]
Yundi Li gives phenomenal performance: review
May 6, 2006
24-year-old Chinese pianist Yundi Li gave a virtuoso performance last month in Toronto, to which he received a standing ovation.
At age 18, Li was the first person in 15 years to win first prize in the prestigious Chopin International Piano Competition in Poland.
This man is also a player with personality, much like superstars of yore like Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein. Like those 20th-century legends, Li imprints the music he plays with a personal esthetic that may not necessarily be true to the original score or to mainstream style.
In the case of last night’s program of crowd-pleasing dazzlers by Mozart, Schumann and Liszt, Li grabbed great handfuls of notes and shaped them into his own artworks with an iron will and breathtaking virtuosity.
But many of the results were odd, even off-putting.
In the case of Mozart’s popular Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K.330, Li overlaid the Classical-era purity of sound with a Romantic sensibility. This made for a sweetness that became downright saccharine in the slower second movement.
Read the full review: Young pianist’s technique magical
Popularity: 3% [?]
Concert Review: Talvin Singh
March 31, 2006
Richard Thomson reviews Talvin Singh at the New Zealand State Opera House:
As you’d expect, the festival promotion machine took care with their advance description of Talvin Singh’s set. “Low-fi electronica” was bang on, but while the audience was appreciative, you had to wonder whether many of them might have been unexpectedly challenged by the sounds produced by Singh and his Powerbook-shaking partner Oscar Vizan.
Live laptop techno is something fans of electronic music are going to hear a lot more of in years to come. But while the new technology regains something of the excitement of live performances, it comes raw and without the smoothing and compressing of harsh sonic edges that goes on in the studio.
And for people who quickly grew bored by the lush yet soporific noodling that typifies much electronic music, that can only be a good thing. Although Singh’s earlier work, such as the album OK which led to his winning the Mercury Prize in 1999, could never be described as noodling, its washes of synth chords and smooth drum’n'bass styles were rarely less than easy on the ear.
Read the full review: Arts Festival Review: Talvin Singh
Popularity: 2% [?]