Beethoven: Für Elise re-up

I was not happy with the original version of this video.  The sound was not properly synced with the visuals.  At first I thought that this was a result of the software used to generate the visuals from the midi file, but upon extensive investigation I have found that for some reason there is a sync issue.  I generate the audio directly from the midi, so they should match.  However using miditrail, MAM player, and some others all yield the same result.  The visuals go a bit out of sync and then catch up whenever there is a tempo change.  This has never happened to me before while making a visualization.  I have no idea what the cause is.  In any case I decided to prevent the problem entirely by using the zgame editor visualizer which uses (in this case) only the audio to generate the visuals.  I may have gotten carried away but what the heck it was fun.

It just so happens that the ZGEV has a stereographic output, so if possible I will upload a 3d version of this video as well.  I have no idea if it will look any good.  However I am a fan of 3d so I feel compelled to take advantage of this feature (if I can figure out how to get it to work.) 

Big Tick Rhino: Oberheim patch bank review

This video took forever to make.  It was not that one thing made it difficult.  Many semi-related events such as the holidays, getting a new sound card (and all the shopping and research involved in that decision), choosing a new daw (Reaper or Presonus its killing me I can't decide!), and some other things all coincided to make this video take far longer than it should have.

I must thank some of the users at the KVR forums for their constructive criticism on my last two videos.  It is not easy to give criticism for most of us.  Their input was really helpful.  In my last patch bank review I was really excited about at least 30% of the presets and I wanted to include them all in the video.  The result was a demonstration of many great patches, but overall the video was really boring.  Not many people want to watch a static screen of Rhino (and cubase) while I noodle around with some presets.

I chose a more focused approach with this video.  Instead of trying to show a plethora of sounds, I narrowed it down to just a few and gave my overall impression of the sound bank.  This bank is really great.  However there are also some things I did not like, which I mention in the video.

Well I hope that this one turned out better than the last as far as watchability goes!

Music Theory Basics: The Treble Clef

I wanted to make a series of videos covering music theory.  My idea was to make them as short as possible so that one could pick and choose which bits to watch.  For example, what if you already read the bass clef, and only want to brush up on the notes of the treble clef? 

This is the first of many videos on music theory.  However, it is a busy time so I expect that the next one will take some weeks until I can upload it.

Digital Synth Collection

This is a demonstration of various patches from the Digital Synth Collection for Big Tick's Rhino.  It was fun noodling around with these presets.  This bank is huge with 256 presets.  It was difficult to choose which ones to put in the video, so I show somewhere in teh ballpark of 50 patches. 

The visuals are not that exciting.  After uploading and reviewing this video, I decided that in the future I will make visualizations for a demo such as this in stead of just recording the synth.

I figure that no one will actually sit through the whole video.  However I imagine that they might skip around and check out the various sounds.

Review of Big Tick Rhino

I have no idea what possesed me to make a review of this synth.  I guess I thought it would be fun, or maybe I watch too much AVGN or something.  In any case it was a very enjoyable project.  I got kind of silly with the sound effects.  I was going for something that was more fun than your average software review.

I gained a new found appreciation for talented voice actors while making this video.  Most of us do not realize how difficult it is to sound good for more than a few words.  I never knew how much I stuttered, mispronounced words, and made disgusting mouth noise until editing the VO for this review.  Green apples and herbal tea only helped so much.  I hope you enjoy the review!

J. S. Bach Chorale 43

I made this video to go along with my review of Big Tick Rhino, and to demonstrate that instrument.  I used very little processing so that the raw sound of the synthesizer could be heard.  I only used reverb.  This was also a quick job.  I usually spend more time on the velocity levels, phrasing, etc.  However with this video I was in a bit of a hurry so that I could have it out at the same time as the review.  I will be posting the review shortly.

The title of this one is "Liebster Gott, wann werd ich sterben," which translates to: "dearest god, when shall I die."

The visualization was created using the zgame editor visualizer.

Sequenced in Cubase 5.5.3 as usual.

J. S. Bach: Chorale 27

I made this one because I wanted to do another video with midivis, but I did not have much free time for a longer piece.  I really like the chorales so it was an easy choice.

I used the stock brass from Kontakt 4 which is from VSL, although I believe there are fewer velocity layers and articulations compared to the full retail version of this same library.  Overall the brass sounds great despite the lack of depth one might expect from VSL.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j6Ri3qzDZs

Project Notes: Für Elise

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFh_-Krt3Ck

I found the visualizer for this video almost by accident.  It is called 3dMIDI.  It never made it to a 1.0 release as far as I could find, and the website for the software provided in the documentation is no longer available.  The main feature that caught my attention was the ability to render right from the program which would eliminate the need for screen capture software such as FRAPS.  While FRAPS does an excellent job, the quality is seriously limited.  My eventual goal is to make videos with decent quality, and to do this I will most likely need to learn software such as Blender.

That being said the results of this video were decent but definitely not stunning.  The render option would not work properly so I was forced to use FRAPS for this video.  3dMIDI definitely feels like an alpha release.  Random crashes, settings anomalies, you name it.  However I really like the look of it so I decided to use it in spite of its raw feel.  The graphics look dated but I am a sucker for all things vintage.  The only problem with the video is that 3dMIDI does not sync with tempo changes very well.  If you pay attention you will see that at certain times the balls do not hit the keys exactly in time.  This is not an alignment problem but rather the software not adjusting to the midi input correctly.  My guess is that some decimal rounding error is involved.

I wanted to do a visualization of Für Elise for a while now.  I chose the visualization before I began work on the sequence.  Right away I knew that I had to use something besides piano samples for this piece.  The look of it called out for a good bell-like synth patch.  I tried using several instruments in my arsenal before deciding on FM8 which had the best sound for this project.  I adjusted phrasing and velocity levels to give the piece more expression.  Many of the synth pieces I see on Youtube have a single velocity and no phrasing which tends to give them a dull and lifeless feel.  That is actually a good thing in some cases but I felt this piece needed some expression.

Project notes: Zwei Praeludien op 39 by Beethoven

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q7kA_U_XCY

This video was a long project mostly because of demands on my time such as the birth of a new infant.  I kept working at it even when I only had a few minutes to spare.

This piece was challenging to sequence because it is Beethoven's version of counterpoint.  This basically means that instead of worrying about one melody, I had to shape several melodies that happened simultaneously, bringing each one out.

Some may be surprised by the liberties I have taken with this performance.   The phrasing and tempo changes that I used are a little unusual.  However one goal that I always have is to create a new interpretation of a work.  Why make a pale imitation of what a pianist recorded?  There are so many talented musicians that there is little point to attempt an emulation of a past performance.  One on my main influences along these lines is Glen Gould.  Quite often his performances would be less than good (I am thinking of recordings such as Rondo alla Turca).  however he usually tried something different to make the performance his own, and when he was on it was amazing.  Some of my favorite (and least favorite) performances were recorded by Gould.  Of course the risk I take is that many will not like my own interpretation.  However I prefer that to a bland performance. 

The visualizer used for this video is the Music Animation Machine, which can be found here: http://www.musanim.com/player/

I sequenced this using Cubase and Kontakt.

Project Notes:Chopin Prelude No. 4

I was working on a Beethoven video when I stumbled upon the Zgame Editor Visualizer (say that three times fast).  This is a plugin that produces a video based on audio output, midi, or both.  It is still very new and has the feel of a beta program.  However it has quite a lot of potential.  As of now there are no presets to interpret Midi data that come with the program.  Also according to the Zgame people it does not have Midi look ahead, so you will not see a scrolling score like the MAM.  Basically this is like the visualizer that comes with WMP or itunes but much more powerful.  You can make your own preset, but that requires programming skills (of which I have none).  I found this particular preset on the Fl forums.  It was created by user StephenM, so many thanks to him.  I saw a video of this preset and immediately thought Chopin for some reason.  The best thing about ZGEV is that it renders video, so I don't have to resort to a third party desktop recorder.  This means much higher quality videos in theory.  Also you can use this plugin by downloading the demo version of FL studio to try it out.  You cannot save projects, but you can output files.

What needs to be said about this particular prelude?  It is one of the most beautiful pieces ever written for piano. 

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzrzSWkKE0I

Project Notes: J. S. Bach chorale 86

The title of this chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgernstern translates to "How brightly shines the morning star."

This one was a simple test to see if I could get good results with the MAM player using the new settings I found.  The results were promising, although I still got some wiggle with the bars.  I will try to further tweak this for better results using different output quality and frame rates.

I used the choir from the stock Kontakt library for this piece.  While it sounds very nice, this particular instrument is better suited for a mix rather than a stand alone performance.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl0_OaWy18Y

Project Notes: Euphonic Sounds by Scott Joplin

This is a great piece by Joplin.  It differs from stock ragtime in several ways.  The most notable difference is perhaps the bass part which deviates from the typical oom-pah.

I used a new (to me) midi visualizer again for this video.  The program is called Miditrail.  It has three different views: 2d 3d and raindrop.  The program is actually quite powerful in some ways and can be highly customized.  Unfortunately it takes a little bit of computer knowledge to adjust.  For example to change the colors of the notes one must open a file and edit the color data.  I think the data is in hexadecimal notation, but I am not 100% sure about that.  I could not figure out how to get rid of the file name and data readout at the top and bottom of the screen.  This is why I have the black borders in case you were wondering.  There are some pretty good videos on youtube using this visualizer.

I sequenced this one with Cubase 5.5.3 as usual.  I will upgrade some day when they fix the windows nightmare and correctly implement group tracks.  Or when Protools comes out with a 64 bit version. I will just get that instead.

I used samples from the stock Kontakt 4 library.  The instrument is called 'concert grand.'  It sounds really good compared to some other piano sample instruments that I have used.  However it lacks the realism needed to pull off a solo piano performance.  It sounds like there are 2 velocity layers for the instrument.  When you go from loud to soft the sound is really disturbing.  It sounds sort of like the microphone is being moved farther away from the piano instead of the pianist playing more quietly.  I used this as a challenge to improve my skills.  I bounced the track to an audio file and then edited the volume automation to create dynamic contrast instead of using velocity.  I can't say that this was totally successful, but on the other hand it was better than using velocity to control dynamics.  This instrument also plays from the pianists perspective, or the low notes to the left and high to the right.  This always sounds quite strange to me.  Under normal conditions the audience does not hear a piano performance from left to right like this.  I would not use this sort of panning instrument for most applications, but for a midi visualization it actually worked quite well.

I found two interesting pieces of information while making this video.  First the manual for the MAM player has been updated to reflect settings for win7, and second there may be a Pro version of the MAM coming out at some point.  I won't hold my breath for the pro version, but I will definitely try out the win 7 settings for my next video.  I want to try out the choir that came with Kontakt on a Bach chorale.  Hopefully I can get a better quality video with the new settings.

Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD9Th1Q96NI

J. S. Bach Chorale # 251 Ich bin ja, Herr, in deiner Macht

Translation: I am indeed, Lord, in thy power.

When I began making these videos I only knew about the MAM player.  I was quite impressed with its possibilities.  However after making a few videos I became frustrated with the difficulties of obtaining good quality video from the MAM.  I spend my free time over several days and found a few interesting visualizers.  Most of them, while amazingly beautiful, were too abstract for what I wanted.  Morphyre is my favorite from the abstract bunch, although there are many good ones.

Other programs I found require some programming skills.  There are some videos using the processing language on youtube for example that are really good.  After seeing these I am motivated to learn that language.  I know nothing about these things, so I expect it will take a year or two before I can use processing to make videos. 

The program I used for this video is called simply Midivis.  It can be found here: http://www.horningabout.com/midivis/
There is no license that I could find, so I assume it is freeware.  I will be emailing the creator with a thanks and a link to my video after it is up.

This visualizer is similar to the MAM player, but has a 3d- rotational view.  Also it is more stable.  I was able to get a much better quality video out of this thing compared to the MAM player.  At this point it is a matter of fudging with frame rates and other technical details to get better quality.  Since I know almost nothing about such things, it is a process of trail and error.

I chose this chorale simply because I liked it.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I sight read through one or two of these every day.  While they are not all zingers, the best of them are quite beautiful.  This one in particular had a nice baroque feel to it.  I also wanted something fairly short to try out this new (to me) visualizer.  I saw no point in do a project that required 20 hours of work if the end result was not good.

Along the lines of trying out new things, I chose the monologue synth that came with Cubase 5.  I have so many instruments available to me that it is hard to choose one.  Between cubase stock and komplete 6, I have acess to literally thousands of sounds.  That is more than I will every likely use.  Monologue was prommising at first, but ended up being a big dud.  Nonetheless I pressed forward with it.  If I never use these things for projects, I will never know what I have at my disposal.  Also, I now know that if I want a particular sound, I should look elsewhere.

The main problem with monologue is instability.  Starting notes or notes after a pause were particularly bad but there were plenty of other annoyances.  The instrument first came with cubase sx2 according to sound on sound. It feels like it has been updated with the digital version of duct tape, whatever that is.  It barely limps along.  There are better quality mono synths that can be had for free, although they do not look as nice as this one.  The only reason I stuck with monologue was the sheer challenge of it.  Could I get a good sound from a bad instrument?  I think I got an o.k. sound but not great.  How will I ever learn anything if I only use great instruments like absynth?

video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOUrElPZ2hU

Project notes: Kismet Rag

This piano piece is credited to Scott Joplin and Scott Hayden.  It was originally published in 1913.  

I chose this one almost randomly from Joplin's works.  I wanted to make a rag time video, but not Maple Leaf or the Entertainer (although I will get to those eventually).  I went through some sheet music until I found a piece with a nice groove to it.

According to wikipedia, kismet means 'fate' among other things.  The picture from the sheet music shows the sphinx.  I have no idea what this piece has to do with Egypt or fate, and if I had to guess I would say it was just a way to sell more copies of the score when it was published.

I used the ragtime piano samples from Kontakt.  While nice sounding, I ran into a bit of a problem.  At velocity level 99-100 there is a huge jump in both timbre and volume.  This made editing velocity levels problematic.  I wanted the sound of the louder attack on some parts, but the volume change was more than I wanted.  I had to go in and edit the volume automation after the velocity levels to smooth things out.

Phrasing this piece was more enjoyable than one might expect.  I had fun with subtle changes between phrases and on the repeats.  I edited the midi notes on each repeat rather than just copying and pasting them.  The subtle differences between similar sections give the piece a more pleasing performance.  This did add time to the production time of the video, but I feel that it was worth the effort.

Once again I ran into the limitations of the MAM player.  It is a wonderful piece of software considering it is free, but obtaining a good looking video is nearly impossible.  I might be able to do it if I took 10 takes and spliced the good parts into a single video.  However my editing skills are too limited at this point for that kind of work.  The problem is jitter.  The program just does not run smoothly most of the time.  It seems to run smoothly at random intervals.  I will be looking into a different program or two for my next video in hopes of getting better quality results.

As a side note, I stumbled upon a genre of music that I was unaware of: novelty piano.  It seems that it was an off shoot of ragtime, and was performed on the player piano much of the time.  This sounds like the perfect music for some videos!

video link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GD6odp2biQ

Project notes: J. S. Bach Chorale Forty Two

The title of this chorale, Du Friedensfürst, Herr Jesu Christ translates to "Thou Prince of Peace, Lord Jesus Christ."

A friend of mine recently gave me an old Roland u-20.  This is a synthesizer of the rompler category.  A rompler stores sounds and plays them back, as opposed to a proper synth which generates sound internally using any number of methods such as additive or subtractive synthesis.  This particular instrument, while vintage-ish, is a fairly low frills example from its time (1989).  Judging by the prices on ebay, it is definatly not a sought after instrument.

I was not really expecting to ever use the u-20 for anything.  However, after playing with it for a while I discovered that it has some really nice sounds.  Many of these sounds are cheesy its true.  But its GOOD cheese.  It has some internal effects, the possibility of 30 voices, and 6 parts with a percussion part.  unfortunately the interface is confusing.  The Roland u-20 can be summed up as: the opposite of user friendly.  Perhaps I am just spoiled with all of the modern vsti available now a days.  Also many of the buttons on my u-20 do not work, which means I can't really edit any of the sounds or parameters.  I have to just use stock patches.

Because the learning curve was so steep for me, I chose a really short piece for the u-20.  This chorale is only 9 measures long without repeats.  While short, it still has that amazing Bach part writing that one can expect from his chorales.

This project took several days to complete, mostly because I had to learn the u-20's ins and outs.  The manual reads like it was written by stereo manufacturers.  One confusing example is that the manual refers to both timbres and patches, but does not explain why two terms are needed for the same exact thing until the middle of the manual or so.  I guess I am just a total newbie when it comes to hardware.

Link for video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP7Igsd82zY

Project Notes: J. S. Bach Chorale One, Aus Meines Herzens Grunde

 Aus Meines Herzens Grunde, or From the depths of my heart.

This is from Bach's famous (infamous for music theory students) 371 harmonized chorales.  I sight read one or two of these at the piano every day during my warm up.  I always imagine what it would sound like if I used some synth patch or crazy sample instead of a piano.  I also want to see them in the MAM player.  I plan to do a series of videos on these chorales, and who knows maybe I will eventually get through all 371 of them.
I chose the first chorale because I did not really know which one to pick.  Why not start at the beginning?  My next one will be number forty two of course.

The sounds used are stock samples of the Rhodes I piano that came with the kontakt library.  I really like the Rhodes sound, it is one of my favorite instruments.  In case some of you are not familiar with this instrument, it is an electro-mechanical piano.  It has hammers that strike small metal tines to produce a sound.  I will defiantly make more videos featuring this instrument.

I took a pretty simple approach to this one.  After my last two projects, I wanted something that was fun and on the shorter side.  The video quality is not the best in this one.  For some reason when I use the scrolling lines view of the MAM player, I get lots of jitters no matter what I do.  I see this on other videos as well.  I think it has to do with the video capture not doing such a good job with horizontal motion.  Also the edges are very sharp, so any tiny shake or jitter is very obvious.

I did the usual with the audio.  I worked on phrasing, mixing, and mastering.  The voices are panned to make them more distinct.  I also used some slight eq as well.  The mastering side of things was pretty basic, just a high pass filter to roll off the extreme lows and a brick wall limiter to prevent clipping.  I made the repeat of the first section a bit quieter.  This is to imitate the terraced dynamics that you might encounter in baroque music.  It sounds a little weird on this instrument, but overall I felt it was better than just having the repeat at the same volume.

I hope you enjoy this video, the next one will be up soon!

link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=op9PVh6bIy4

The Surfer From Mars: Project notes

This is a piece I composed for a game based on the browser game Pardus.  The working title is "the Threat Within."  It has not yet been released.  This will be the intro music for the game.

The game developer wanted something that was upbeat, but other than that, I got no real instructions.  Left to myself with no direction, I thought about what kind of music would be associated with Pardus.  Music in space?  Ambient noise was my first instinct.  However, I thought back to when I used to host an amatuer internet radio show for Pardus, and one genre that was more or less universally loved was surf guitar.  I guess flying space ships is a lot like surfing.

I knew almost nothing about surf guitar music when I began this project, so my first few days were spent listening to as much of it as I could find and reading forums.  My favorite group was the Chantays, although I don't know if much of their sound is in my piece. 

I once saw Andrew York perform at the Fret House in Covina.  He remarked that there were not enough guitar pieces in the key of b minor (right before playing a piece in b minor).  This was years ago, but I have made it a long term goal to compose something for guitar in that oft neglected key.  My piece is not in the classical guitar style, but at least its a start.

I wrote an original melody that reminded me of a Javanese kroncong song.  However, that one turned out to be too square sounding.  I rewrote it a few times and finally got something that I was happy with.  The melody is repeated in the second section, but altered for the muted guitar.  I made the supporting instruments fairly generic, and in the end I think I got a pretty good surf guitar type sound.

I used samples from Kontakt and Battery for this piece, and sequenced it in Cubase as usual (oh how I long for a 64 bit version of pro tools!).  However, for some reason Kontakt does not come with a clean guitar sound, so I had to hunt for one of those.  My budget was -0- so I ended up using the best samples I could find for free.  They were not the best sounds I have ever heard, but they worked out.  The reverb and most of the effects are from Guitar rig.  I felt that the reverb could be a bit drippier, but I only really had one choice so I went with it.

I learned quite a bit trying to mix and master this piece.  It is really quite difficult to do.  I am not 100% satisfied with my results, but I am definitely getting better.  I need to review the book on mixing that I have, and perhaps buy a few more from amazon.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_buk0Kb5IJM

J. S. Bach "Little" Fugue in g, BWV 578

This project was more difficult than I originally thought it would be.  The video on my channel is actually a re-up.  The original video had a few note errors; I was in a rush when I put the score into my sequencer.  I made many other changes in addition to correcting notes.

First, I was not really happy with the overall sound of the original.  I wanted the voices to stand out more.  However, the more I did to achieve this, the more I hurt the sound of the voices.  After much automation and eq-ing, the piece sounded flat and ear fatiguing.  I went back to the beginning (again) and made just a few simple changes.  I panned the tenor and alto voices left and right, and narrowed the soprano to the center.  I spread the bass out to the entire field.  I also did some minor eq-ing to make the voices stand out.  The soprano I left more or less alone, since it was not really interfering with the other voices too much.  I did some automation to cut the volume by 2 db or so during a trill that seemed to overwhelm the other voices.  The alto voice got a high shelf eq with a slight attenuation to give the soprano some breathing room.  The tenor got a high-pass filter to let the bass voice live a little, and a low pass combined with a high shelf to help the alto stand out.  If you listen carefully you can hear that the timbre of the tenor is hurt by this processing, but overall I felt that it was worth the loss to let the other voices stand out more.  The bass got some slight eq.  In addition, whenever there was a long note I generally automated a 1-2 db cut for that voice.  These long notes mask the other (more interesting) parts.  The organ has tons of overtones, making it a real challenge to mix the voices and not hurt the timbre of the instrument.  The end result is perhaps unnatural sounding, but I think it works very well with the video.  I earned a new found respect for mixing artists after this project, those people really perform miracles (as do the mastering artists).

Second, I put the reverb on each track as an insert rather than having a single instance as a send.  I found that this gave a more realistic sound.

Next I revised the phrasing a little.  I wanted a somewhat human feel to the performance.  I achieved this by fist turning off the snap function in my sequencer so that when I adjusted note lengths they would not be perfect divisions.  Second I changed the phrasing when a musical idea was repeated, especially the fugue subject and especially between the voices.

While listening to live performance organ videos on youtube to get a feel for what the reverb should sound like, I found the version of this piece performed by Ton Koopman.  I really really liked his ornaments, so I added some to my version in Koopman's style.  I thought it was fun to see the ornaments in the MAM player.  Usually ornaments are not written out in a score so you have to use your imagination to "see" them.

The bass needed revising as well.  Some viewers had posted on the previous video that the bass was out of sync.  I was a bit confused by this, since everything was midi generated.  I start out with everything aligned to the beat, and the bass notes were exactly in time.  However, it occurred to me that someone listening to the video with pc speakers would not have a very good low frequency content to their audio.  The bass notes are samples from very large pipes, probably 16' or even 32' long pipes.  The air takes a long time to get moving, and the initial attack of the note is very soft.  This is hard to hear if your speakers have a limited frequency response.  To adjust for this I moved the bass ahead by 30 ms or so.  I apologize to anyone if this makes the bass sound out of time, but I hope that it will improve the overall listening experience for most people.  I checked on my pc speakers, and the bass timing did indeed sound better, although some of the higher notes sound a bit early.

I also made some minor changes to the tempo:  I chose to slow the piece down by 3 bpm to 82, and got rid of the retard at the end of the piece.  The ornaments seemed to work better at the end when played full speed.

Finally I had some fun with the look of the video.  I changed the colors, changed the output to balls instead of bars, and adjusted the vertical resolution so that black bars appeared at the top and bottom.  This reminded me of scrolling paper rolls like those used for a player piano.

Revising this project took many hours over a two week period, most of which were spent shaking my fist at the monitor and trying my best to not throw the computer out the window.  Eventually I got everything as good as I could, and called it good enough.  Many other things too mundane to mention went into this project, and I doubt anyone wants to read about them.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1XD1MSES_8

Project notes: J.S. Bach Polonaise BWV Anh. 119

This was a fairly easy project.  I play this piece to warm up on the piano sometimes, and I wanted to hear it played on the harpsichord, with the MAM player.  I used Cubase 5.1, Kontakt, and the built in reverb with Kontakt for this piece.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li6VTT2luF0