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Can you imagine virtual clarinets that sound just like the real thing? In less than two minutes, Stefano Lucato, CEO at Audio Modeling, and Claudio Passavanti, AKA Doctor Mix, pianist, music producer and digital entrepreneur, show you how to obtain the absolute best by SWAM’s top-notch technology.

This is Doctor Mix reaction and questions about SWAM Clarinets:

“So, the SWAM Clarinet, I mean, this sounds really special. I’ve heard you do this sort of ethnic kind of attitude that you can pull that off with that. It’s amazing!

But listen, this does something that I haven’t heard do on the (SWAM) Saxophone because, of course, the saxophone cannot do it: you can do long portamentos! How do you pull that off? How do you do it?”

Watch the full video for the answers by Stefano Lucato.

Discover the best virtual clarinets on the market and find out how a virtual instrument can be as expressive and realistic as is natural counterpart in the video below.

Claudio Passavanti, the British-Italian pianist, music producer and digital entrepreneur known as Doctor Mix, had the chance to test SWAM Saxophones with Stefano Lucato in the video that follows.

In less than three minutes, you will have the chance to learn the tricks to squeeze the best out of the most advanced virtual saxophone ever conceived for musicians, composers and producers. Stefano Lucato explains how SWAM is based on a technology that uses a multi-vector sample morphing into a combination of physical modeling. The virtual instrument allows you to shape and control the sound like you would do with a real instrument. To the point that you can even hear the clicking of the keys – a detail that Doctor Mix notices right away!

After being surprised by the growl, triggered by after-touch, Claudio finds out a breath controller that can be mapped to the expression of SWAM Saxophones. To obtain a result that sounds more than natural: it does sound real in every way that counts.

Check the video below!

Claudio Passavanti, also known as Dr. Mix, is an internationally renowned pianist, music producer and digital entrepreneur. Stefano Lucato is a professional musician, musical producer, developer, programmer and CEO at Audio Modeling. Together, they create the perfect duo to guide you through a full demonstration of the endless potentialities of the SWAM engine and virtual acoustic instruments.

In this video, Claudio and Stefano explore SWAM through an engaging back and forth of questions and answers. They also give you a panoramic view of the most evolved virtual instrument technology on the market and, above all, they do it through practical examples.

Experiencing, testing, playing and jamming are the best strategies to discover the SWAM engine. The duo starts by highlighting the differences between a traditional sample instrument and a modeled instrument. Then they talk about the musician perspective when playing SWAM: a totally different concept that changes the conditions and mindset of sound emission. A perfect mix, between the emotional approach of every single player and scientific research theory by Professor Julius Smith (CCRMA – Stanford University).

Learn how vibrato, legato and portamento work on SWAM through the Camelot host and the difference between a prerecorded sample and a real time algorithm working differently with every single musician, composer or producer, according to their style, taste and personality. SWAM is the first set of virtual instruments that react like real instruments.

[Doctor Mix]: “Are you aware that what you’re doing here is fantastically futuristic?”

[Stefano Lucato]:“Yes, I think that physical modeling is a future technology. I don’t know why it has been abandoned in the past,” replies Lucato.

[Doctor Mix]:“Because it’s hard, but clearly not for you,”.

What do you think? Has the future already become the present when it comes to virtual instruments?

What are the needs of a keyboard player today? Probably one of the most important is being able to take advantage of all the available technology, without reading having to read many manuals or spending hours watching YouTube tutorials. Someone has chosen for setups entirely composed of virtual instruments but complains about the lack of a certain feeling and reliability during the execution. 

Someone prefers to use only “real” hardware keyboards, but the cost is higher and  you miss the undoubted advantages of virtual instruments. Camelot Pro allows to get the best from both worlds, having them all sitting at the same round table, no matter who the manufacturer is or if they are hardware or software!

Camelot and other options

I joined the Camelot Pro beta testing program exactly one year ago. Camelot Pro is a software that already bodes very well from the premises. Last year I published an article about Camelot Pro in SM Strumenti Musicali (a renowned Italian magazine about musical instruments), which was born straight after the first impressions on such collaboration. At that time, I was using NI Kore 2 (now discontinued) on stage and had recommended the most recent Cantabile and Mainstage to many friends. My cover band live performances require many sounds that replicate with accuracy the original records. But having three or four keyboards would have made my setup difficult to carry and inconvenient to use.

Hardware or software?
The eternal dilemma!

Playing only virtual instruments allows to comfortably present oneself on stage or in the rehearsal room with a simple laptop, a couple of master keyboards and a few cables. I can instantly recall all the sounds I want at track change with just one click. However, this solution has never given me the same satisfaction as playing real instruments. Furthermore, acting on a laptop is not the maximum immediacy in case of emergency or tweaking during the live. I had assigned the main parameters to some sliders and potentiometers of my master keyboards, but some operations always required acting on the Host GUI. NI Kore had the convenience of having a hardware interface replicated in software that increased its usability. Returning to “real” keyboards would have meant accepting compromises on the available timbres, weight and losing Total Recall.

The transition to Camelot

One of the first Camelot features that blew my mind is the ability to manage a keyboard like a virtual instrument. Moreover, its native graphic interface for touchscreens is like a big display of a workstation from which I can control everything, including virtual instruments, without a mouse. It’s as easy and intuitive as programming a keyboard. Camelot is so simple that in the beginning you get the impression that it is limited to a few functions. Instead, there is everything you need! So I started reprogramming the whole repertoire of one of my bands on Camelot. The operation was long, but quite simple: with just a few clicks and thanks to the Template feature, layers are created in which to insert virtual instruments or so-called hardware instruments “maps”, which are sort of drivers that command a keyboard or an expander.

A Setlist is a list of Songs that can be ordered as you like

Maps

Through a hardware instrument map I can browse preset lists of my keyboards. Clicking on it, Camelot recalls that preset. In the past, I had to take the manual, read the commands to send and enter them manually. Which I’ve never done, because it was faster to type in the preset number on my keyboard. This is definitely not the best choice, especially if you have three or more keyboards and if you need to change sounds quickly during a medley. A Map can also change the mode of the machine from Performance / Combi to Program / Preset. For those who know the Kronos Set List Mode or the Montage / MODX Live Set, this is practically the same thing, but extended to all our machines, virtual and “real” ones.

The list of maps is constantly expanding. For models not yet supported, custom maps can be created

The Refresh (dynamic maps)

What if I have saved User sounds on my keyboard or have I uploaded personal libraries? No problem: Camelot is able to connect to the keyboard and download the names of personal sounds via the exclusive system. Inside the maps there are also some faders that allow you to modify the parameters, such as the volumes of the parts of a performance, or some summary parameters via Control Change. Parameters that vary from instrument to instrument. Because in Camelot every tool has its own dedicated map.

Opening a Layer, you enter the modification of some parameters, in this case of a Montage Part

PDF

Camelot features a very simple function, essential in my opinion: you can upload scores or personal notes in PDF format. Before using Camelot, my notes were written on paper or in Kore’s Notes window. Both solutions were not perfect, so I began to use an iPad on which I displayed scores or scans of my notes. Camelot allows you to import standard PDF documents and match them with a Song or a Scene, also selecting which part of the PDF to show. In this way, the focus on the PDF changes as you play your piece, Scene after Scene. If necessary, you can add annotations to highlight difficult passages or mark notes to apply corrections to  the PDF file when you get home.

Camelot allows you to import standardPDF documents and match them with a Song or a Scene, also selecting which part of the PDF to show

Archive, Song and Scene

All the created songs are stored in the archive. There, you can build the setlist or the repertoires. Playing with different bands, for example, I created various playlists with the entire repertoire. Based on performance, you can create specific setlist very quickly and easily. Once the Songs are added to a setlist, I use a normal pedal switch to move from one another. If necessary, you can also use a double pedal, to move backwards in a setlist. And what about the Scenes? I personally use them for two purposes. The first is to differentiate the setting of the instruments within the structure of the piece: e.g. activating and deactivating instruments, modifying the relative level between verse and chorus, acting on the split points, transpose and other parameters. The second use is to quickly change between tracks in a medley. The change is immediate and uses, for those who have them, the technologies of transition from one sound to another without interruption.

A complex medley with several scenes

An integrated Master Keyboard

In Camelot, each Layer and each Item have a section that we could call “masterkeyboard”. Here you can filter certain MIDI commands, create layers, split, set semitone or octave transpose, connect MIDI IN and OUT as desired and perform routing of MIDI channels. Let’s better explain this feature with some examples.

MIDI filtering

Did you ever layer a piano with a pad? I guess millions of times. How annoying is the fact that sustain pedal also acts on the pad, mixing the sound? The (elementary!) solution is to enable the Control Change filter 64 within the item that contains the pad sound. I can filter any MIDI message, to satisfy every need. Obviously there is also transpose by semitones and octaves, global or for each Layer or Item.

I can filter any MIDI message, to satisfy every need

MIDI routing

All keyboards can communicate with Camelot by connecting via USB or via traditional 5-pole DIN ports or virtual ports. Camelot sorts all the messages generated by our keyboards or controllers, and can send them to a virtual instrument, or to the hardware tool we are playing, maybe after filtering or transposing a tone. Alternatively, you can send them to another keyboard instrument, because – this is my case – you have a weighted Master controller to control and play the piano sound generated by a synth, and you want to use the latter  (equipped with synth action keys), to play a virtual instrument or a connected expander.

MIDI Patchbay 

Layer and split

We can create as many layers as we want and assign a different sound generator to each one, to enrich a sound. Or we can open as many Items as we want within a layer and assign them to as many generators as our CPU can feed. In the Items, we can load maps of hardware and software instruments. Just use the “handles” on the keyboard, shown at the bottom of the window, to create split points. It is possible to layer more sounds at different Velocity levels, as well. This is a useful option for having Hammond and Mellotron in layers, enabling the latter to play only when the Velocity is above 100. This way, I can add it or not, by simply…playing.

An example of a layer with three sounds splitted by range and velocity

Only for keyboardists?

The Camelot community is continuously expanding thanks to the timely technical support of the AudioModeling team. Camelot begins to appear also on important stages: among these, the one of Vasco Rossi (one of the most loved Italian pop/rock artists), where all the setup by Alberto Rocchetti (Vasco’s historic keyboardist) was managed by Camelot, expertly programmed by Fabio Nuti (his keyboard tech). Not to mention Jordan Rudess, who took part to the early stages of Camelot Design supporting it personally. So far, we only talked about keyboard players. Nevertheless, other musicians can also rely on Camelot for the selection of presets, management of scores, singer’s multi-effect and in future also Backing Tracks. Even my drummer is interested, because Camelot allows him to manage the metronome tempo changes within the medleys! That has been my experience so far, I warmly recommend to everyone to download the free version for Mac and Windows and sit down at the Camelot round table!

We can associate a metronome tempo to each Song and Scene, set it with Tap Tempo, synchronize it to an external application and send the audio click to a separate output dedicated to the drummer

Article written by Stefano Airoldi and published on the magazine SM Strumenti Musicali (a renowned Italian magazine about musical instruments)

Have you ever wondered what does it mean to play expressively with the Viola?

We asked Danilo Rossi, Principal Viola at Teatro alla Scala in Milano.

According to Danilo Rossi, to play in an expressive manner we need to keep in mind 2 things: a technical clear idea (of what we’re doing to be expressive) and a clear musical idea about the phrasing, the tension, the direction: all the components that make a phrase really expressive.

The requirement is that the expressive idea has to be generated by a need, as far as the technical part is concerned, according to Danilo Rossi, there are some fundamental techniques to be taken into consideration, first of all the creation of a phrase “line” that never stops.

Any strings instrument player has a great chance to play a phrase “melody” like a lead vocal singer: the most natural line that teaches us better what’s the phrase, what’s the expression. However, singing has a limit: the breath ends!

Acoustic strings players have the same limit, because the bow actually ends! Trained players have developed a skill to compensate and hide the “bow change” action on the sound…without any audible interruption. So in this way, the bow becomes infinite, and it’s a great result! Said that, the melody, should be considered as an imaginary “line” that never ends and it is so strong that never breaks.

The bow management it’s fundamental for the expression, with important additions: the bow weight, the bow speed and how the players balance and modulate them.

The bow speed is closely related to the amount: if we use more bow, it is because we are using it faster, given a unit of time measurement. Even if we use the bow slower, given a unit of measure of time, we will use less bow. So speed and quantity are related.

Another bow factor is the point of contact (bow position): playing closer to the keyboard is different from playing closer to the bridge, but the player always makes the choice before playing.  

According to Danilo Rossi, playing in expressive way is the same thing to act a poem. There is a substantial difference in performance by an ordinary person or by a great actor. The words, or in the case of music: the notes, will always remain the same, but what makes the result completely different is the expressiveness (given by the actor or the musician).

To play with expressiveness we need to consider another important variable: the vibrato. For Danilo Rossi the vibrato is the best and the most important sound accessory and it allows to characterize even more a melody. But it has not so much sense reasoning about vibrato, without first considering the basics, the fundamentals of how we can create the sound.

This is the reason why – Rossi says – the most important technical things are: practice the gesture, with the long duration notes, so the long and slow gesture of the right harm in relation with the string strength. 

Regarding the Viola there is a very important details which is an essential key point: when we play closer to the bow frog we naturally are heavier because the arm is bent, so the more we move closer to the tip, the bow gets lighter, so our weight is reduced.

A second Viola’s crucial aspect, is that each string has a different sound emission and behaviour: to get the same kind of sound, the violists must know that in the G string needs a certain weight and a certain speed, and the more the player goes towards the first string, the weight decreases and the speed increases; so it is inversely proportional to get the same type of sound.

What does it mean? It means that in reality, each string has its technique. On the basis of these fundamentals we are going to create a tension and then we go to choose what kind of expression we want. At the end we can say that without the basics (we just spoke about) the results are almost limited, or probably random.

Do you know how Audio Modeling adventure began?

You won’t believe it, but everything started with just an email!

Stefano Lucato has always been thinking of a new sound technology and he needed a software engineer who could help him setting up his idea. He was looking for a smart and dynamic professional with skills in programming and audio processing.

It was September 12, 2009 when Stefano Lucato googled “Sviluppatore VST” (that means “VST Developer” in Italian) and he found Emanuele Parravicini (Lele) as the first result. 

Stefano emailed Lele and he replied in less than 24 hours. Few days later they were in the same room talking about innovative sound technologies, and it was the “Big Bang” of what we now call “SWAM”.

Audio Modeling was born later in 2017, after several years of collaboration with the same passion, more experience and new challenges. But everything started with a click of a (Send) button on September 2009.

On June 15, 2019, took place “Camelot Pro & Studiologic: Live Performance Workshop”, an event dedicated to live performance tips.
This Workshop, organized by Musicarte Store in Italy, in partnership with Camelot Pro and Studiologic.
During the event spoke artists, producers, endorsers and experts in the music industry.
The main theme of the event was Camelot Pro, that guarantee a unique experience during live performance with Studiologic instruments.

Simone Capitani, the Camelot Pro designer, was the first. He spoke about the history of this App, created for managing live performance. Camelot is able to control, at the same time, plugin software, keyboard, synth, and MIDI controller.

Francesco Ferrandi, pianist and keyboardist, was one of the first Camelot Pro users and Beta Tester. Francesco told us how he uses Camelot Pro during his live performance especially with his sheet music. 

Raffaele Mirabella, musician, Product Specialist at Eko Music Group, explain how to use Camelot Pro with Studiologic keyboards.

Emanuele Parravicini, founder and CTO at Audio Modeling, showed Camelot Pro iOS managing audio units and usb midi devices. He explained the difference between MIDI and AUv3 plugin on iPad. 

Paolo Principi, sound designer and Jazz pianist, focused on Studiologic Mixface during live performance management of vst instruments and hardware synthesizer.  

Stefano Lucato, founder and CEO at Audio Modeling, showed us how to play expressively with SWAM virtual instruments.

At the end took part in Skype video call, Jordan Rudess, keyboardist of the band Dream Theater and music apps inventors. Jordan, our partner in Camelot Pro Project, revealed his secret for playing during live performance. This speech was very engaging and enjoyed by the community! 

Mosaiko Digiwall Solutions and DiscoBrick made the event even more interesting with their high quality led wall and video effects.

This was only the first event dedicated to managing live performance with Camelot Pro.
We have more event like this in store for you! 

Stay Tuned! 

Thanks Eko Music Group for support and cooperation.

SUPERBOOTH is the first and the largest European trade fair for electronic musical instruments, giving you the opportunity to experience the latest innovations and rare instruments. At SUPERBOOTH19 the visitors get the chance to meet a large number of exhibitors from all over the world in an unparalleled atmosphere. In addition to the exhibition booth, there will be many daily concerts and live performances, workshops and talks taking place again.

Audio Modeling, together with Camelot, will be present at Yamaha and Studiologic Booths, and will show you how Camelot can extend the experience of live performance with Yamaha and Studiologic instruments.

You can meet us at:

• Yamaha Booth H310 on Thursday (10 AM – 11 AM) and on Saturday (10 AM – 11 AM)
• Studiologic Booth 0420 on Thursday (1 PM – 2 PM), Friday (1PM – 2PM) and on Saturday (1 PM – 2 PM)

Book an appointment with us!

According to Gerald Peter, what you can do with Audio Modeling’s SWAM engine is simply “amazing”. The Vienna-native composer, producer and famous keyboardist states: “It allows you to make the different instruments like strings or breath-controlled instruments sounding so realistic, just from you playing the keyboard in real time. That’s really cool!”

The young talent – he was born in 1986 – first raised public awareness in the prog rock scene in 2013, with a deliciously conceptual album titled “Jeremias – Foreshadow of Forgotten Realms” by his 8-piece band Circle of Illusion. The album was the perfect medium to show Gerald’s extraordinary ability behind the keyboards, but also his noticeable skills as composer and producer.

Many noticed Peter’s extreme versatility and knack, to the point that “Jeremias – Foreshadow of Forgotten Realms” was listen on Jordan Rudess’ (keyboardist of Dream Theater) featured artist site and ranked on the 2013 top albums lists of several specialized music magazines, such progarchives.com, musicinbelgium.net, myglobalmind.com.

Two years later, in 2015, Gerald released his debut album “Chameleon Lab Explosion” along with his 4- piece band Inspirational Corner: an explosive synergy between fusion, jazz and funk that didn’t fail to impress several German music magazines.

Peter’s achievements are many: from being on tour with the worldwide-renowned Cirque du Soleil – VOLTA to becoming a ROLI product specialist and active seaboard performer, from creating a variety of performance videoclips on YouTube to performing with the seaboard at the NAMM show in California, Musikmesse in Frankfurt, and at many other workshops and exhibitions all over Europe. More recently, in 2018, Gerald took part in the NAMM show with a live demonstration of the iOS instrument GeoShred on the iPhone in cooperation with moForte and Dream Theater’s Jordan Rudess.

But what about his latest work? Peter is out with an EP titled “Incremental Changes – Part One with The Gerald Peter Project”, the first part of a trilogy aimed to explore the combination of his skills in terms of performance, audio and video production, composition. A multi-layered work of art that fully displays the wide-ranging talent of this music professional.

Of course, SWAM couldn’t be anything but one of the most appropriate means to express such a multi-layered and complex approach to music.

Take a look at the recent interview Gerald gave to Stefano Lucato, CEO at Audio Modeling!

Apart from their uncanny ability to perfectly replicate the sound and dynamics of traditional musical instruments, SWAM instruments are also playable “out of the box”. Launched with a default keyboard setting, they allow the musician to play these virtual instruments by only using a keyboard and, as they do that, they manage to show good articulation and legato with a reasonable degree of smoothness.

Reducing SWAM instruments to this, though, would be fallacious, since what we just listed is just the beginning. With the use of other types of controllers, such as expression pedals, new expressive instruments like ROLI Seaboard or LinnStrument, or wind or breath controllers, the level of expressiveness of these virtual instruments expands to an even higher level. The SWAM engine provides settings for these different types of controllers, therefore making the initial setup of the basic functions much easier for the performer.

There are also additional settings for each instrument on the main page of the GUI: they can modify timbre, tone color, sound behavior and transposition of the instrument, just to name a few of their options.

Many of these control parameters can be mapped to the controller: for example, the harmonic structure parameter can be mapped to CC2 Breath so that breath input will alter the harmonic structure of the instrument in much the same way the tonal quality of a real wind instrument changes in character as breath pressure increases.

There are several other similar adjustments and mappings available and, with experimentation, any performer can very easily create instrument variations that are utterly personal to their specific style and tonal aesthetics.

Additional performance effects such as Growl and Flutter Tongue can too be mapped to any control (e.g. slider, knob, etc.), along with overblow and fall-down that can be used with Key Switches. SWAM instruments also have micro-tuning capabilities that can be set up in the options page of the GUI. This gives SWAM instruments the ability to perform on different scales or tunings, as required in experimental compositions or ethnic musical genres.

Thanks for their unique flexibility, expressiveness and quality, these virtual instruments can be used during live performances in a variety of musical styles, ranging from classical to jazz, from popular to ethnic. At the same time, SWAM instruments are just as valuable in terms of recording and music production.

SWAM instruments are provided as plugins that will run on virtually any host, both on PC and Mac. They have been tested extensively on the most common DAWs, like Cubase, Logic, Digital Performer, ProTools GarageBand, etc, and work perfectly in live performance hosts such as Camelot – our revolutionary live performance software – and Cantabile, MainStage, Plogue Bidule, Gig Performer, and many more.

Are you ready to begin?