“To Sleep”
July 14th 2005
A quick improv recording, because I really like the sound of this new piano soundfont (Akai Steinway, download). It’s mellow and warm and very realistic.
Anyway, I just started playing and this came out. I’m about to go to sleep, hence the name.
To Sleep [ogg vorbis] (some rights reserved)
If you can’t play this, here’s how. If you still can’t, here’s an mp3.
I’d appreciate comments, even just a little. 
Very nice Tristan, I didn’t know you made music.
I like the theme and the simplicity of the instruments and layers. It got a little confusing around 1.40 to 2.00, but it’s all very sweet.
What program are you using to create music? I’ve been wanting to look into it myself. Do you have a keyboard? Any “booster pack” / “starter kit” info you can give would be great.
I like it! It reminds me of the American Beauty soundtrack in some places. It sounds very organic and smooth.
Thank you both, I always enjoy comments on stuff that isn’t about software
Joen, I use a MIDI keyboard I got about 10 years ago (my father tried to get me to learn it then, but that didn’t go too well). I’ve just got back into piano this year, but mainly I’m a wind player. Clarinet, flute, sax, recorder, etc. They’re hard to record though.
The keyboard on the other hand is easy—I use Cakewalk Pro Audio 9, which is kind of old, but works well for multitrack MIDI recording, and even notation. Rosegarden on Linux is also very good (one of the best actually, and entirely open source). You can get some great recordings off of any MIDI source with the right sample set. Creative has a great system on Live and Audigy cards called “Sound Fonts” which let you load samples directly, and there are some surprisingly good sound fonts out there for free.
It’s great to be able to completely change the sound of your piano like that. If this piano had been a little brighter or twangier, I would have played completely differently.