STELLARIUM (my story)
My story this time is not a real story but a brief look into how creative projects can evolve…
The Story of STELLARIUM began as the album concept still was about buildings. There is a software that can make any Instrument sound like it is being played in an enviroment that the developer have “sampled” (Technically i am speaking of Impulse Response Reverb - in this case the program is called ALTIVERB) and i had this new great sounding virtual Steinway Grand Piano (by Garritan). So i wondered how it would sound to play one of the biggest Pianos in one of the most impressive ancient buildings - the Gol Gumbaz.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gol_Gumbaz
The Reverb and the detailed Sound of the Grand Piano were so inspiring that i found the main melody of STELLARIUM in about an hour of improvising. This early version of STELLARIUM was simply called “gumbaz” and didnt have any drums at all. It was just a simple but heart touching melody.
Later the concept changed into the stories concept and i came back to this melody i´d really like to have on the album. I thought what kind of story i could derive from it. I didnt want it to be about the architect or the ancient ruler that was buried there - it had nothing to do with the feeling of the melody. But i realized that without quite new technological advances (Impulse Responses and a sampled Piano with Gigabytes of Data) i wouldnt have found this melody because it was the sound that inspired me.
Some days later i read a detailed article about the LHC - the large hadron collider and the physics behind it and found it very impressive. There even was a DVD the CERN put into a magazine to show people how important the LHC is. People gladly profit from earlier technological improvements but often dont understand the neccessity to go FURTHER. And that was analog to my new piano sound: If the software programmer in the year 2000 stopped looking for something better there would not have been the great sound inspiring me. So in a way my melody stood for pioneering spirit.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
This is a pre version with a sample about the LHC that really reflected my thoughts about (technological) progress and i found that synthline easily with my head full of pioneering spirit 
The only problem was that such a lot of talking was in the way of the melody and later i saw that the song didnt need any samples to work and i kept it fully instrumental. The pioneering spirit idea and the long reverb to my mind sounded like space travelling, too (i like sci-fi stuff ) and there was a picture of kai hoffmann that on the first glimpse looked like stars and planets that would really fit the cover it there was a single of STELLARIUM (its in the booklet!) So the story i always had in my mind as i was finalizing the song was the very important human attribute of “going further” combined with pictures of stars…
Another idea was to call the song ULTRA DEEP FIELD after the pictures of the hubble telescope that looked further (in space AND time) into the universe than ever before. But STELLARIUM with the combination of an old language and “stars” seemed to fit even better…
01. April 2009 at 19:56
This Sample of “Stellarium” is different to the Album Version, isn’t it?
Nice Idea, by the way
01. April 2009 at 20:04
I like the analogy between the LHC and the reverb. Technically seen (from the signal theory point of view) the reverb output is the convolution of the input signal and the impulse response. The sound spreads into space just like colliding particles
01. April 2009 at 21:02
Just out of curiosity: what about posting the discarded sample here?
01. April 2009 at 21:09
Oh, it’s already there.
Sometimes my Linux rig gets hiccups from that bloody proprietary Flash stuff…
01. April 2009 at 21:10
For me, that is a real story behind. And I like it :-). BTW: Nice vocal sample.
01. April 2009 at 21:50
Nice story!
Well, for the snippet, actually the vocal sample from the DVD just before the main part starts is quite interesting. Funny how such a simple addition can drive a song and it’s story in a totally different direction. LHC was nothing that I had in mind listening to the album version.
But the album version I good as it is. The full length vocal sample would have been “too much”.
02. April 2009 at 12:33
I think out of all songs, this is probably my favorite of the album (next to “To You”), the melody is just sooo amazing. Also it probably would please old RMB listeners as well, so did you already think about creating a maxi-cd and video and pushing that to the radio or viva/mtv? Or is something like totally impossible nowadays without a big record company behind you?
PS: Nice, also other people do like the LHC or at least the concept of “Grundlagenvorschung” which is important for technological progress.
PPS: Even nicer, people like entropy do use Linux
Would have never expected that on a music blog.
PPPS: Does anybody know a similar blog to this one? No matter if it’s just an artist, or a music portal. But a place where new snippets can be listened to, and people talk about/discuss electronic music?
02. April 2009 at 13:48
Martin:
And guess what, I’m also one of those addicted to Vim.
Just gave your Firefox plugin a try. Nice one. =)
02. April 2009 at 19:10
wasn cooler mix!
02. April 2009 at 22:03
As a particle physicist working on topics close to this whole LHC business, it is a pleasure for me to hear this! Great song!
04. April 2009 at 17:41
und bitte wieder einer auf deutsch ja ???!!!
DANKE
04. April 2009 at 21:22
@Gaesch:
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rolfmaierbode.com%2Fblog%2F2009%2F04%2F01%2Fstellarium-my-story%2F&sl=en&tl=de
Nicht perfekt, aber habs selber gelesen, man sollte ca. verstehen, worum es geht. Also nix fuer ungut, aber ich finde im Internetzeitalter sollte schon jeder in der Lage sein, zumindest grobe informationen aus englischen texten herauszulesen. Das uebersetzen ist fuer die leute von so langem text auch nicht gerade wenig arbeit.
06. April 2009 at 18:36
klar die grobe info kriege ich auch da raus und besser als dieses scheiss babelfish gedönse .
es vergessen aber auch viele das wir hier im bereich der kunst zu werke gehen und dort auch im englischen anders geschrieben wird als es wörtlich ins deutsche zu ü bersetzen !!!
les die letzte story und dann das übersetzte und du wirst wissen was ich meine -)