VESSELA STOYANOVA: I started as a classically trained musician, as a classical percussionist. I started with snare drum and timpani. I did all the orchestral stuff, and you move on to mallet instruments. You do vibraphone, xylophone, marimba. As soon as I heard the marimba, I completely fell in love with it. Just the sound of it, the range of it, there was this masculinity about it but it was still very sensitive. It was a piano and drums just fused in one, and I absolutely love it.

[VESSELA STOYANOVA PERFORMING WITH FLUTTR EFFECT]

VESSELA STOYANOVA: The Original African marimba is different. I’ve barely played that. It has the -- that’s the one that has the resonantor where instead you actually have the spider web or some sort of skin to create some sort of vibration. The African marimba is different in terms -- I mean it’s much smaller. It has a smaller range and it has the gourds that have the vibration. The classical marimba what’s now considered the orchestral marimba is a five-octave instrument that has that idea but it’s much refined. It’s tuned perfectly to the piano, so it uses the 24 system, and it has resonators that match perfectly so that the pitch of the resonator would match the pitch of the bar above it, and it has a much bigger range.

It’s a beautiful instrument. I mean it is, and the fact that I kind of got tired of the lack of sustain and pitch control was just completely me wanting to explore something different but the marimba itself is gorgeous. And now that I’ve had the MIDI marimba, I’m actually off and finding myself going back to the acoustic one, and there’s something about digging into wood with a yarn mallet and you feel the vibration through your body to your toes, and there is something about that that is completely amazing.

GRETCHEN HASSE: And you clearly don’t get that when you’re talking about the MIDI marimba.

VESSELA STOYANOVA: No. I mean you can position your amplifier right behind you and try to get that but it’s a different animal. I don’t compare it too. A lot of times, people ask me was it easy to switch, and I don’t think of it as a switch. I think of it as a separate instrument that I’m learning.

[VESSELA STOYANOVA PERFORMING WITH FLUTTR EFFECT]

VESSELA STOYANOVA: So I came to -- I moved to Boston to go to school for marimba specifically, and I chose Berklee because there were two amazing mallet players who taught there, Nancy Zeltsman and Dave Samuels, and between the two of them, I was still doing the classical thing with Nancy and I was starting to touch upon jazz and more contemporary styles at school. And ironically, by the time I was finished in Berklee, I was getting really tired of the sound of the marimba, which not so much the sound I guess but I was really looking to get some breath control and some pitch control and to have some things like sustain, because these are things that the marimba doesn’t have so much so that I was seriously considering starting cello or clarinet lessons just so I can have this extra expression that the marimba doesn’t have, and that’s when I found the Lumina. That’s when the Lumina came into my life, and it answered every question and completely just fit the picture perfectly.

I had a five-octave marimba that the bars came from Bulgaria and somebody here in the U.S, built the frame for it, and I was playing gigs at clubs, carrying this thing with me. It feeds back. Really I mean you put two mics on it and there’s huge resonators right there that just blow the thing out, you’re still not loud enough to compete with drums and guitars. It’s huge. It doesn’t feel on most stages that a band at that level can play, and at the end of the gig, everybody leaves and goes drinking and it takes me another 20 minutes to disassemble the thing and put it in boxes. I mean it was ridiculous.

So, when the MIDI came around, it was my last year in Berklee, and I had just paid $3,000 to a lawyer to work on my artist’s visa, so all I had was an artist visa. It was good for two years. All I can work as was a musician. I did not have a permit to work any regular job fresh out of college, and this guy comes along, and he goes, “Your name was mentioned to me because you play rock on marimba, and I have this instrument that you have to see.” And I said, “No. I don’t need to see anything. I can’t buy anything.” He goes like, “You don’t need to buy anything. I just created this instrument. We have a few other guys out on the West Coast, and I’m really proud of it, and I want to show it to you.”

So, we go in a room and 15 minutes later I said, “You wait here. I’m going to run to the bank and see if I can get a loan,” and I bought it that day.

GRETCHEN HASSE: [LAUGHING]

VESSELA STOYANOVA: So the next morning, I remember waking up and going, “What did I just do? Am I $6,000 on a credit card and barely a work permit to stay in this country?” It was kind of scary actually, but I’m glad. I’m really happy I did it because --

GRETCHEN HASSE: So, do you use -- Do you basically use the MIDI marimba almost exclusively on tour now or?

VESSELA STOYANOVA: I use about 90% of the time for practicing, for touring, playing shows in town and out. I record on it. The only times I would use the real marimba is if I’m playing a classical show even though I have used it for classical shows a few times or if I’m playing a hall that has a marimba there already and part of the show is, you know, showcasing the actual instrument. But the MIDI, I very rarely use the marimba sound on it. A lot of the times, I put a piano sound or all sorts of synth sounds or whatever the song really is calling for. But logistically, it’s really light. It’s really easy to get around with. It’s as loud as your volume knob would let you be, there’s no feedback issue, and frankly you can beat it.