Solo
Here I present my project in solo, more or less in a chronoligical way, with my electric guitar and some pedal effects, some of them modified or fabricated by me.
Effects programming with Pure Data (2024)
This is my new solo album. This time, it's just me, my guitar, my amp, and my Raspberry Pi equipped with some MIDI controllers and the incredible Pure Data program.
The sonic possibilities offered by this setup are endless.
The album captures what happened in the moment — created through Pure Data patches that responded to my creative needs right then and there.
The tracks were recorded live — no edits have been made.
Big sound surprises are also part of the journey.
Hope you enjoy it!
The analog step: DIY tape echo or "Self Tape Echo" (2023)
French guitarist Olivier Jambois releases his latest solo album, a captivating exploration of sound crafted in Barcelona, Spain. Drawing inspiration from years of experience (including several acclaimed albums), in this solo work, he blends electric guitar with tape echo effects meticulously modified by himself. These unique echoes, built by hand from vintage reel-to-reel recorders from the 60's-80's era, push the boundaries of conventional sound, creating a truly immersive listening experience.
"For the story, it all began as a fun experiment. I tried to create a delay effect the way it was done in the 50's. At that time, the technology used for storing audio was magnetic tapes. The idea is simple and fascinates me: the guitar sound is recorded on the tape and played back a few hundred milliseconds later. By adjusting physical and mechanical parameters, I discovered that the delay time and many other factors, can be tweaked.
This project has been a deep dive, both technically and musically. In fact, every technical advancement became a source of inspiration for composing or improvising music.
I hope you enjoy this album as much as I enjoyed making it."
Some videos (2021)
Festival "Le Bazardier" (2021)
First album: “Solo” (2016)
This is the first solo disc for guitarist and composer Olivier Jambois. All tracks have been recorded live in the studio, except for the last one, which is a collage of several improvisations. Some of the tracks are composed, focusing on specific musical ideas – melodic, timbral, textural, variation, and/or harmonic. Also, Jambois has performed with looping in some of his compositions, where others are just by himself.
1. x2m
x2m stands “for multiplied by 2 to the power m”, with m= 1 or -1. The loop at the start was recorded using an octaver effect unit, that allows – by turning it on or off – to change on demand the sound an octave higher or lower. In terms of frequency, it means multiply it by 2 or by 1/2 (i.e. dividing by 2). The using of the octaver effect unit inspired me for the title, as when m=1, 21=2, so we shift an octave higher, and when m=-1, 2-1=1/2, we shift an octave lower.
2. Expansion (Increasing curvature)
This piece is inspired by the general relativity theory, and expresses the relation between space-time deformation and matter-energy density. In this piece I am using a looper to record a sequence of about 20 seconds. Starting from few isolated events, at each loop, I am overdubbing more and more interventions, which gives the feeling of a growing texture. When a certain density is reached, I am superimposing a contrasting texture made of clear chords, by which rhythm is accelerated.
3. La suite de Fibonacci
The first notes of this piece are written following the Fibonacci sequence. This sequence is defined such that one term is equal to the sum of the two preceding ones. If the first two terms are 0 and 1, so we have the sequence 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc… This very famous sequence leads to the golden ratio, the “divine proportion” used in art, or in probability calculations. In this piece the sequence was used to define the intervals between the first 8 notes of the piece. The rest of the piece was written freely.
4. Les gentils oscillateurs
This is an improvised piece using a wood stick (the one to eat asian food).
5. El misterio de la masa
I wrote this piece after hearing on radio that scientific team corroborated Higg’s boson theory, an elementary particle proposed in the standard model of physics. It allows us to understand why some particles get mass and others don’t.
6. Marmelade
is a melodic piece.
7. Gedankenexperiment
is an improvised piece.
8. Eleanor Rugby
is a personal version of a song of a famous English band.
9. Straight circle
The title is inspired by the loop that appears in the middle of the piece, which sounds cyclic to me.
10. Par temps de pluie
Is an improvised piece.
11. Le remix-tère de la masse
This last piece is a “collage” of different small improvisations I made. Different fragments where edited, cut and superimposed.
Some other video:
More video on my Youtube channel
Image gallery
