Meet The Founder And CEO for Sound Magic Co.,Ltd Yichi Wang

Yichi Wang is a software developer from Beijing, China. He is the founder and chief executive officer for Sound Magic Co., Ltd. which produces electronic musical instruments. Additionally, he is a nomination panel member of the NAMM TEC Awards since 2014, and a professor at the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy. He is a leading member of the digital audio industry and has made many innovations during his career.

Yichi's Talking with Jordan Rudess
Yichi’s Talking with Jordan Rudess

 

Wang has always been passionate about music. He began learning the piano when he was four years old and studied it for more than a decade. He has studied at the China Agricultural University and the University of Colorado at Denver for Bachelor level work in music and technology and went on to earn his MBA at Laurentian University in Canada. He aspired to working in the professional audio industry and helping to create professional music software.

In 2008, he returned from his studies in the United States and Canada to China where he founded Sound Magic Co., Ltd where he focused on the development of a new generation of high definition audio standards. By partnering with China Record Corp., he launched a campaign aimed at the digital restoration and preservation of Chinese classical music. From these beginnings he reached out to other digital music companies and organizations around the world, hoping to bring new technologies that allow for ease of preservation and sharing of music. During this time he also worked with Bob Katz, a three times Grammy Award winner for sound engineering. Together they produced the first high definition album of Chinese Music, China Spirit – Erhu Legacy. In 2009, he was invited to be the technical consultant for Beijing Time Concept’s first virtual instrument, AGS.

In 2012, his plugin Piano One was ranked second on KVR Audio. This ranking includes over 7000 plugins. Since then, it has risen to the number one spot along with his other development, Orchestral String One.

Imperial Grand V2.9. Yichi Wang's 1st TEC Awards Nomination
Imperial Grand V2.9. Yichi Wang’s 1st TEC Awards Nomination

 

In September of 2015, his product, the Serenade Workstation, was nominated for the Workstation Technology for NAMM TEC Award while at the same, another product named DSD Tools was nominated for the Digital Signal Processing Software for TEC Award. The Serenade Workstation is the world’s first low-cost, high definition audio production workstation. By lowering the cost and making it more accessible, this device helps more professionals enter the world of high definition audio and make the DSD/DXD format more popular. Along with his nomination in the Musical Instrument Software Category for his Modeled Virtual Piano in 2013, Wang is the first man who has received three nominations in three major categories of professional audio software. His nomination for the Modeled Virtual Piano is also significant as it was the first time a Chinese company had gotten a nomination.

Wang focuses his work on virtual instrument design and digital signal processing design for professional audio software. His work in hybrid modeling technology has made vast improvements and has created a lasting impact on the industry. His software is efficient in both cost and quality. His method advances the traditional sampling and modeling technologies. The hybrid modeling technology is about 1/10th the size of previous technology, the CPU cost is 1/4 of previous technologies, and the sound far more realistic. This method of reducing a sample size and providing more controls to the sound can let more people use it at a lower cost while producing the authentic sound of a real instrument.

Yichi Wang's Another 2 TEC Nominations
Yichi Wang’s Another 2 TEC Nominations

Wang has also made cutting-edge innovations in audio DSP algorithms. He developed an EQ plug-in, called Neo EQ, which is the first automatic pitch tracking technology used in the EQ unit. This software provides a better way to apply a EQ effect on sound. He also recently released Neo Reverb, which is a first in the industry that adds modulation and controls to a convolution reverb.

Throughout all of his developments, Wang has had an entrepreneurial spirit and seeks to work with others to bring the industry forward. In the past few years he has worked with Amazon.com as a vendor, signed with American manufacturer Monoprice providing virtual piano software for its latest MIDI keyboard, and took steps to enter the European market. He has also donated over one hundred copies of his software to Stanford University to support teaching and research in the professional audio field. Since 2013, he had attended the NAMM show in Anaheim, California bringing Sound Magic’s latest products to share with other audio professionals.