Suggestions wanted

[Worra]

This Sunday I'm going to Stockholm sample a grand piano from a Japanese company that starts with a "Yam" and ends with a "ha".
The name on the model sounds a bit like "See Heaven".......

Ok, can you guess the model?

This means that I'll be offline until end of next week, so if someone’s has any questions to me on the forum, I won't be able to answer them until, say, Thursday.

This piano has, for this session, been serviced by one of Sweden’s top technicians and should be in a very good condition. The usual SampleTekk stuff:
16 velocities pedal up, 16 pedal down and 16 releasesamples. Impulses for Gigapulse and other convoluting reverbs and a couple of new ideas that will take this sampled grand piano a step further......
At least 2 perspectives, close and a bit more ambient. This will be a pop/rock/jazz grand!

So, if you have any suggestions, tips or requests, this is the time to speak up!
I'm all ears, (just look at my avatar....:D)

[Tomke]

Remember to pack your furry boots and helmet, we got alot of snow and ice here this week :D

Good luck

EDIT: :eek: worra is a swedish guy?? jeez :rolleyes: .. I made it again. I didnt know :p

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Hi Per...

1) Turn off all air handlers in the studio, block traffic for a three mile radius, have all non-essential personnel leave, etc. !!!

2) Get a close or medium perspective which does NOT travel across the speakers in stereo like player perspective does. Something pretty and rich, but not which sounds as if the piano is mounted on the wall between the speakers. That would be an extremely valuable pop/jazz sound. Something which could sit very legitimately in a trio setting, and sound like a single monolithic large thing--not a collective of strings.

You might be able to accomplish this with GigaPulse perspectives.

3) Try 414's, and see how it sounds. 414's are usually really good on Yamaha.

4) Get plenty of ppp range. Taking the White Grand as an example, I would have been happy to exchange the three loudest velocities for three more on the bottom/middle.

5) Chromatic?

6) Get all the GigaStudio 3.0 stuff...several pedal up and down harp impulses, enough pedal up/down noises to do a 16-layer round-robin. Put up every good microphone in the joint in different standard piano arrays, roll the piano out from under it, replace it with a speaker, and shoot sweeps/impulses of the whole thing. That should allow you to deconvolve/convolve any perspective to any perspective.

7) A set of soft-pedal (una corda) samples?

Those are some ideas, at any rate.

Good luck with your session.

[JonFairhurst]

Tune it. Then tune it again. And again.

But you knew that already. :)

-JF

[josejherring]

Is there is a way to get expressive sampling. I don't know how it works. Do you use a machine to press the keys down?

If so, then it might be good to do a few velocity layers with a trained pianist. This way the human touch will enter in and you'll get an expressive strike of the keys.

Sample chromatically in scale passages an octave at a time. In other words with pedal up have the guy play a real slow scale make sure that the note fully dies in between and have him phrase it as if he's playing a scale.

Can do the same for pedal down even though it will be excruciating for the player. If he's a pro he'll be able to handle it.

Like I said I've never done this before so I don't know if this will work. But, maybe a combination of live with machine strikes will work and give the piano more feel.

Cheers,


Jose

[Rob Elliott]

Tune it. Then tune it again. And again.

But you knew that already. :)

-JF


Then tune it again after that. It is amazing to me how many 'big' libraries out there have samples that are out of tune. You cannot fix that with Autotune. Most of the notes have 3 strings as you know . This is the tuning I am most concerned with. Good luck and post anything you can when you can. I owned a D7 for 10 years and have still not heard a sampled version worth my dollars :(

Rob

[cptexas]

A set of the middle pedal samples?
That would be more classical oriented, but you might want to give it a try.

Chris

[JonFairhurst]

And... Sostenuto. Why, oh, why don't any samplers implement this? My old Kurzweil PC88 implements it just fine.

If you can figure out how to do a sostenuto plug-in, you will be a piano god (rather than the piano dog. :))

-JF

[fozzy]

I'll second Bruce's items 2 and 4.

Sounds exciting ! I look forward to hearing the end product. Good luck !




2) Get a close or medium perspective which does NOT travel across the speakers in stereo like player perspective does. Something pretty and rich, but not which sounds as if the piano is mounted on the wall between the speakers. That would be an extremely valuable pop/jazz sound. Something which could sit very legitimately in a trio setting, and sound like a single monolithic large thing--not a collective of strings.


4) Get plenty of ppp range. Taking the White Grand as an example, I would have been happy to exchange the three loudest velocities for three more on the bottom/middle.

[Fogwall]

I would have sampled not only note by note but also different harmonics, even though you can't use it technically yet, you may soon.

P.S. Beware of the icebears! :D

[hv]

I just re-read an article about the techniques of my late friend and mentor Richard Doc Shoman (Home & Studio Recording, Nov 1993). His technique in a nutshell was to use a pair of home-brew omnis constructed from capsules extracted from el-cheapo Radio Shack lapel mics. He generally spaced them about 8 inches apart, 10 inches above the strings, and 18 inches behind the hammers. Most natural sounding piano recordings I ever heard. Bar none. Including my own. So my suggestion is this. If you have a pair of small diaphram omnis laying around, snatch up a couple of extra tracks and give it a try. A pair of DPA 4052's or 4006's might be the ultimate.

Howard

[hv]

Oh, yes. What Bruce said. Try the above setup for recording hall impulses for GS3. Do it twice without ever moving the mics. Once with the piano in sampling position. And again with the piano pushed out of the way and under wraps. And maybe a third time if you can round up an audience.

Howard

[Anton Bruckner]

Ad all kind of Piano noises, like the Hammer off noises, Pedal noises etc.

[ed hamilton]

Just tell me when you want my CC info !!!! I am ordering immediately!

Bruce had some great suggestions but god forbid - dont use 414's.
has to be the most over-rated mic in history.

A C7 version of the white grand is the stuff I dream about. (yes, I am a sad lonely musician).
:D

[Worra]

Thank you for all your input!

I will take everything in consideration tomorrow when the work begins!
See you thursday!

[Bruce A. Richardson]

Bruce had some great suggestions but god forbid - dont use 414's.
has to be the most over-rated mic in history.


I should add that I don't like 414's. But they work on C7's.

I'm still trying to find a situation to try a stereo pair of Rode K2 and NT-2000's on a nice piano. I continue to be blown away by how good those mics are. I did some clarinet and tenor sax sessions with them, and the tracks just literally jump out of the speakers.

I guess I should one more: I'd get rid of the lid. I like the sound of a sans-lid piano much better in the studio...more open, fewer reflective resonances and anomalies.

[Worra]

Ok, I'm back....
Totally pooped, but with a harddisk full of samples!
I arrived to the studio on Sunday and finished today (Wednesday) so four fun-filled, pianosampling days!

When I arrived to the studio where the C7 was (OAL studios in Stockholm), I flipped! It was a virtual Neumann museum!
I do like the 414's for piano work, but I couldn't help myself in choosing a SM2 for the really close perspective and a pair of U89 for the not-so-close perspective. I tried a pair of KM84 first but I went with the U89 for the warmth.
As you probably know SampleTekk uses 48 samples/recorded note (16 pedal up, 16 pedal down and 16 releasesamples). This gives a extremely good dynamic response and very transparent transitions between the ppp layers to the fff layers.
To be able to really, really make a smooth, even piano, I this time recorded, (drum-roll here!): 93 samples/recorded note!
That's 31 samples pedal up, 31 pedal down and 31 releasesamples.
This was possible since we have further developed SLH to be able to record this many velocity samples. It's probably impossible to record 16 velocities even by hand, so you can imagine 31....
The piano will still have 16+16+16 layers, but with this many samples I've got plenty to choose from for building a sampled piano that not only has unmatched dynamic response, but also is extremely well balanced all over the keyboard.
Ok, now I'm going to rest for a couple of days and then the editing will start!

Oh, yes Bruce. The lid was off!

[Joseph Burrell]

Not to highjack the thread or anything, but any idea if you'll be doing any more direct download libraries?

[Worra]

Not to highjack the thread or anything, but any idea if you'll be doing any more direct download libraries?

Sure will! Any suggestions?

[JackB]

Sure will! Any suggestions?

Big Bells.
Church Bells.

[meroveus]

Big Bells.
Church Bells.
PMI already has cheap church bells plus anvils.
Previous customers get a further discount off the already low price.

But perhaps Worra could do a collection of Russian bells, which would be nice to have.

[hv]

We can still dream on. Imagine some directional sampling with a usm69. But if I was running amuck in a Neumann stable, I'd also look to set up an m/s array with either dual u87's or perhaps a u87/193 combo.

Howard

[hv]

For something totally different I just auditioned a DPA 4006 A-B pair and compared them to a set of Earthworks TC40K's. I wasn't expecting to come away more impressed with the Earthworks.

Howard

[Joseph Burrell]

Sure will! Any suggestions?

Brass. :)

Yeah, yeah, my message is too short.