Solo Piano Tone... commments needed...

[higain_guitar]

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone,

If you have a minute or too please comment on the tone of my piano.
http://www.twophilosophers.com/1.mp3

I am trying to get a beautiful, soft, new age-like solo piano tone for use in writing a love song (solo piano).

Have I used the right EQ and reverb? (Disregard my sloppy piano playing....:-)

Any comments appreciated,
HG

[rkmusic]

Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays everyone,

If you have a minute or too please comment on the tone of my piano.
http://www.twophilosophers.com/1.mp3

I am trying to get a beautiful, soft, new age-like solo piano tone for use in writing a love song (solo piano).

Have I used the right EQ and reverb? (Disregard my sloppy piano playing....:-)

Any comments appreciated,
HG

I find it already a beautiful, soft and new age-like sounding piano. However you should try also layering your piano with one of these wonderful pad that enhance the sense of spatial listening if you know what I mean. Try first without EQ neither reverb and after that try to fine Eq and inally add reverb to the whole mix. Just my opinion regarding your question.
Why disregard the playing? It comunicate beauty!

[higain_guitar]

Dear Richard,

Thank you so much for your comments. You are a great piano player and the fact that you like my simple little melody really made my day!

2 quick questions... when you say layer with a pad you mean a synth pad like in z3ta+ or rhino or rapture?

You mean I should mix down the track twice? One time dry and the second time with eq and reverb and then mix the 2 tracks?

Thanks! And by the way your demos for sampletekk pianos are great!

Take care,
High Gain

[ddarwin7]

Hi HG:

Nice short piece, I would've like to listen to the longer version of it. Sounds really good. I really like the tone of the piano. What piano are you using, if you don't mind me asking. It doesn't sound like a sampled piano, it sound real. If it is sampled then take the above as a complement to you and the library. Wow I really like the tone of this piano. If it is a library, I would like to know. Thanks.

If I were to take a guess, what I think that Richard is trying to say is a soft pad like sound that would give some spacial dimension to new age style piano, like some Yanni sounds, or a Enya like back drop. Soft voice, Ooh, Aah etc mixed with other tones. But I also think the solo sounds great.

Thanks for sharing
Dd

[higain_guitar]

Dear ddarwin7,

Thanks for the compliment and thanks for the tips about the pads. That mp3 I posted is really more of a "sound test" than a piece...I hope to develop it more into a full fledged song one day. The piano is Worra's (Sampletekk) Black Grand Ambient patch #4 (it comes with 10 patches). Its only $49, and you can dowload it immediately (no I don't work for Worra!):
http://www.sampletekk.com/proddetail.php?prod=STDELIVER-024-FORMAT

I use Kontakt 2 and a Kornel mezo script (he made one for the Sampletekk black grand) to simulate the Sympathetic Resonance of the strings when the pedal is downl.
More info here: http://music.mezo.com/

The only post processing I used was the bbe maximizer directx plugin and Arts Acoustic reverb vst plugin. If you need to know the settings I can give you them.

Take care,
HG

[ddarwin7]

Thanks HG for the info;

I already have that, In fact I have the black grand, ambient and close in both GS3 and K2 versions (don't have medium ambient). I also have White grand Jr, full, and sister, SG88, TBO, TSO, 7CG jr. So as you can see I have most of sampletekk products. I also have tons of other piano libs, but I am impresses with the tone that you were able to produce. I also use the Kornel piano specific scripts. I need to start experimenting more with the black grand. Sampletekk does have some sweet pianos. The reverbs I have are Wizoo w2 and Gigapulse. The mastering plugs i have are Waves mastering bundle(w/L2), ozone, and also soundforge.

Do you use the Black grand specific Kornel scrpt with the default values or do you have your own tweaks. I really like your EQ settings. Mind posting your EQ settings and other settings. It sounds quite good.
Thanks
Dd

[higain_guitar]

Dear Dd,

So you are addicted (like me) to collecting piano samples... :-) I have a bunch too. If we get some time we should talk about your favorite sample sets. I love Michiel Post's Emperor piano, though lately I have fallen for the Black Grand Ambient.

Now getting back to those settings you wanted. I will describe what I do below, but for an actual picture of the settings (a picture is worth a thousand words) you can download this:

http://www.twophilosophers.com/piano.jpg

Basically I took worra's patch #4 and modified as you can see in the piano.jpg. I removed all of the pedal down samples. As you probably know you can do this in the group editor by selecting a group and then clicking edit (I think) and then delete group. Then I made all the remaining samples (pedal up and release) play "always"--group start options "always"). By getting rid of all the pedal down samples we can cut our memory needs. Then I make the release samples load fully into memory "sampler" and the rest load direct-from-disk (DFD). This results in 328.8 mb piano (not too bad). We don't need the pedal down samples since the Kornel Mezo script will simulate the sympathetic resonance. I have given you my script and kontakt settings in piano.jpg above--its not too different from the default settings though I set up 200 voices in Kontakt.

Step 2: I use the bbe maximizer to spice it up--see piano.jpg (adjust to taste). This makes it a bit brighter and bigger and gives it some punch by correcting the phase problem that most speakers have.

Step 3, final step: I use Arts Acoustic Reverb to give it that mellow, new-age like, ethereal feel. The reverb actually is responsible for much of the final tone. Even though the black grand ambient is "ambient" I find it is still somewhat dry sounding. The reverb settings I used really wetten it up. These settings I believe are basically identical to one of the default patches that comes with the reverb. I may have adjusted one parameter besides the "wet" parameter but I have given you the actual settings I used in piano.jpg.

Good luck and I would love to hear one of your piano pieces or snippets if you can post one. I actually am more of a guitar player but I dabble in piano and find it very relaxing. It nurtures my softer side when I am not banging out powerchords--hence the nick: higain_guitar.

Take care,
Rob aka HG.

[rkmusic]

Dear Richard,

Thank you so much for your comments. You are a great piano player and the fact that you like my simple little melody really made my day!

2 quick questions... when you say layer with a pad you mean a synth pad like in z3ta+ or rhino or rapture?

You mean I should mix down the track twice? One time dry and the second time with eq and reverb and then mix the 2 tracks?

Thanks! And by the way your demos for sampletekk pianos are great!

Take care,
High Gain

Hi higain_guitar!

The added pad may use the same midi data of your piano playing (or part of it, for example LH, etc...try...). Then it´s time to apply some eq and reverb for each stereo channel or stereo master,... try again.

Yes ddarwin7 I was reffering to this kind of Pad you said. Thanks.

Now, after reading the Script consideration I´ll put attention to TBO and try what you have done with Black Grand (one my prefered). Some days ago I tried TBO but with all the samples and it overloaded the HD reading. I will try delenting the PD.

higain_guitar,
How did you that?
"...Then I make the release samples load fully into memory "sampler" and the rest load direct-from-disk (DFD)..."

See: Interesting thread, good music, sounds, technology... very good!

[higain_guitar]

Dear Richard,

Thanks for some great ideas on using only Left hand (LH) for the pad.

About the settings, you wanted to know how to: "make the release samples load fully into memory "sampler" and the rest load direct-from-disk (DFD)"

See this image for how to do it:
http://www.twophilosophers.com/piano2.jpg

[rkmusic]

Dear Richard,

Thanks for some great ideas on using only Left hand (LH) for the pad.

About the settings, you wanted to know how to: "make the release samples load fully into memory "sampler" and the rest load direct-from-disk (DFD)"

See this image for how to do it:
http://www.twophilosophers.com/piano2.jpg

Thanks for all included your vote in the other thread of a Dedicated Piano Forum! ;)

[Jake Johnson]

For me,there's a little too much verb, particularly is the sound is intended for a love song. I would want a closer perspective, something more like the sound of Joni Mitchell or Diana Krall. Now, the piano seems very distant. If a vocal is added, won't the sound will be that of a performer singing while someone plays the piano several yards away?

Hate to be the only nay-sayer.

[higain_guitar]

Thanks for the comments Jake. Would it help if I told you the song will have no vocals--it will be only solo piano? I might try lowering the wetness of the verb...

[ddarwin7]

Dear Dd,

So you are addicted (like me) to collecting piano samples... :-) I have a bunch too.....................
Rob aka HG.

Hi again HG:

Thanks for all the detailed information, yes a picture is worth a thousand words. I printed the information out for later use and reference. I just have not got down deep into K2 programming. I usually just load up a patch, pick a script and maybe a little convolution and that's it. I can see that it can open new doors once you start experimenting with K2 more.

Yes, I am a addict to group buys and sales. Here is the list of pianos that I have not listed on the earlier post, PMI bos 290, PMI old lady, All vintaudio pianos, Art vista VG, Malmsjo, Schimmel. and may be more that I can't think of now. Some are in gigstudio format, some in K2/k1.5 format, and some I have in both. I run 2 independint PC's. I also would like to get pianoteq and/or Ivory. I think my favorite is the white grand.

I don't have BBE or arts acoustic. But I have other plugin's that may be able to do the same thing. Sometime what I also do is run pianoverb, in a couple of FX channels in Cubase, and eq those channels to get some more presence or air in the sound. You can even mimic the thump sound of the keys. But again not sure how good this will sound for recording, but it feels great to play it that way. If you are not familier with pianoverb, here's a link.

http://www.pspaudioware.com/indexen.html?url=http://www.pspaudioware.com/plugins/piano.html;

I can relate to the guitar thing. I started out with guitar and distortion amps and pedals. Once, long time ago I wanted to be the next Vai. But then I switched over and played drums for a while, But these days I mostly play the piano and mellow music. I feel more relaxed when I do that. I must be getting old. Recently I went to a Iron maiden concert, and I realized, man this is too loud for me. I am definitley getting old.

Thanks again for all the info

Dd

[higain_guitar]

Hey Dd, How would you rate the Art vista VG piano? I'm tempted but I have too many pianos already... does it put my black grand ambient mp3 to shame tone-wise? I've heard many people say it is the best... some even better than ivory....

[Harry_O]

Thanks HG for the info;

I already have that, In fact I have the black grand, ambient and close in both GS3 and K2 versions (don't have medium ambient). I also have White grand Jr, full, and sister, SG88, TBO, TSO, 7CG jr. So as you can see I have most of sampletekk products. I also have tons of other piano libs, but I am impresses with the tone that you were able to produce. I also use the Kornel piano specific scripts. I need to start experimenting more with the black grand. Sampletekk does have some sweet pianos. The reverbs I have are Wizoo w2 and Gigapulse. The mastering plugs i have are Waves mastering bundle(w/L2), ozone, and also soundforge.

Do you use the Black grand specific Kornel scrpt with the default values or do you have your own tweaks. I really like your EQ settings. Mind posting your EQ settings and other settings. It sounds quite good.
Thanks
Dd

Hi Dd, Because you have made experiments with different piano-samples and resonances/reverbs, I´d like to get you comment concerning the different samplers/engines: e.g. if you want to get much details/different ambiences,
is there much different between the K2 vs. G3 (e.g. in the terms of the different feature or available additional components for these)? Harry

[Ashermusic]

Hey Dd, How would you rate the Art vista VG piano? I'm tempted but I have too many pianos already... does it put my black grand ambient mp3 to shame tone-wise? I've heard many people say it is the best... some even better than ivory....

It is a very specific sound that you probably will either love or hate. I love it, my engineer hates it.