• SONAR
  • Sonar x2 keyswitchs and recording my upright piano.
2014/10/02 20:05:52
marcus3
Hi everyone I'm having some problems to start off I'm using sonar x2 windows 8 64bit and East West Symphonic Orchestra.

The 1st being keyswitches when I selecet a keyswitch like F0 for Trills
and place it before the note nothing happens. If I click F0 inside of EWQL it changes to a trill. I ask EWQL but they said make sure the keyswitch placed before the note..Well it is...  How ever I really perfer do keyswitches live but my midi control only haves 37 keys. Any advie?

The 2nd problem is micing my upright piano I'm using a MXL 990 with a mic stage stand. I have the mic next to my piano on its right side and the lid open. But the mic looks to pick up little of anything when reading the SONAR meters. I have to turn up my audio interface pass halfway but then it picks up a lot of air.

Thanks
Marcus
2014/10/02 20:53:26
Beagle
you need to put F0 as a NOTE in the MIDI track before the first note you want to play the trills.  open the PRV and input a note, it doesn't matter the length of the note, I'd just use an 1/8th note probably and use the mouse to input F0 at the point before your trill note starts.
 
NOTE:  East West and cakewalk might define C0 differently, so you might need to adjust the keyswitch note to F-1 or F2 depending on the difference between them, if any.
 
Mic'ing a real piano is very difficult.  I'd try moving the mic inside the lid if you can, near the soundboard, and make sure the front of the mic is pointing toward the soundboard, but maybe just slightly off-axis.
2014/10/02 21:23:33
Jeff Evans
A lot of the sound from an upright piano comes from the back. If you only have one mic I would try it there first and see what transpires. Put it up close to the rear sounding board in the middle lower down etc..
 
What I sometimes do is to mic the back but also the front. You can lift off the front upper panel to expose all the top strings and hammers there. You could also try putting a mic somewhere where your head is or a little closer to the strings. The sound there is a little more percussive and hammer like which is nice for certain things. The rear back sound is deeper and more full sounding though. Both together can work very well too.
 
Make sure it is tuned properly. An out of tune upright piano is not a good thing!
2014/10/02 23:42:28
marcus3
Hi thanks on the piano tech I'll try that. At Beagle I did have the mic resting on the edge of the piano with the lid resting on it. But to get that to work I had to take the bottom off so the mic was hanging on the piano. As for the Key switching  that's all fixed but now I'm trying to use drum map with it. I still can't get that set up right.
 
Thanks
Marcus 
2014/10/03 07:44:22
Beagle
You know, for whatever reason, I completely glossed over you saying it was an upright.  Jeff's advice is correct on this.
 
as far as keyswitching - I'm not clear what you're trying to do with a drum map for your keyswitching - a drum map simply changes the input note to a different output note.  maybe I don't understand your problem correctly.  are you trying to keyswitch while playing?  if so, then hitting an F0 on your keyboard should work (or F-1, or F1 depending on the difference between EW and cake's definition of middle C).
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