Helpful ReplyPiano EQ

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Keni
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Re: Piano EQ 2017/09/17 15:57:47 (permalink)
Not hing exra i can add here, but I'm wondering if anyone here has trued Keyscape yet?

I heard some great stuff from Jacob Collier the other day...

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#31
Jeff Evans
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Re: Piano EQ 2017/09/17 21:05:19 (permalink)
One of the best pianos I have ever heard is the Waves Grand Rhapsody.  It has got the top end you are after.  You should not need to EQ a great sounding piano either.  The Waves piano has got the sound and it just sits in the mix perfectly.
 
It is still on sale for $29.  It has mic choices too and that is a better way to alter the sound. 
Check this out:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8RFHn5q0Jk
 
This is good test.  Same music on 4 different pianos. Hear how different they all sound. Personally I prefer Grand Rhapsody the best.

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#32
jimkleban
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Re: Piano EQ 2017/09/18 00:32:29 (permalink)
My 2 cents is that the context of the piano in a mix has much to do with the recording technique as does the piano itself.  To be obvious here, an old beat up upright might sound terrible playing a Mozart piece but great in a country song... a piano has a ton of complex frequencies that will easily conflict with other frequencies in a rock song, hence why many rock sounds have very brittle recorded/mixed piano tracks.
 
Personally, I don't like too many piano VSTs in that most of them were created for CLASSICAL music pieces in mind.. they may sound great as a solo instrument but not so good in a rock tune.  The one piano VST family that I really like for rock is Sampletekk's Black Grand or White Grand depending on taste.  The black is more complex and the white more simple depending on the sound one is looking for.  The White Grand reminds me of the piano tone in Killer Queen or some early Bowie stuff.... the Black Grand for more complex stuff like the ELP sound.

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#33
John
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Re: Piano EQ 2017/09/18 04:20:06 (permalink)
Jeff Evans
One of the best pianos I have ever heard is the Waves Grand Rhapsody.  It has got the top end you are after.  You should not need to EQ a great sounding piano either.  The Waves piano has got the sound and it just sits in the mix perfectly.
 
It is still on sale for $29.  It has mic choices too and that is a better way to alter the sound. 
Check this out:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8RFHn5q0Jk
 
This is good test.  Same music on 4 different pianos. Hear how different they all sound. Personally I prefer Grand Rhapsody the best.


You're right this is a great sounding piano. Yes I bought it. Reading these forums can be expensive. 

Best
John
#34
Anderton
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Re: Piano EQ 2017/09/18 20:49:20 (permalink)
This just goes to show how subjective pianos are. I A/B/C/D'ed a bunch of lower-cost pianos when doing a review and the Grand Rhapsody was one of them. I found its sound not as "rich" as the others.
 
I think part of the "problem" with variability among sample libraries is the miking. You can have ten different engineers mic the same piano with the same mics, and they'll all sound different. If your taste in piano sounds is the same as the engineer who did the sampling, you're going to like that piano sound.

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#35
BenMMusTech
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Re: Piano EQ 2017/09/19 00:12:42 (permalink)
I've been working on my piano EQ over the last few weeks. I use the stock sound in Notion 4, and whilst it's not the best stock piano sound...once you know how to treat it, it really sounds great.
 
Now of course you won't have the ability to dial in sustain through the written score like I can...pedal up and pedal down, but one of the new tricks I've learn't to create a rich deep image from a sampled piano is the console emulator. I'm not sure how you do it with Cake's console emulator (sorry cake, but we all evolve), but with Wave's console emulator just pick a console...I've used both the SSl and TG12345 and dial in 3-4 db of drive...all of a sudden the piano doesn't sound limp and lifeless, but like Beethoven...ok maybe hyperbole lol.
 
Another trick I've been working on is my EQ technique, and again sorry Cake lol, but Wave's H-EQ is great over the top of the piano sound, and even better is the ability to dial in THD. Man once I worked out how to use the THD on the H-EQ, I was able to dial in and out problem frequencies, as well as keep the beautiful forments' of the instument. One of the other cool things about the H-EQ is the frequency analyser which shows you where the problems are. Two settings that I use for EQ and it doesn't matter if you use Wave's H-EQ or Cakewalk's QuadCurve...if you use Cake's try either the pure setting which is vaguely modeled on the passive RS56 if the eq curves are anything to go on, and roll off with a low-shelving EQ between -1&2db at around 450hz...that will get rid of some of the annoying bottom end if this the problem. Alternatively the E type, which has a little bell kick at the point where you want to tame the problem frequency. This can help tame the bottom end but at the same time allow for the tone of the piano come through...depending on the leading tone of the instrument. If, alternatively the problem is the low-mids, use a very wide scoop at around 450hz again, and lower between 1.5db and 3db.
 
Another cool trick to help a sampled piano shine is to use a compressor of some sorts. Now depending on what type of sound or tone you're after, I like Cake's CA2 leveling amp, which is really easy to set...you wan't about 3-5db of gain reduction and you want to set the level of the CA2 to about -10 to -5 on the DBFS scale. This will give the piano some attack, and sustain, and also help tame some of the problems in regards to EQ. Another trick is a hard compression setting, and Cake again has two excellent compressors for this...their SSL buss emulation and 1176 emulation :). Pick a ratio of between 5 and eight and just hammer the piano through the compressor. Use your ears to decide whether to EQ before or after the compressor.
 
Here is a piano piece I prepared earlier lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uml1fzus5J0 actually I finished mixing and mastering this piece only a few days ago, after about of month of pulling the mix apart and putting it back together again. Due to a similar problem the OP had.
 
Ben  

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#36
Jeff Evans
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Re: Piano EQ 2017/09/19 22:22:58 (permalink)
I certainly get where Craig is coming from.  I have got 3 or 4 piano VST's and they all sound pretty excellent but so different though.  I still like the Rhapsody sound though.  For me I find it just seems to sit really nice in a mix and I rarely need any processing on it at all in order to get to right.  But I am talking a mix with a few things going on.  A solo piano and vocal thing might be different though I agree.
 
I also have a rather excellent piano sound in my Kurzweil too and it is very similar.  No processing required to make it sound right, it just sounds right from the get go.
 
Don't forget with the Rhapsody there are many mic choices not to mention combinations of the mics plus closer and further away plus the built in reverb so there is actually rather a lot of manipulation there if you actually want to use it.  Just changing the mic choices is pretty significant.

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#37
John
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Re: Piano EQ 2017/09/20 04:27:56 (permalink)
Well I like it. Rhapsody is a really good sounding piano. It does have a lot of tweakability too.  

Best
John
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