Pianos. EQ come mix-time = Nightmare or.....

UKJediKnight


Am I missing the 11 herbs and spices?

Any advice please, other than initial sample selection which seems critical. Im guessings theres some muddyness sweep though I'm not sure where to start with that.

In Ballads, with Drums.

Over to you Guru's!

Cheers

Jedi

Most of the time when I try to use an acoustic piano I have to high pass the hell out of it or the low end will swamp the mix.  It's also good to hard pan the thing.

I use samples... and have a few cakewalk eq presets specifically set for piano eq. I pop them in the piano track and tweeze them if necessary.

Most of my piano's have a bit of mudddiness in their sound, even the good ones so tweezing is normal.

These settings are not set in stone, but ones ive used when recording my piano (yamaha upright)

High Pass at 82
Low Shelving boost at 180Hz at 4dB
Low mid field peak boost at 1200Hz at 3.6dB
High Mid Field boost at 5.6Khz at 3dB
High Shelf boost at 10 Khz at 5dB

Note the different shelf filters used. There not all peak filters.
Cj

That's a lot of boosting there CJ - no cuts anywhere?

What Q's are you using?

That's a lot of boosting there CJ - no cuts anywhere? What Q's are you using?

The highpass is a cut....those are general generic settigns. If you have guitars then youll need to cut some frequncies, using your ears of course.
Cj
 

gamblerschoice


I guess I'm sort of bucking the trend here, but I almost never eq the piano. I use a sound font from sonic implants, maybe a touch of reverb if the song calls for it, but no eq. Run the rough track through a very mild compressor.




See I find this interesting. I have never compressed a piano due to "pumping" effect that always seems to occur. Would be good to hear some ideas on piano compression because I've always found that nigh on impossible.

Cheers :0)

Jedi

I take a pretty simple approach, cause I'm fairly new at this.  I usually bump it at about 1K for a little more warmth.  If I compress it, I use a very light touch, just like Albert says.  If I knew more what I was doing, I would probably do something fancy like CJ does. 

1. I determine what is the role of the piano i.e. is it the main focus (gets the full spread with bass on the left, hi end on the right and may be forward in the mix). If the role is not the main focus it goes way back in the mix and possibly to one side. Thus role and panning based on role is the first decision. 

2. Ambiance of the primary rhythm instrument is matched against the ambiance of the piano. Which will be in front, which will be in back of the mix? Maybe they are on the same plane and the ambiance of each is built to the opposite side of the dry signal.
 
3. Compress now because this lifts the low level and dampens the hi levels and, depending on the compressor can color the sound.

3.  EQ is then applied depending on what else is in the mix. If there is an acoustic guitar then there is the decision as to which (piano or guitar) will be EQd to the high end and which one is dominating the low/mid range. This may even require automated EQ depending on the featured element at various points in the mix.

I tend to EQ after the delays, reverbs and also compression are in the mix because they can influence the EQ decision depending on their sonic nature. But if something about the sound is really wack, then I will EQ it first to get it in the sonic picture. This is my approach. Most important I guess is if the piano is a primary focus, get it in the mix after the drums, bass and vocal are in. If its secondary then you can add it after the primary focus of a guitar, harmonica or whatever. This tends to lead you toward the correct way to EQ.
 
This all points to getting the sound close in the recording stage so you aren't chasing your tail with various non matching sounds.