I'm not getting anything wrong sounding with the vocals so I guess it's all been fixed since the earlier comments.

The bottom end of the Piano ambience is still taking up too much energy around the bottom end for my taste, but as for the piano part, Janet is still the tops for injecting masses of emotion and mood with her playing.  Unbeatable.

I like the arrangement and the vox are emotive too.

Thanks so much, Tim, Martin, Arlen, Jon and Rik and everyone else.  Sure do appreciate the kind words.   :) 

Thanks Steve.  :)

Paulo & Janet - Wonderful, haunting song! The piano and the vox go hand-in-hand IMO. Really creates the mood! I like those guitar 'sprinkles' thru-out the piece as well.  What's not to like??

i'm a sucker for big dramatic downbeat songs...loved the opening to this. in fact, loved it all the way through. the guitar flourishes work very well, it's is hard to imagine this as just a piano piece now!

Could have sworn I commented on this...so sorry Paulo! I listened to this just now and knew I heard it before. But low and behold, no comments from me. Sorry about that.

Good singing...love me some Janet piano...always awesome! So she basically gave you a piano piece and you did all this other stuff to it? Pretty impressive bro. Love the nylon acoustic...really adds a nice touch. Words are really cool...beautifully sung too. Synth parts are perfect for the tune. Lead vocal seem just a little loud to you? I'd rather it be a little loud than a little low. It just seemed to be so thick that it might have been a little hot in a few spots. That's a really good vocal take man...what mic did you use? Very big vocals...very clean and clear.

Really like the timbre of your voice as well. Great tune from two incredible musicians...thanks for sharing this and I'm glad you took the time to work it to your specs. Yeah, Janet is pretty easy to work with as long as you NEVER and I repeat...NEVER drown out her peeeano! Hahahaha! It's always about her you know...the queen must be heard...all servants -2dB lower. Hahahahahaha! I can hear her cracking up from here. :) Great job once again...really enjoyed this.

-Danny

Paulo,
 
Is there a downloadable version of this somewhere?  I want it on my mobile players.
 
Glen

Janet


Thanks again, everyone.  So glad you liked it.

No, Danny, I didn't just give him a piano track.  He heard my version of it (I think it's 'The Wall') and just totally ripped it off.  

Well, I mean, he played over it.   And then several months later, when he remembered it, he asked if he could have just the piano track cause my cello got in the way.  I guess that's the secret to not having to listen to me complain!  lol  (I think this is the second piece of mine you've done, right, Paulo?)  I think I'll just send him all my piano tracks and let him produce them cause that would save me so much time!  :)   

And Danny, it's -6 dB lower...don't forget that.  

And for anyone, including Paulo, who just took me seriously...you really don't know me well enough.  I'm flattered that he liked what I did well enough to take it to the next level.  Once I get out of Christmas mode I might just do another one like this.  (I'll let you know, Paulo, before I ruin it with other instruments.) :)  

Ah thanks for the explanation Janet. That's pretty cool! You really don't complain much though...you hear a certain sound in your head. When that certain sound isn't there...it just doesn't sit with you...and that's ok. The hard thing in recording though...sometimes due to the piece or what we're presented with instrumentation wise as well as gear or sound limitations...we sometimes have to make what we have work. When we do that...sometimes something has to suffer a bit. Not really suffer..but be altered to the point of "ok, I'm not super crazy about my sound here...but it DOES make the song work" sort of thing, ya know?
 
Like for example...I know you can listen to a pro recording and say "see Danny, see how this piano is always there and it's still big sounding and and and..." which would be true. However, some of the guys we may collab with, may not have the capabilities, the gear, the sounds or even the know-how to maintain that quality or focal presence. So when that happens...there are times when we have to just accept it being it is what it is until we can break through the barriers of what allows the things we are missing to be included at some point. When you have really killer instrumentation going on all across the board, it's easier (most times) to make a mix work.
 
Unfortunately for you...well...fortunately depending on how you look at it....you have a very professional piano sound. One that can be purchased in a box that pops out sounding like God has hand delivered it. Of course your playing helps to accentuate this, but this has always been one of the problems I have encountered in the "sample" world. Some of these samples are just so big and pro sounding...whoever works with you must try to achieve sounds that compliment what you have given or we are left with this huge piano the size of a stage...and all these little instruments sounding like a swarm of bees in the mix. I know you and I had this conversation before...but I'm throwing it out there in case anyone else reads and may have experienced issues while using those incredible sampling libraries.
 
Most guys are always going to have a disadvantage. A guy mics a guitar cab or an acoustic...he gets a great sound..then your piano comes in and totally engulfs the stereo field..lol...so we have two options.
 
1. The easiest way to fix it is to yup...you guessed it my queen...lol..slim down the piano a bit. :-Þ
 
2. We try to make the other instruments a little meatier...maybe some stereo enhancement etc...but the deal here is, we can't compare one mic or two mics on an instrument to the 10 that were probably used on your piano samples...know what I mean? Plus you have control over them to an extent in your program. Those working with you will need a similar attack on the way they record their instruments so that your piano doesn't have to be altered as much or pushed into the background.
 
I've encountered this problem with high gain guitars and massive orchestra libraries. Sometimes the strings sound so big, they just suck up everything with realism. If the tune I'm working on is supposed to be heavy guitar driven, I'm going to have some problems with those big string libraries unless I thin them out a bit...or...I use a sound that is more fake in the string area that just becomes part of the backing.
 
On the -6dB thing...my deepest apologies my queen! It won't happen again! :-Þ *bows* Hahahahaha!
 
-Danny

Janet


Thanks Danny.  Can you explain I would 'thin the piano out'?  

If you're talking about the song you and Ed worked on, the only real complaint I had is the time I couldn't hear the piano at all.  And that was an issue (to me) cause I was playing the melody.  

Otherwise, I don't mind if the piano can't be heard....for like a measure or two.  

Thin the piano out...means put it on a diet. LOL!! Seriously...what happens with these bigger sound samples is, for some things, they really accentuate mids. For example....and I'll try to set this up for you the best way I can...might be a long read though...sorry.
 
Let's say you and I do a song together but my guitars and everything are the focal point. Your piano will most likely need to be thinned out in the low mid area as well as the mid/mid area. Anything left hand that is low bass will need to be high passed. The reasons being...
 
Your piano and my guitars share a common mid range to an extent. If we both go for "big and full" we get what is called frequency masking. Which means....we'll be turning my guitars up louder and then we'll be losing your piano...so then we turn up your piano and we then lose my guitars. Both instruments are fighting for the same position. If we thin out my guitars, the piano will take over the mid position a bit more and then I lose the girth of the guitar drive....and we don't want that because this is a guitar tune.
 
So when we thin out the piano mids...we hear the percussivness of the piano and we feel the power of the guitars without them being thinned out to sound like lil gnats flying around us. Again, I'm at a disadvantage vs. your incredible piano. Most times, I mic my cabs with 2 mics...maybe a 3rd...but I really like a more up close sound on my guitars instead of lots of room sound. So the size of my sound is going to be smaller than yours. The more mics we use as well as how we utilize the room will determine how large a sound ends of being..understand so far?
 
Now...in the event there is a section of this song where it's time for you to shine, all the mids I pulled from you will be automated back in and the guitars will be a bit thinned out and most likely lowered in the mix so YOU can shine. I'll probably pan the guitars out wider to keep them out of your way because you know....the queen must shine and be heard. LOL!! (ok I'll stop with that queen stuff...but I think it's funny lol because..well, you are the queen of piano in these here parts)
 
Now I mentioned left hand bass notes. Your piano sound is very rich. Any bass notes you play that fall into the range of a bass guitar, are also going to mask with the bass. So we have to be careful there or your left hand and the bass will now be fighting for the throne. There are times in a recording Janet...where especially on synths...we don't even want/need left hand going on when there is a bass guitar involved. All it does it put bass on top of bass and we lose the bass guitar movement and percussiveness due to the piano left hand or synth left hand playing in the same register. So we have to work on the low end and cut certain frequencies for the piano/synth and boost others on the bass guitar while cutting some stuff on the bass guitar so it can be boosted for the left hand stuff on keys. When we boost something on one instrument, we have to cut that frequency we boosted on another that may be in the same frequency range. This is what stops them from walking on top of each other. Offenders in this class are kick drums, floor toms, bass guitar, left hand piano, synths, cello's, and anything that is going to walk into the low end frequency range of another instrument.
 
Sorry for getting a bit off track there...but they all walk hand in hand and this is why sometimes we can't hear instruments in our mixes...it's all due to masking. Most times this is only going to happen in the low end and mid range areas. This is why thinning out a big piano is the right way to go for certain things. Now when you are the focal point, the tables turn. We still have to watch your left hand stuff because of it walking on a bass line, but you can be bigger and have a bit more mids when you are the boss of the tune doing the melodies. Then the guitars or other mid range instruments have to conform around you a bit. But again...the problem we can be faced with is...your sound is so big, other instruments may have a tough time competiting.
 
Another fix for this is to narrow up your stereo field and pan you off to a side. Think of a stage when you see a live show. Each instrument is set where it is for a reason *most times* and we need to mix in the same fashion as what we see. A stereo piano can still be panned 50% left and be loud enough to be heard throughout. It doesn't need to be spread all across the spectrum to where it engulfs the entire stereo field...know what I mean? This is really the problem at the end of the day. When something totally engulfs the stereo field from left to right...there is no place for the others to reside. This is why proper panning and sound field placement is important. Each instrument needs to occupy a space....and when you have one that occupies loads of space...it's everywhere...so we need to curb it so the others can play nicely with it.
 
It's like 2 bullies on the playground that won't let you ride the merry-go-round and the slide because they claim it as "theirs". They take up both pieces of equipment not allowing anyone else to play on them...that limits you to play on the monkey bars and swings only. In a mix, you're even more limited because of the space something large can take up. You go left, the little instrument is buried...you go right, it's buried. You go center...it walks on top. You go left and turn it up, it buries the piano, you go right and turn it up...it buries the piano...so you see, there aren't many options left other than to trim down that big piano.
 
If we make the other instruments bigger by simulation...you know, stereo effects and enhancements...sometimes this works, other times it makes the sound a bit synthetic and we don't want that. So we just have to experiment until we can get that bully to play nicely with the other children. :) Make sense at all?
 
-Danny

Or try closing up the wide stereo field a bit or panning a bit. :)

-Danny

Thanks Danny...yeah, I sorta figured that...just didn't know about the eq thing regarding 'thinning it out.'

GP:  no, this is all Paulo's doing...all I supplied was the piano track.