SilverfoxUK
meh
It seems that no matter what piano True, SI Electric or Demension, it's like the attach is too brittle for lack of words.....
They don't seem to fit in the mix with other "live" instruments.
Best way I can describe it.
rafone
Soft synth instruments, in their raw form, are designed to sound bright and strong: otherwise we wouldn't say: "that sounds great, I'll buy it". But when it comes to blending them together, they can't all stick out: like having too many sharp, prominent flavours in a meal; they fight each other.
......
I've learnt that is amazing what a simple bit of EQ can do on tracks. It's why every board since the dawn of time has basic EQ.
.......
"Attack is too brittle" you say? Try using a compressor with a fast attack to slow that bad boy down, not to mention some soft-synths have an attack parameter. OR, try Eq'ing the highs slightly, to make it more 'mellow'
It's not just soft synths. I have my Fender Rhodes 73 set up very 'bright' (close and high on the pickups) and go directly off the harp into a tube pre. I record that raw, but typically run a monitor back out thru an RNC compressor and some EQ (the same rig I use live) because it's painful to listen to otherwise. But with all that richness and aggressiveness in the sound, I'm able to tailor it to be a lot of different Rhodes-like sounds with EQ and compression. Gives me a lot more flexibility in mixdown as to where the Rhodes sits in the mix. Same with my Mason&Hamlin grand. Have a mic bar in it and close mic the sound board. Very harsh and uneven, but I get all the sound and I can mix and EQ the different mic placements (and save that as a template...as I don't have enough hardware to do it in realtime like on my Rhodes, but I can monitor with a large diaphragm room mic).