...Scarlatti is surprisingly hard to play !
Yes! I've read through most of the sonatas at home, but only dared to play a small handful in public. It's as bad as Mozart, no chance of hiding any mistakes.
]]>Sorry to be so late to the party. I'm enjoying both the performances and the repertoire choices (also the Scarlatti series).
It sounds like your editing workflow has a bit in common with mine. I also add the other pedals "by hand" afterwards, and adjust a bunch of note velocities.
If you haven't tried it already, it sounds like a custom velocity curve in Pianoteq would solve some of your problems: you can add a steeper segment in the middle to differentiate more between those close-together sounds, and round off the top end to make the crescendos less harsh. You could also try moving the "dynamics" slider in Pianoteq (just underneath volume) to the right a bit, and taking the forte hammer hardness down a notch.
Depending on your DAW, you might also have some options for bulk editing the note velocities. For example, in Reaper, it's pretty easy to select all, subtract 20 from velocities, then multiply by 2 -- and then the 40-80 range has turned into 40-120 (same effect you'd get from a velocity curve in Pianoteq, but with more flexibility for editing the results). If that's too extreme, replace 2 with 1.5 or something else.
Keep up the good work, and I'll look forward to your next release :-)
Hey hanysz,
Many thanks for your helpful comment! Glad you are enjoying the pieces - Scarlatti is surprisingly hard to play !
I did actually end up adjusting the velocity curve soon after making this recording, and it made a big difference - now mostly I have to add pedalling by hand, hardly any velocity adjustments are needed anymore. I haven't played with the dynamics slider much though, so I will give it a try soon as well.
Keep well..
]]>It sounds like your editing workflow has a bit in common with mine. I also add the other pedals "by hand" afterwards, and adjust a bunch of note velocities.
If you haven't tried it already, it sounds like a custom velocity curve in Pianoteq would solve some of your problems: you can add a steeper segment in the middle to differentiate more between those close-together sounds, and round off the top end to make the crescendos less harsh. You could also try moving the "dynamics" slider in Pianoteq (just underneath volume) to the right a bit, and taking the forte hammer hardness down a notch.
Depending on your DAW, you might also have some options for bulk editing the note velocities. For example, in Reaper, it's pretty easy to select all, subtract 20 from velocities, then multiply by 2 -- and then the 40-80 range has turned into 40-120 (same effect you'd get from a velocity curve in Pianoteq, but with more flexibility for editing the results). If that's too extreme, replace 2 with 1.5 or something else.
Keep up the good work, and I'll look forward to your next release :-)
]]>1MuddyDog wrote:A darkly coloured nocturne for piano with some beautiful inner voices.
Performed on the PianoTeq 8 Hamburg Steinway Model D. I hope you will enjoy it, and thank you for listening !
Thank you, 1MuddyDog, beautiful rendition, smooth and feeling. This is music I can listen to in the evenings, very beautiful.
What keyboard do you use?
I can't get all your fantastic nuances in my playing with my old keyboard with plastic keys. I miss a keyboard with grand feel piano action, long wooden keys, the pivot point length the same as what you’d find inside of a traditional grand piano. I’m sure it gives me more control over the expression of my performance (much more than I get with my keyboard that features shorter keys made out of plastic ).Anyway, I always enjoy your playing and waiting for next one.
Thank you 1MuddyDog, for sharing your music.Best wishes,
Stig
Hey there Stig,
Thanks as always for your kind comment - glad you enjoyed the Gliere, it really is a lovely piece.
I use a Roland RD700 to capture the pieces with. It has a nice sound with a weighted keyboard that is very responsive to touch. My setup does have its limitations though:
i) I don't have a soft pedal or sostenuto pedal, so I have to add those in afterwards by hand in places where I know I would have used them
ii) The RD700 pedalling (sustain pedal) doesn't map cleanly to the Steinway - what sounds clear and clean on the RD700 turns into a muddy mess on the Steinway, so I also have to clean up the pedalling afterwards
iii) Sadly, the key velocities registered by the RD700 usually come out quite distorted on the Steinway - crescendos that sound nice and dramatic on the RD700 sound harsh and forced on the Steinway, and where I have played chords with certain weightings in the fingers to get a particular sound, they sound lifeless and undifferentiated in most cases and have a harsh, pinched sound to them especially in louder passages. So I often have to rebalance these chords to make it sound like what I played and also to make it sound like what I would have been able to get if I had been playing a Steinway directly.
I don't think either piano is at fault - they just speak different languages, so I have to adjust for that when translating from one realm to the other
Here is an example: A simple Amaj triad, inverted as <E, A, C#>. So I play this with most of the weight on the C#, and it gets captured in the DAW with velocities <E:50, A:53, C#:62>, for example. This gave a nice clean sound on the RD700, but when played back with the Steinway, it sounds undifferentiated - I can't hear the top note clearly enough so the chord sounds flat and lifeless. So I have to rebalance it by increasing the distance between the top note and the other two notes to <E:45, A:47, C#:62> for example - by pushing E and A further into the background, the perceived volume of the chord is roughly the same but now it sounds a lot clearer and is closer to the sound that I actually played.
I hope this can help you get closer to the sound that you dream of.
Take care, and thanks again for listening!
]]>A darkly coloured nocturne for piano with some beautiful inner voices.
Performed on the PianoTeq 8 Hamburg Steinway Model D. I hope you will enjoy it, and thank you for listening !
Thank you, 1MuddyDog, beautiful rendition, smooth and feeling. This is music I can listen to in the evenings, very beautiful.
What keyboard do you use?
I can't get all your fantastic nuances in my playing with my old keyboard with plastic keys. I miss a keyboard with grand feel piano action, long wooden keys, the pivot point length the same as what you’d find inside of a traditional grand piano. I’m sure it gives me more control over the expression of my performance (much more than I get with my keyboard that features shorter keys made out of plastic ).
Anyway, I always enjoy your playing and waiting for next one.
Thank you 1MuddyDog, for sharing your music.
Best wishes,
Stig
]]>Performed on the PianoTeq 8 Hamburg Steinway Model D. I hope you will enjoy it, and thank you for listening !
]]>