DEZ wrote:There is a lot of valid information in your reply that I can't possibly make an immediate comment on all of it. So thank you so much for your insightfulness and willingness to share your experience and knowledge on this thread.
You're welcome DEZ - kind of enjoy hitting the qwerty keyboard about these ideas - and honestly hope only to inspire you and others to dive into things in their own best way, and hopefully to see as a result more music being made in the world.
And likewise, thank you! With your enthusiasm and interesting testing and questioning, I hope many passing through might get inspired by you
DEZ wrote:we begin with playing, mixing and then mastering. For playing it might be preferable to hear the instrument from the player's perspective. In the mixing from the audience perspective (some change in microphone placements, EQ, Reverb and the like). And the mastering from the 'detached' professional's perspective to get the best possible sound and loudness out of an already competent mix with good of dynamics and headroom.
That's a very good way to express that DEZ!
Great points - Certainly a good way for many pianists to record, would be with a "player" preset, so they feel like they're performing at a real piano.
I'm often just as OK with performing using the final preset (like hearing the outcome as intended), and in some contexts it might be useful, esp. if a multi-track piece.. sometimes if you can experience the 'final' sound as you play, you may respond better in terms of some dynamics, or any other instrumentalists.. quite often if someone has a lot of live playing experience either way will be fine for them - but esp. for new recordists, it may be best to record with a 'player' preset before deciding on a final kind of preset for the output.. and I often find "Oh, I think this different piano/preset with completely different sensibility here works better".
Much of this is plastic, and comes down to individuals, music, situations and time to experiment.. if no time, maybe some aspects are 'make do' - but with time, it's good to drop in other Pianoteq pianos and presets before deciding on the final sound.. but then, maybe the goal is to produce an album's worth of piano repertoire with the same sound, which might require getting used to a player preset and knowing quite well how any performance you create with that will sound with your chosen (un-changing) final piano.
In the past, with just a real piano at home, a pianist might master a set repertoire and then seek a studio, which might have a better house piano.. some further rehearsals while technicians mic the piano/test levels etc.. and then each hour passes, maybe more than 1 'take' per piece.. perhaps some restarts from scratch due to something needing adjustment. Those hours might mount up faster than budget would allow. Some studios might be inflexible "We give you what we give you" or exceptionally facilitating any detailed demands. Often a head engineer can be as good as having a genuinely skilled producer - lots of decisions - and often new artists are treated like cash cows.. get them in, hit record, take the money. It was almost always a huge expense to record in a good studio often because the equipment being astronomically expensive to run and staff often being worthwhile keeping around at higher rates - just normal real-world realities.
These days though - I do think many new artists, pianists and others may not be fully aware that just outputting Pianoteq audio can be right up there with anything they could have paid gross amounts of money for in the old analog studio days. I know people born after Windows 8 who just never came across the thought process like above.. unknown to them (and a good thing it is) was how difficult and more expensive just playing/recording their piano music was in decades prior to their birth. Some people are taking the tools available today for granted? Perhaps.. which is why I guess I like to try to inspire people to dive into a DAW if they're already using a dpiano... it just might be the case, they can find it possible to output piano recordings with Pianoteq as good as anything they could have done in the past, and with honestly a tiny fraction of what good recordings used to cost to make.
Any one of us here, can be 'artist' as well as 'sound engineer' and 'mastering engineer' at home - and end up with music sounding better than some studio sessions in the past (many will know from those days, often a choice of studio could lead to expensive disappointments). Here in 'the future' we can just delete the file we didn't like and click record again - until we are happy - with no hourly clock counting off hundreds of dollars an hour. Truly, even counting the expense of a computer, Pianoteq, a DAW and some plugins.. it is extremely inexpensive by comparison. You could make 10 albums without having to update the PC or OS or even software.. in the 70s, the cost of that could be over a million big bills. Something which used to cost insane amounts of money, and some don't find it worth their time - and for some, that's OK. There's still people I know with expensive studios doing OK - and that whole process can be like an event - and there is indeed nothing quite like practically living in a nice studio with friends, acquaintances and collaborators sharing the days, weeks or months.
Just checking out again this yearly video contest entrant's music - wow - over the years Pianoteq sounds better and better. To an oldish person like me, it is kind of miraculous - and good to see people expressing themselves through Pianoteq, so well - it does make me feel hope for future generations knowing so many are so very keen and making strides in their artistic expressions - hats off to all who zoom in on recordings and give it their focus.
DEZ wrote:Yes, I think the idea that you can set it and leave it for the entire song most probably will produce a finished result that quickly tires the ear and leaves the listener not wishing to return too often... Like wallpaper patterns our 'masterpiece' might just end up as 'elevator' music... The danger being, I suppose we 'hear' what we want to hear in our own music and focus in on that even if there's other instruments screaming for our attention. Can we be truly subjective I wonder???
It's such a fun exercise to think about that problem.. there will always be a water-mark for solo classical recordings, such that the mixer doesn't go too heavily into extra weird acoustic tricks. Indeed, all subjective because, for one person, there's something moving about hearing an audience (maybe sans coughs and sneezes hehe), but a good stage with a well recorded performance does have 'life' beyond the perfect pianos' sound! ( in the past some funny jokes have been made about introducing a slider to introduce random audience sounds - and, honestly, it's still something I think is a pretty fine idea. I think Beto_Music might have been the first I saw mentioning that
A thing I've always liked doing with Pianoteq, is to set up a nice deeply reverb-heavy-ish preset and play good classical MIDI performances, like normal background music. There's a kind of long line of DAW setups I've used to make it as syrup-like and soft but with some brilliance in the trebles.. it wouldn't classify as anyone's preferred way to hear that music, if they were paying for it on an album, either an old vinyl or CD format etc. nor stream.. but if I 'tame' a few aspects of it, I find I'm liking my last iteration of that DAW setup even for pretty 'unaffected' solo classical piano pieces.. one aspect which the compressions and excitations (like transformer warmth) does, is to make 'turned down' pedal noise and key release noise 'picked up' but in a way that it blends with reverbs.. and in a way, with that going on at a certain level you can almost.. almost believe it's a live space with people in an audience. At least to me, in my room. But yes, I think even for solo classical clean recording goals, there's room for some fussing with compressions and EQ of the noises and blending in with several reverb types. Nothing as a rule though - and definitely some will not enjoy their piano sounding in any way touched by a recording process - and all is good with that too.
Then talking about some kind of polished up album sound, often thinking for reference about pretty well loved 'classics' among classical piano recordings, often, the record label would have certain studios they'd use - particular mic arrays, strict EQ curves (like Teldec).. the way many good albums sounded was kind of a long end result of decades of processes and refinements, mostly on an engineering scale. There's a big proportion of pianists who that kind of goal might seem the ultimate way to go.. but in all reality, even if the final sound is quite sweet, good dynamics, not overly produced sounding etc.. it's for sure heavily influenced overall by an armada of equipment between the pianist and the output. For this kind of goal, Pianoteq by itself is pretty phenomenal IMHO.
When I first began to focus on piano, one BIG mistake I made was to think "This dpiano doesn't sound good enough".. only to find in subsequent years the reality was more like "Nope, I still have a way to go before my playing can satisfy my ideals". It's true for any instrument.
Just outputting Pianoteq to a file (normalized to -10 perhaps, as suggested by MeDorian in another thread, could be all someone wants.)
DEZ wrote:I like YouTube tutorials - but I feel you have to be discerning as you go on to explain. I also like to curl up with a good book and can highlight sections I need to re-read. So I bought a few to get along with. I don't expect to understand everything initially, but that's the fun of self-learning.
Absolutely, discretion is important.. it's easy to enjoy a video by a Youtber who's shtick may be to create a controversial element to the video. I think quite a few long-term Youtbers worth watching will know, they need to blend in some "What do you think, is this X or Y?" fluff.
Often, it's not always about finding out exact details, but in a way taking in some of the vernacular, I guess trying to check out "ah, that person who should probably know, says they never use X or Y when doing that".. and it may just be someone expressing a view about differences in some hardware, the way they used to behave in certain ways - the plugin equivalents or such - and in a way, in and of itself, a lot of that may not be 100% useful to us on the day, but it's a data point.. and some time later, we may remember "Oh, I could try lowering this and raising that, because I think I recall it was useful", even though you may have forgotten the presenter who mentioned it, or the YouTube itself.
But 100% would always say: watch new audio people Youtubing about their experiences - but always keep in mind, they may only be experiencing issues or problems due to not yet knowing what they might do to fix or help their issues.. and many may just not yet know what they're discussing beyond being an end-user who's stuck on something.. it can be a time-saver to not bog down on those kinds of videos while trying to work out your own 'best' ideas.
Plenty of tutorials will cover similar ground - and I think, once you're pretty happy with your appreciation of the things in your path to finding your own preferred ways of working, then the sky is the limit. I'm kind of glad to have lived in this time-frame - and I can only share my happiness in knowing others in future may stand on the shoulders of all those in the past who made the good things we do take for granted.. and in my small way, I just hope by outlining some things the way I experienced them for others who are leaning into recording, that, we may have even more wonderful music in the world.
DEZ wrote:One trick I do swear by is to mix with the volumes really low. If I can still hear all the tracks then I know I'm not too far off a good start. Some 'experts' recommend mixing at much, much higher levels, but they seem to develop tinnitus! Also I get tired quickly and stop hearing anything other than what I think I'm hearing. So fresh ears is a must for me.
That's a fantastic point - mixing with low volume is important IMHO.
For most people's hearing, (quoting from old info) around 60 to 70dB may give a good range of fullest EQ. In other words, if too quiet, we don't hear as much bass and if too loud, it all may sound too mushy and harsh and our physical and mental defences can go up. Prolonged loud listening, and our ears can fatigue (physically, allowing more and more pressure into the drum) and our minds can acclimatize to the loudness. Nothing about that is the fault of any instrument, whether it be piano or electric guitar. We can all benefit from listening at safe volumes, no matter if we're mixing, playing or listening.
Playing a physical grand piano can be an awakening for someone who's maybe only played their dpiano or an old school upright.. definitely worth attending a piano showroom at some point, to experience it played at forte or above. Many people expect it to sound beautiful - but its greatest attribute is the design which sends the most beautiful of its sound into an audience.. it's less enjoyable on the seat, than it sounds from an audience in a good space, generally.. but I do love playing them - but knowing a forceful passage can get to 100 dB - which honestly, isn't going to be fun to rehearse unless on a smaller piano for a lot of hours.
Generally my structured listening involves roughly 60dB or even below when the task is not demanding any critical analysis (could amount to 80% of the time). I'll listen at roughly 85dB for 'some extended' periods, not longer than 20mins, if some critical aspects are involved. Then, somewhere between while assessing how things sound at different levels.. and on different equipment. There are some interesting plugins to get a quick overview of how a recording might sound on a "car" system, a modern phone, cafe etc. I don't believe there's any one I'd particularly recommend, as they bring different things with them - but it's a small task to do, esp. if I don't trust a mix yet. And like a recent mix, I can become stuck - these things can help identify "Of course, the melody is lost, raising it a little balances things better".. you may hear that only because playing it through a different system or plugin like Audified's 'Mix Checker Pro', a simple thing with an assortment of output types, with or without environmental noise from a street/cafe etc. (things like radio types, phones, different small speakers and so on).
Apart from that it's nice to allow yourself some brief sessions listening around 90dB or higher to experience that aspect - and discover how it might sound better if something like a little less treble might work. But overall, most can probably learn to love mostly the sound of 60 to 70dB I think. Adding that, it can be a mistake that a new musician can habitually fall into, thinking they can 'only' dig deep if they're experiencing loud audio as they perform. It feels that's the truth, but time does prove it to be something you must discard if it's become a habit, esp. if wanting to keep good hearing into the years ahead.
Many studios to this day will say 80 or 85dB is optimal - and certainly with good distant speakers I like it - because perhaps big wall mounted speakers diffuse the bass well etc. and there's not too much hitting the ears, like tweeters directionally, close up.. and with near-field monitors (like my basic choice at home, the Yamaha HS8) I really do prefer quite well lower than 80dB for a majority of the time.
Pianoteq Studio Bundle (Pro plus all instruments) - Kawai MP11 digital piano - Yamaha HS8 monitors
