Steingraeber Christmas - How to get this sound?

Hello Mr. Studiosnch,

I listened to the Hamelin YouTube video with PTQ in mind.  Here are my impressions of the sound, and how they might translate to a PTQ preset:

I agree with you that the sound is "AB" in nature, i.e., a microphone placement scheme where the high notes are heard to be more prominent in the right channel, and vice versa. (In contrast, a 'BA' type of microphone scheme would make the highs sound more prominently towards the left channel, and vice versa.) I also perceived a "disconnect" between the camera position and the perspective of the audio signal, at least as perceived in headphones:  The camera position would favor the highest notes coming from the center of the visual field, with lower notes' longer strings being heard from towards the right side -- such was not the case with the audio characteristics heard in this video.)

Hamelin was did not seem to be expending much physical finger effort beyond a "mezzopiano" loudness level, yet I did seem to hear a lot of high frequencies in the audio, and the audio "sounded" louder in the acoustic space than Hamelin was actually playing.  That implies (to me) that the audio engineer had added some high frequency boost, perhaps around 2-3dB @2000 hertz, added some compression, and had the microphones relatively close to the hammers and keys.

Next, the sound of the piano did NOT decay as much as I am used to hearing.  To my ears, this implies that audio compression was applied so as not to allow the softer notes to die away as fast.  (This also can give the impression of a bass boost, when none was actually applied.)  In terms of Pianoteq, I would suggest LOWERING the dynamic range to about 20-25dB, and REDUCE the overall volume level.  This would have the effect of a lot of mp to mf playing, with a lot of perceived piano resonance and somewhat elevated (but not EQ'd) bass response.

Regarding reverberation, I seemed to hear more resonance from inside the piano, than hearing actual room reverb.  To me this implies that perhaps the audio engineer was using some kind of "plate" reverb or "spring" reverb ... rather than attempting to duplicate a room.  This is weird to me:  That's because the camera seems to be placed rather far away from the piano (implying that the 'room' should be heard more -- yet, the sound was close-up and resonant).

I did not experiment with trying to physically duplicate the sound with Pianoteq.  However, you may wish to consider some of my observations as a starting point for your own experimentation.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Joe

EDIT:  Upon watching the youtube video a third time (subsequent to posting my first response to this thread), I can now see why the camera was positioned and cropped the way it was:  If you look closely, one microphone is just to the right of the support stick that is holding the piano's lid open.  This is why the close miking effect is heard.  At the same time, the camera was placed somewhat far away from the performer, but the editor decided to crop the video image so as to prevent the viewer from seeing the microphones.  Well, they almost cropped away the leftmost microphone!)