Topic by Jake Johnson

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  • Jake Johnson
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  • Registered: 04-05-2007
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Topic: Adventures in mis-editing. What's that sound...

Using Piet's Rock Ballad midi file to fool around with the sound of the C3 close mic preset, I heard something wrong, twangy, with the C above middle C at about 43.8 seconds. Reduced the unison width. No help. Raised the Direct duration. No. Reduced the Q factor, raised the Cut-off. No dice. Reduced and raised several partials in the Spectrum profile NE pane...

After another ten minutes of this, I found what I was hearing: the C above middle C is the first note raised in pitch by the default octave stretching. The range of the piece makes this one of the few detuned notes and puts it on top, so it stood out. Stretched out the Detune NE pane to give me more control over the range of detuning, detuned the note by three cents to bring it back down to about 523 hz and I was able to get the sound I wanted and even detune the unisons a little more. Could have just reduced the Octave stretch, of course, but I liked it for notes above this one. Slowly learning...

Makes me wonder, though--Are there varying, more-or-less agreed upon octave stretches for different genres? I could see how pop\rock chord players might want less stretch in that second octave after middle C, for example, since those notes will be on top of chords a lot.

Last edited by Jake Johnson (16-12-2009 19:55)

Reply by NeilCraig

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  • NeilCraig
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Re: Adventures in mis-editing. What's that sound...

Doesn't sound like mis-editing, Jake; more like you're a pathfinder for everyone else attempting to do this.

I was experimenting last night with the YC5 and remembered your comments about sound speed and lid position.  I had already lowered the lid about 80% but when I changed the SS to 200m/s I got the closest yet to the plummy, resonant sound I hear in some of the commercial sample sets. Now I'm trying to work out why this is.

Best,
Neil

Reply by Jake Johnson

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  • Jake Johnson
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Re: Adventures in mis-editing. What's that sound...

A pathfinder? I'm more of a path-stumbler...And still stumbling around viz a viz the lid, Sound speed, and mic positions. Seems as though the possibilities are almost endless just using those three elements.

My impression is that the lid acts as a reflector of the sound, a filter, and to some degree a sound producer, since it vibrates. The degree to which we hear each contribution depends on its position and the placement of the mics. If the lid is between the mics and the soundboard, the SS, if slow, slows the evolution of the notes, so we MAY hear more of the metallic, just post-attack sound, before the filtering takes place OR the sound as it is filtered early on by the lid, while increasing the SS can make the filtered, plummy sound appear earlier, or can let us hear the sound after the impedance of the lid has been overcome? It depends on the mic location and the degree to which the lid is raised. So there's no simple way to know if a slow SS will cause a more metallic or a more a plummy sound.  But generally speaking, I think: The more the lid is raised, even if it is between the soundboard and the mics, the more a slow SS captures the early metallic sounds, and the more the lid is closed, the more a slow SS captures the sound before it overcomes the impedance of the lid. (I don't think it acts like just an old-fashioned low pass filter, however--the change in sound is more complex than that.)

And if the mics are placed so that one of them captures both the filtered sound and the sound coming from the opening, we hear both the metallic sound and the filtered sound mixed--but it may be the early, metallic sound or the early, filtered sound, again depending on the mic and lid positions...I have to move a mic and listen, move the lid and listen.

And there's the soundboard Impedance to play around with too: If we lower the lid to 80-90% shut, we can move the soundboard Impedance all the way to the left, and still have an adequate, but lowered sustain while getting a somewhat "stringy," naturally, sound. Worth listening too, although the sound may surprise you. A close-up sound that changes a lot, again, with the SS. And then, of course, the Cutoff and Q-rate come into play too. (Yes...)  EDIT: I just posted this mp3 and fxp experimenting with a low lid and almost no soundboard impedance: http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/viewtopic.php?id=973 A very different sound?

But how does the lid stay up without a stick?

Last edited by Jake Johnson (17-12-2009 17:26)