More evidence supporting a Baldwin

I think I missed this post. Anyway, IMHO, that sound is mostly due to the close mic'ing and the mic positioning - not the piano itself.  I like it a lot too, but it sounds a bit too percussive - maybe a bit of compression would help.
If Pianoteq did model this Baldwin, I don't think that would automatically mean that it would be able to achieve this very high degree of clarity/transparency. If it were capable of that, we'd already have very similar sounds from all the existing models, IMHO.

Greg

I had forgotten this recording. Thanks so much for bringing it back into play. I sitll love the sound, to which the close mic'ing and the mics, and the room, doubtless contribute. I find it hard to describe. Slightly brittle? Raw? Listening to this, regardless, I feel in the presense of a wooden and metal machine creating sounds. Hard to feel that even with sample libraries, often.

I don't want compression on it--I like its dynamic range and the percussive sounds. And that melodic tenor and middle C area that Baldwins are loved for having. But we can disagree about preferences all day.

What else contributes to the sound? The unisons, perhaps? Are they a little off in nice ways?
The interior of the piano, with the vibrations bouncing off of its various hollows and curves and materials, so difficult to model?

In any event, after hearing and seeing this again, I want to track down the producer and\or engineer to see if I can at least find out what mics were used and other details. But the show this was taken from, PIano Jazz, no longer exists, so I may not have much success.

I was about to log off earlier but listed to the video - really enjoyed it.

Good luck with those mic clues Jake - and thanks for the vid.

To me, that audio is lovely contemporary piano production harking to earlier piano recordings as much as modern ideals.

When I think "album sound" I'm often thinking of this kind of piano recording. It's characterful in that way - feeling like strings and harmonics are stretching against each other a little swimmingly - just enough but not too old hat tin pan alley style - certainly love it.

Sounds like a certain amount of compression is fundamental to this (bringing up sympathetic resonances with it to a 'floor'). I think it would die of boom and thunking with this close sound, without quite a bit of compression - but tastefully worked, not some kind of brutal thing that harms the headroom - even a couple in series - with a good gloss mastering compression on the end.

There's definitely a melting, shiny richness on it - and overall it does remind me of later Brill building artists practicing the standards - nice video and song - thanks.

In earphones, stereo signal feels real wide but without too much key placement (attack sounds kind of centered - some trebles go far right though esp. in solo section, with its own "room" zone effect inferring a mic specially worked for that couple octaves?? (to my ears anyway), but assuming width is inferred mostly by a wide reverb). Narrowing the piano and widening reverb (in studio console etc. or DAW) can help make a piano feel like it's in front of us. Widening 'the piano' itself, counter-intuitively can result in less realistic stereo - depending on mics - but here, it's certainly a great balance on first few listens.

Bass is 'there' but not booming - helps with wideness in piano I feel. Too much bass on "recorded" piano tracks can make the thing wrong - but it can be better for realism when playing in the room.

First listen, yeah - I do like that piano - and all the very noisy things about it too.

The room sounds lovely - you can almost breath the air and see the dust falling around the piano. It's not loud - but I sense its inferred in the tones.

If this is done well in Pianoteq, I'm glad to say I'd love it. It's certainly "a type" of sound I like to go for - but this does seem very usable for contemporary music.

Probably prefer "historical" "Tin Pan Alley" - vs. "New Baldwyn" - but I guess a new Baldwyn could be aged well in Pianoteq too.

I'm not saying I have the key to this in terms of frequencies in the spectrum editor in mind (that's a project) - but I feel a lot of this sound could be made in Pianoteq - it would be a nice project.

I haven't yet tried forum user tmyoung's Baldwyn FXP (saw dazric mentioned it in aother thread) - but I'm hoping to have some time for it tonight/tomorrow.

Is just me or someone else feel some notes in that piano are out tune?

Fos one side I like the Baldwin drop sound efect, like if some notes had a touch sound of drops of water falling on ground (something in the note deay???). In some of the trebble, just some, it feels good, give some different metalic sometimes more organic. But in other notes (maybe due out tune) it sometimes sounds a bite like a metal from a can, soup can.
Or maybe it's just a Baldwing from the not so good days of the company, when quality dropped, and some notes just are quite worse than others.

And some singing lessons could help her too...

Love your Baldwin SF-10 1975 fxp!

Yes please!!! Inundate us!!! :-)

wow, awesome post. I really enjoyed reading it.
and I also super enjoyed the video after reading this post.
I agree with what you said.
and compliment your articulateness.

Whew! Am just glad this post has nothing to do with Stephen Baldwin.

I don't know if it's still in time for your needs, but here's the Mason & Hamelin CC2.  The CFX and Shigeru and Mason & Hamelin CC94 will take a little more time.  Sorry for the delay, work is unusually busy at the moment.

https://forum.modartt.com/file/cklnmzy

We can always hope; however, Baldwin is now owned by Gibson Guitar Company.  The "marque" is still used on a small selection of uprights (and grands too supposedly but they only go up to 211cm) made in China.  I don't know how much they really resemble the original quality or not; they claim they're exactly the same designs but I'm don't know that they'll feel like their older cousins.  (My experience with Made in China pianos has been poor, but I don't know how much of that is the regulation on the sales floor to encourage interest in hand-made European pianos for four times the price--much like televisions come with overly blue color temperature to feel brighter in the showroom--less action voicing is poured into the less expensive pianos, or if they're as genuinely worse as I've found them to be when I've tried them.) Gibson closed the only factory that made their Baldwin grands in 2008 in Arkansas.  A skeleton crew remained to continue filling artist orders and custom piano commissions, but it was permanently closed and liquidated in 2018.

While I don't know how exactly Pianoteq's brand licensing works, I doubt that Gibson has any interest in giving license to something that almost doesn't exist anymore.  Steinway and other brands are more interested in digital technology as a gateway to acoustic sales: if a student is using Pianoteq's Steinway D in school, they're more likely to buy an A, B or D later because they're comfortable with the sound and brand because of the third-party digital product.  So it's a win-win for both.  (Pianoteq--having made the technical achievement that Steinway is celebrating and promoting, which increases sales--and Steinway gets future customers without having to make a new product or advertising campaign.)  Gibson doesn't have that advantage because the shared use of the marque would be more likely to promote used sales instead new sales.  This is similar to why I suspect Yamaha hasn't made any public license for their brands through Pianoteq: Yamaha has directly competing products/technologies which is why authorized Boesendorfer of CFX is less likely instead of more likely, which is really sad in my opinion but my opinion doesn't change that. (But believe me, I'm hoping for Yamaha products in the Pianoteq lineup!!!!)  Smaller factories that haven't entered the digital market, like Mason & Hamelin, may be much more interested in the exposure offered by a Pianoteq license agreement, but with the COVID financial crisis in flux globally, we could see a lot more or a lot less appetite among piano companies with hurt margins to forge new licensing agreements or simply just vanish from the market entirely.

To do something close to an authorized model or instrument pack, Pianoteq would need to buy/rent an SD-10 or SF-10 (which is quite a unicorn in Europe) or hire someone in the US (preferably with technician's skills to regulate the piano during the process so additional contracts or hires wouldn't be needed) to take lots and lots of samples and measurements to send back to engineers in France.  There is the option for the BP211 which is made new, but I don't even know where you'd get one anywhere in the world.  Then, while still having access to the piano, build a new addon instrument pack at the code level and keep refining it until the two are indistinguishable.  You wouldn't be able to authorize the use of the marque, but you'd have as good a result as an authorized version and call it "American Grand" or "Midwestern Grand" (in case it upset the Steinway agreement to call another piano brand "American").  The question that Modarrt privately needs to answer among the product owners and developers (and may already have been decided long ago) is whether or not the extensive financial outlay required will result in sufficient market interest and sales to cover the additional logistical cost of adding another American brand unofficially to the lineup of instruments.  There could even be undisclosed non-competition aspects to their prior agreement with Steinway that would prevent them from including other American marques--past or present--in their products at all or at least not without Steinway's permission.  While that idea is purely speculation, it wouldn't be unlike the terms of other licensing agreements Steinway has made about the use of its brand in the past.  Steinway has a strong history in adroit marketing, not just in making pianos.

Let's not make the endeavor of modelling a Baldwin seem too difficult. We do want Modartt to do it. (But we don't seem to be having much luck in even getting a modelled ukulele.)