Topic: Early reflections
Here you see that early reflections play a big part in creating an immersive three dimensional sound,
How would I recreate this within Pianoteq???
Warmest regards,
Chris
- sigasa
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- Qexl
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Re: Early reflections
Heya Chris, and anyone wondering,
internal reverbs in Pianoteq have a control called "Early reflections".
It's a slider, working from 'tail' <--> 'early reflections'
When all the way to the right is maximizing early reflections (relatively immediate transient returns), all the way to left is maximizing reverb tails (the late fading off into distance). Middle is a balance of course..
I often like to turn down early reflections a little but bring up the tails with some gentle compression (one lush trick - about it more below).
Right next to early reflection slider on the left is "Pre delay" (which sets an amount of time before reverb kicks in).
Altering both of these to taste is one way to attain something similar to the examples in the video.
Try pre-delay around 0.066 and early reflections at around +4.5
You can hear the early delays - maybe too much, so drop them until they seem more natural to your ears. Also, maybe try pre-delay lower too.
Coupling those with other reverb settings room size, duration, tone and finally mix, you can get many similar sounds to the vid.
Try the different reverb types, from hall to cathedral - see which you like - and editing sliders in each can give plenty of range (plus you could load an IR impulse response file from a library paid or free for excellent results too).
Lastly - the piano in the vid is fairly produced - so by all means, change or load an effect "Compressor" - then choose for example, compressor preset "Squashed". It's a very overpowered setting.. but like so many tools in Pianoteq, the simple magic of turning down the slider "Mix" in the compressor to something like 40% will give a quick example of a compressor 'feel' I got from the vid audio.. other presets like "Clavi strong" might be excellent for that sound as it is without much altering. Gives a creamy feel.
The balancing of how much reverb, plus how much compression is one of the essential building blocks for altering things towards either clear or lavish sounds.
Really hope those ideas help you get more out of the reverb/compression in Pianoteq
Pianoteq Studio Bundle (Pro plus all instruments) - Kawai MP11 digital piano - Yamaha HS8 monitors
- sigasa
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Re: Early reflections
Qexl wrote:
Heya Chris, and anyone wondering,
internal reverbs in Pianoteq have a control called "Early reflections".
It's a slider, working from 'tail' <--> 'early reflections'
When all the way to the right is maximizing early reflections (relatively immediate transient returns), all the way to left is maximizing reverb tails (the late fading off into distance). Middle is a balance of course..
I often like to turn down early reflections a little but bring up the tails with some gentle compression (one lush trick - about it more below).
Right next to early reflection slider on the left is "Pre delay" (which sets an amount of time before reverb kicks in).
Altering both of these to taste is one way to attain something similar to the examples in the video.
Try pre-delay around 0.066 and early reflections at around +4.5
You can hear the early delays - maybe too much, so drop them until they seem more natural to your ears. Also, maybe try pre-delay lower too.
Coupling those with other reverb settings room size, duration, tone and finally mix, you can get many similar sounds to the vid.
Try the different reverb types, from hall to cathedral - see which you like - and editing sliders in each can give plenty of range (plus you could load an IR impulse response file from a library paid or free for excellent results too).
Lastly - the piano in the vid is fairly produced - so by all means, change or load an effect "Compressor" - then choose for example, compressor preset "Squashed". It's a very overpowered setting.. but like so many tools in Pianoteq, the simple magic of turning down the slider "Mix" in the compressor to something like 40% will give a quick example of a compressor 'feel' I got from the vid audio.. other presets like "Clavi strong" might be excellent for that sound as it is without much altering. Gives a creamy feel.
The balancing of how much reverb, plus how much compression is one of the essential building blocks for altering things towards either clear or lavish sounds.
Really hope those ideas help you get more out of the reverb/compression in Pianoteq
Thank you Qexl, very helpful,
Warmest regards,
Chris
- dazric
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Re: Early reflections
I hadn't really explored Tail/ER until reading this thread - it's opened up a whole new world of possibilities for me. Sometimes I like more Tail and sometimes more ER, depending on the preset. Thanks, sigasa and Qexl!
- Qexl
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Re: Early reflections
Always still amazes me how some small changes can suit a certain piece.
Often if I'm improvising, and hear a phrase I like, I might stop, load the auto-saved MIDI file, cut to that phrase and give it a name and save it. Sounds good at the time might want to work it into a piece, or write something inspired by it later.
Later times, I review some of these as intended (many lost due to numbers of these) and often hear it back using a very different piano (I may have been improvising on an historic piano but listening back on a modern grand or vice versa).
That can often reveal whether I like the actual pure music, or I liked something about the piano I recorded it on which made it "feel" more interesting to me.. it's likely I easily realize "Oh, sounds like I played that with a baroque piano in mind" of course - but sometimes it's unclear beyond obv. cues. Not that it matters, it's just one of the simple pleasures of Pianoteq.
Often though if just listening on 'a different piano' and no way to recognize what piano I was playing - it's just a simple trick to change reverb type (bigger or smaller halls etc.) - adding some compression (hearing how it might change the feel from realistic towards 'album' variant).. and of course other things in the effects, even 1 or 2% Amp can allow a slight harmonic warmth (like some recording studio desks' amps - tone controls for Amp can be illuminating).
So many subtle and charming things inside Pianoteq. It's been getting so I honestly no longer feel that I can improve upon its output with my old effects chain in my DAW (I can get vastly different things out of that for modern music - but particularly in terms of clear, clean solo piano suited to classical music, I prefer not to put too much 'onto it' in onboard FX).
Sometimes, to get misty organic sounding reverbs, loading a Cathedral type, but with the "Duration" slider down at something more like 1.23 seconds (instead of default 3.5secs) can work well with still sounding ethereal, but not so long to fade.. allowing some nice richness, esp. with a little compression boost - it can have a modern feel.
Also, adding a longer repeating but quickly fading echo can add basic 'modern' feel to modern washy but subtle room reverbs. I find I can make almost anything I want to hear from reverbs with some studio tricks being exceptions (like choosing side-chaining and various tricky widening techniques mostly requiring DAW or desk).
Pianoteq Studio Bundle (Pro plus all instruments) - Kawai MP11 digital piano - Yamaha HS8 monitors