Topic: Emotional Piano Vol 1

Well this doesn't use Pianoteq but posting here for continuity with this series. I wanted to use Pianoteq here, but the pianos don't offer as wide a range of soft emotional piano presets as I wanted.

Basically this album creates each song with 6 piano parts selected from a set of 16. 8 for the baseline and 8 for the melody. The hope was to make the collection more diverse, hopefully without sounding too scattered.  If this approach holds merit I would like to circle back to try to get Pianoteq to do it as I find the core piano sounds are better (to my ears) in Pianoteq but it's lacking the granular effects and fractals/particles for atmospheres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL43LNC...mp;index=1

Enjoy,
Ken

Re: Emotional Piano Vol 1

kencarlino wrote:

Well this doesn't use Pianoteq but posting here for continuity with this series. I wanted to use Pianoteq here, but the pianos don't offer as wide a range of soft emotional piano presets as I wanted.

Basically this album creates each song with 6 piano parts selected from a set of 16. 8 for the baseline and 8 for the melody. The hope was to make the collection more diverse, hopefully without sounding too scattered.  If this approach holds merit I would like to circle back to try to get Pianoteq to do it as I find the core piano sounds are better (to my ears) in Pianoteq but it's lacking the granular effects and fractals/particles for atmospheres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL43LNC...mp;index=1

Enjoy,
Ken

Hey there Ken

This was very enjoyable to listen to. Nice and calming and restful. I liked the "watery" character of the piano(s) that you used. I wondered if you'd modified your algorithms since your last posts? The style of this one is different from the previous two - seems a lot more melodic than before(?). Your music is evolving

Keep well..

Re: Emotional Piano Vol 1

kencarlino wrote:

Well this doesn't use Pianoteq but posting here for continuity with this series. I wanted to use Pianoteq here, but the pianos don't offer as wide a range of soft emotional piano presets as I wanted.

Basically this album creates each song with 6 piano parts selected from a set of 16. 8 for the baseline and 8 for the melody. The hope was to make the collection more diverse, hopefully without sounding too scattered.  If this approach holds merit I would like to circle back to try to get Pianoteq to do it as I find the core piano sounds are better (to my ears) in Pianoteq but it's lacking the granular effects and fractals/particles for atmospheres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL43LNC...mp;index=1

Enjoy,
Ken

Hi ken,

As 1MD says, yes, this is different from all others. (what is core piano)?   ".....but the pianos don't offer as wide a range of soft emotional piano presets as I wanted"
Soft piano, I suggest you could try some of these, there is much one can do:

change hammer hardness (voicing), change unison width tuning, use mint condition, try steinway d felt (or another felt piano) change the hardness (check equalization), try layering/morphing. In my opinion one can make a soft piano (but it can take some hours....)     it is in any case worth trying  .

I say, you change and develop gradually, hopefully into something different and more advanced. It can gradually become  more clear and detailed and advanced. At best, how should I say….It can lead to the development of new and advantageous traits, making it a beneficial process overall in your music making.
Sorry if it got a little complicated but Swedish is my mother tongue, language, learned from birth.

Best wishes,

Stig

Re: Emotional Piano Vol 1

1MuddyDog wrote:
kencarlino wrote:

Well this doesn't use Pianoteq but posting here for continuity with this series. I wanted to use Pianoteq here, but the pianos don't offer as wide a range of soft emotional piano presets as I wanted.

Basically this album creates each song with 6 piano parts selected from a set of 16. 8 for the baseline and 8 for the melody. The hope was to make the collection more diverse, hopefully without sounding too scattered.  If this approach holds merit I would like to circle back to try to get Pianoteq to do it as I find the core piano sounds are better (to my ears) in Pianoteq but it's lacking the granular effects and fractals/particles for atmospheres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL43LNC...mp;index=1

Enjoy,
Ken

Hey there Ken

This was very enjoyable to listen to. Nice and calming and restful. I liked the "watery" character of the piano(s) that you used. I wondered if you'd modified your algorithms since your last posts? The style of this one is different from the previous two - seems a lot more melodic than before(?). Your music is evolving

Keep well..

Hey 1MD, thanks for the feedback! There were some smaller tweaks in the configurations, perhaps having the bigger impact is the different piano presets overlapping with each other where some of them are rather soft and delicate. I will map this approach with perhaps some custom Pianoteq presets to capture some that feeling.

Ken

Re: Emotional Piano Vol 1

Pianoteqenthusiast wrote:
kencarlino wrote:

Well this doesn't use Pianoteq but posting here for continuity with this series. I wanted to use Pianoteq here, but the pianos don't offer as wide a range of soft emotional piano presets as I wanted.

Basically this album creates each song with 6 piano parts selected from a set of 16. 8 for the baseline and 8 for the melody. The hope was to make the collection more diverse, hopefully without sounding too scattered.  If this approach holds merit I would like to circle back to try to get Pianoteq to do it as I find the core piano sounds are better (to my ears) in Pianoteq but it's lacking the granular effects and fractals/particles for atmospheres.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL43LNC...mp;index=1

Enjoy,
Ken

Hi ken,

As 1MD says, yes, this is different from all others. (what is core piano)?   ".....but the pianos don't offer as wide a range of soft emotional piano presets as I wanted"
Soft piano, I suggest you could try some of these, there is much one can do:

change hammer hardness (voicing), change unison width tuning, use mint condition, try steinway d felt (or another felt piano) change the hardness (check equalization), try layering/morphing. In my opinion one can make a soft piano (but it can take some hours....)     it is in any case worth trying  .

I say, you change and develop gradually, hopefully into something different and more advanced. It can gradually become  more clear and detailed and advanced. At best, how should I say….It can lead to the development of new and advantageous traits, making it a beneficial process overall in your music making.
Sorry if it got a little complicated but Swedish is my mother tongue, language, learned from birth.

Best wishes,

Stig

Thank you for the thoughtful comments and suggestions Stig!!  When I mentioned "core piano" I was just referring to Pianoteq acoustic pianos in general. You are totally right that I can adjust configurations and layer different Pianoteq instruments together to really extend the "core pianos". I have done some of this layering previously combining the non-acoustic pianos together with electric pianos to extend the range of sounds. Very true I do try to improve the approach, but sometimes it just feels more different than better.  Thanks also for some of the specific setting to tweak to get the range I am looking for.

Ken

Re: Emotional Piano Vol 1

there are definitely some very lovely moments in there.  all in all it reminds me of the ambient work by Brian Eno, although a lot of times there's even more space in his stuff.  it would be a great service for the community if you make lots of presets to capture these sounds for pianoteq

Re: Emotional Piano Vol 1

budo wrote:

there are definitely some very lovely moments in there.  all in all it reminds me of the ambient work by Brian Eno, although a lot of times there's even more space in his stuff.  it would be a great service for the community if you make lots of presets to capture these sounds for pianoteq

Thanks for your comments Budo!  I have been tinkering with some Pianoteq preset but I find I am leaning on some external reverbs for more ethereal sounds and movement so not sure if overall they'd be useful enough but we'll see.

Re: Emotional Piano Vol 1

kencarlino wrote:
budo wrote:

there are definitely some very lovely moments in there.  all in all it reminds me of the ambient work by Brian Eno, although a lot of times there's even more space in his stuff.  it would be a great service for the community if you make lots of presets to capture these sounds for pianoteq

Thanks for your comments Budo!  I have been tinkering with some Pianoteq preset but I find I am leaning on some external reverbs for more ethereal sounds and movement so not sure if overall they'd be useful enough but we'll see.

if you can do the reverb within pianoteq but using impulse files that everyone has access to, it might be a workaround.  for example there are these

https://samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impu...nse-files/

maybe something suitable is there.  even if you made your own impulse files using some other thing they could be uploaded to the site here alongside your fxp.

as you can see i would be really into it

Re: Emotional Piano Vol 1

budo wrote:
kencarlino wrote:
budo wrote:

there are definitely some very lovely moments in there.  all in all it reminds me of the ambient work by Brian Eno, although a lot of times there's even more space in his stuff.  it would be a great service for the community if you make lots of presets to capture these sounds for pianoteq

Thanks for your comments Budo!  I have been tinkering with some Pianoteq preset but I find I am leaning on some external reverbs for more ethereal sounds and movement so not sure if overall they'd be useful enough but we'll see.

if you can do the reverb within pianoteq but using impulse files that everyone has access to, it might be a workaround.  for example there are these

https://samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impu...nse-files/

maybe something suitable is there.  even if you made your own impulse files using some other thing they could be uploaded to the site here alongside your fxp.

as you can see i would be really into it

Haha yes I can see that interests you.   I have read that I can import the impulse files but never tied that yet. I was playing around with some settings and effects in Pianoteq and I can get a pretty wide range, especially if I morph different instruments together. I have an experimental configuration with 6 different tracks in my DAW and it's pretty interesting, even if it might be a bit extreme. If I can get enough good sounding songs I will post something. Oh first I have to buy the U4 instrument, I realized I was am using a demo of that in these configs as it had some qualities I like for this style.