Topic by Amen Ptah Ra

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Topic: Likely Must Have Plug to Record Your Next Solo Piano Spectrum

Important is a spectrum.  It is so important that Philippe Guillaume mentioned it in a noteworthy reply to Pianoteq 8.2.0 update with muffled sound?:

Philippe Guillaume wrote:

To get an idea of what sort of changes in settings are induced by this modification in the soundboard, you can compare side by side the NY Steinway D presets from 8.1 with 8.2. The most visible changes may be the Note per Note Spectrum Profile. On a similar vein, changing microphones positions usually also requires some revoicing via the Spectrum Profile.

Just as Philippe Guillaume shares some of the insights from MODARTT on the importance of your spectrum in any piano recording, now available to you is a newly released plugin by Melda Production.  That in a lot of ways might affect just such a spectrum.  It's MCenter!

I got it!

I got it since directly it can allow me to dial in easily just the spectrum I wanted to have inside my final piano recording.  That's whether I needed to widen or narrow my stereo image but preserve most or some even of the original spectrum before I had finalized it.

While Spectrum profile on PIANOTEQ does permit individual adjustments to the first eight (8) overtones of range from a piano, MCenter does to the entire range before the individual adjustments even become necessary and does so via a single knob that is to affect the whole spectrum, of course at the software level once in a DAW.

Although Stereo width also can come in handy and is sufficient upon a performance you intend to release later, MCenter appears a tool specific to the exacting detail of width when put in a DAW recording of the fine instrument.

MCenter is available at the $10.00 (US) price until March 10th from Melda Production.

Last edited by Amen Ptah Ra (08-03-2024 02:09)
Pianoteq 8 Studio Bundle, Pearl malletSTATION EM1, Roland (DRUM SOUND MODULE TD-30, HandSonic 10, AX-1), Akai EWI USB, Yamaha DIGITAL PIANO P-95, M-Audio STUDIOPHILE BX5, Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 DSP.

Reply by Amen Ptah Ra

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Re: Likely Must Have Plug to Record Your Next Solo Piano Spectrum

Before I forget, while you readily can dial in whatever changes you like applied to your recorded piano spectrum, via one knob, in MCenter you additionally may draw in a curve just as easily from the pencil tool on the plugin, and apply that also to the spectrum.

Whenever you need to make quick changes to the spectrum, MCenter seems to allow them fast and thorough as well!

Pianoteq 8 Studio Bundle, Pearl malletSTATION EM1, Roland (DRUM SOUND MODULE TD-30, HandSonic 10, AX-1), Akai EWI USB, Yamaha DIGITAL PIANO P-95, M-Audio STUDIOPHILE BX5, Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 DSP.

Reply by MaurizioP

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Re: Likely Must Have Plug to Record Your Next Solo Piano Spectrum

Amen Ptah Ra wrote:

While Spectrum profile on PIANOTEQ does permit individual adjustments to the first eight (8) overtones of range from a piano, MCenter does to the entire range before the individual adjustments even become necessary and does so via a single knob that is to affect the whole spectrum [...]

Which specific plugin's knob do you mean?

Reply by Pianistically

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Re: Likely Must Have Plug to Record Your Next Solo Piano Spectrum

Amen Ptah Ra wrote:

Before I forget, while you readily can dial in whatever changes you like applied to your recorded piano spectrum, via one knob, in MCenter you additionally may draw in a curve just as easily from the pencil tool on the plugin, and apply that also to the spectrum.

Whenever you need to make quick changes to the spectrum, MCenter seems to allow them fast and thorough as well!

the plug-in looks nice , but I’m wrong by saying it works as a post processing effect whereby spectrum profile  works at note level with Pianoteq  pro and is a pre- processing effect and defines in the model the respective weight of each of the 8 partials ?
Therefore it seems like a complementary effect rather than a substitute ( a bit similar to the equaliser vs EQ3 differences in pianoteq)

Reply by Amen Ptah Ra

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Re: Likely Must Have Plug to Record Your Next Solo Piano Spectrum

Pianistically wrote:

the plug-in looks nice , but I’m wrong by saying it works as a post processing effect whereby spectrum profile  works at note level with Pianoteq  pro and is a pre- processing effect and defines in the model the respective weight of each of the 8 partials ?
Therefore it seems like a complementary effect rather than a substitute ( a bit similar to the equaliser vs EQ3 differences in pianoteq)

By no means am I urging anyone to skip over Spectrum profile.  It is something you especially as a listener may want to affect immediately after you alter the predetermined microphone positions to a preset as Philippe Guillaume already said.  Spectrum profile after all might determine your listener's perception of the piano as a whole, notably through any alterations made to the first eight (8) partials of the instrument, and, how it's perceived to listeners sitting or standing around a home stereo whenever your performance on it is played back to them.

I'm just acknowledging when you're seated as a listener of your previously recorded MIDI performance, you've a fast alternative option to increase or decrease the volume to the side sections of your stereo field and make it appear either wide or narrow easily via the plugin MCenter.  You may in a DAW like to use it instead of and in conjunction with PIANOTEQ Stereo width and Spectrum profile whereas the plugin features a single knob (MIDSIDE/SPECTRAL) adjustment you can dial presumably after you make incremental changes to the ratio of the center to sides in fact in volume.

MaurizioP wrote:

Which specific plugin's knob do you mean?

I've hopefully just answered your question, MaurizioP, about the knob (MIDSIDE/SPECTRAL) largest centermost on the MCenter interface.  (Smile!)

Pianoteq 8 Studio Bundle, Pearl malletSTATION EM1, Roland (DRUM SOUND MODULE TD-30, HandSonic 10, AX-1), Akai EWI USB, Yamaha DIGITAL PIANO P-95, M-Audio STUDIOPHILE BX5, Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 DSP.

Reply by Amen Ptah Ra

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Re: Likely Must Have Plug to Record Your Next Solo Piano Spectrum

Just today another new plug-in was released to mixers wanting more control over spectrums!

(Which is about time since I dreaded to even bother at Spectrum profile on factory PIANOTEQ presets, not to mention any of my own I uploaded to FXP Corner  —with the community here.  When work was done on Spectrum profile, it was likely the last parameter I tried to change.)

(I got lately heavily into spectrums, though sometime after awhile I only felt confident enough to touch any of the parameters  —or rightly dramatically change them.  It just seemed such a large challenge to me that I possibly had to come by one immense foreboding learning curve even a prolonged period of trial and error anytime at PIANOTEQ.)

(Although, I’ve been using a licensed copy as far back as PIANOTEQ ver. 2.1 still on a disk in its original box stored on a shelf just next to my kitchen.) 

Man, I’m telling you!

Now I’m looking at recipes, listening to spectrums, and playing with a blooming piano:


oeksound bloom: Overview

Pianoteq 8 Studio Bundle, Pearl malletSTATION EM1, Roland (DRUM SOUND MODULE TD-30, HandSonic 10, AX-1), Akai EWI USB, Yamaha DIGITAL PIANO P-95, M-Audio STUDIOPHILE BX5, Focusrite Saffire PRO 24 DSP.