Help needed!! Piano won't sit in the mix.

[AmirH]

Hi all,

K, so here's the deal- I tracked piano last week for a new song I wrote for my little classic rock project the plutonic chronic. I think the main problem is the way I recorded it- as can be seen here:

I don't have a boom for my mic stand(really i need a new mic stand anyway) so I used a u87 as close as I could get it while still squeezing into the bench. It's a pretty open room though so it ended up with quite a bit of natural verb. It sounds pretty good on its own I think and it even worked out quite well adding more verb(to the beginning) but in the rest of the song with guitars it's a different story. I can't have any extra reverb or it just gets lost. I added some upper mids and it now cuts enough that it's audible but it sounds rather harsh and saturated and also a bit hollow. I want it to be less hollow and more prominent in the mix without being harsh on the ears. I DON'T want to rerecord piano as it's definitely a pain moving the computer out to that room and getting takes without interruption but if I need to I can.

The clip is "wrong people sample" http://www.audiostreet.net/artist.aspx?artistid=17834

Really I've tried everything I can think of, help please!

 

[Frank'nfurter]

Do me a favor. Set the piano track solo and pure to your download portal. I will try somthing.

 

[Frank'nfurter]

Hey, what's happend with that download portal? Suddenly it want's me to register myself to listen to the Song. Download limitation?????

 

[Ermz]

You can stream it without registering, but you have to register to download. Checking now...

 

[Ermz]

Have you tried various forms of compression on the piano? Hard compression will be able to get more sustain out of the notes, and an attack of 50ms or so will get more attack out of the notes.

I think the biggest problem is that with the verb it sounds too distant, and if you have a lack of low-end plus big reverb, you're just getting a classic 'distance' effect. You're either gonna have to make those guitars less obtrusive or make the piano more dry.

There are various VSTs that emulate pianos very very well, so if you can be bothered, you can play the notes into Cubase (if that's still what you use) then run it through those and see how it stacks up to your recorded piano sound. There could be something fundamentally 'wrong' about the way you've tracked it.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

I don't know if you've read Modern Recording Techniques, but it gives three miking positions for upright piano, and none of them look like the above pic. He says to do:

1.miking over the top (a stereo pair of mics, right over the opened top)
2.miking the kickboard area (stereo pair again but below, remove the kickboard to expose the strings)
3. miking the upper soundboard area

HTH

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

I'd definatly follow huber's advice on this, remic and rerecord!

 

[AmirH]

Alright, so it looks like I better go get a better mic stand. Is it necessary to have a stereo pair though? I only the one condensor- the best I could do is borrow a pair of c1000's from my friend.

Maybe I'll experiment more with compression a bit and combine the real piano with a vst to make it sound less distant. Thanks for the advice so far.

 

[~BURNY~]

C1000 are the worst microphones ever imvho...

 

[AmirH]

They definitely don't sound nearly as good as the u87.

 

[~BURNY~]

No way (imho again)

 

[Protected Witness]

Hi all,

K, so here's the deal- I tracked piano last week for a new song I wrote for my little classic rock project the plutonic chronic. I think the main problem is the way I recorded it- as can be seen here:

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/4248/piano9ug.jpg

I don't have a boom for my mic stand(really i need a new mic stand anyway) so I used a u87 as close as I could get it while still squeezing into the bench. It's a pretty open room though so it ended up with quite a bit of natural verb. It sounds pretty good on its own I think and it even worked out quite well adding more verb(to the beginning) but in the rest of the song with guitars it's a different story. I can't have any extra reverb or it just gets lost. I added some upper mids and it now cuts enough that it's audible but it sounds rather harsh and saturated and also a bit hollow. I want it to be less hollow and more prominent in the mix without being harsh on the ears. I DON'T want to rerecord piano as it's definitely a pain moving the computer out to that room and getting takes without interruption but if I need to I can.

The clip is "wrong people sample" http://www.audiostreet.net/artist.aspx?artistid=17834

Really I've tried everything I can think of, help please!

Hey, I like how this sounds!

I can see where it gets kind of lost in everything else though...

You probably wanna re-record it like everyone else already said...

But it sounds pretty cool.

 

[Mendel]

my opinion is that the piano is quite good but the yembe's etc are to * direct* . perhaps trying some reverb that's close to the one from the piano ?

 

[~BURNY~]

Just listened. I think it's out of tune... Maybe it's just me.
It's sounds too "roomy" too. Why don't you go for a sampled grand piano? There's a lot of libraries aivable that will cut trough your mix in a more appropriate way.

 

[AmirH]

Good ear! Yeah it is slightly out of tune. Was tuned like 7 months ago or something but definitely needs it again soon. I'm checking out the steinberg "the grand" vst right now and some other thing called "realistic virtual piano." I'll try a bunch and if I find one I like I can just combine it with whats already recorded and hopefully fix this problem. I might post more clips later for opinions.

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Can you use autotune on a piano?

Sampletank XL's grand #3 is a nicest i've got.

 

[Ermz]

I have to say that I found Reason's sample bank to have some very good piano samples.

 

[AmirH]

Can you use autotune on a piano?

Sampletank XL's grand #3 is a nicest i've got.

Yeah you can, and I will

Grrr, the grand thingy won't dl. No seeders. I'm hesitant to install reason right now cuz the puter has been acting slow but maybe it's worth a shot if I can't find a suitable vst.

 

[Exsanguis]

I like Synthogy's Ivory, as well as the Bosendorfer 290 VST instrument(this one's a little darker sounding, though).

 

[Black neon bob]

I use the one in Edirol's orchestra... concert piano..

I will post a song done with it very soon...