Mastering Piano tracks here. need comments

ZPphreak

New member
Hi guys. It's ZPphreak here.. I've finally brought to the forum what I think might just be admissible as a "Final" track... My first!!! WOO!HOO!

I'm not much of a musician and much less a writer so I am primarilly an engineer. ( Or at least I pretend to be one on the internet :D) I submit for your scrutiny a single track from a CD I am producing/mastering for an ACTUAL PAYING CLIENT! OMG! This is a 14 year old Kid from Korea playing piano believe it or not! I am really looking for mastering tips here as I already have the stereo mix complete (or at least I think I do)...

I have only added a hiss reduction and slight EQ to the dry mix so I hope that I didn't color it too much. I accentuated the 60Hz region and the 130Hz as well. They just felt a little lacking in my 7506's... but they're a little shy of the low-end anyway so i may have fuqued it up... LOL

Again, I'm looking for mastering comments mostly.. but any comments/Questions are always VERY welcome.. I'm still new at this recording thing so .. um..uh...gee... golly.. go easy.....
AHH, the HELL with it...
TEAR ME A NEW ONE BOYS!!!


192kbps 3.8MB

(I have no idea what the title of the actual song is BTW)
 
Hi there,

Nice performance, my keyboard fingers are jealous :(

WRT the mix, I think that you may have sacrificed some of your top end brightness when you used the de-hissed. The high piano sound I am getting is rather dark - like it was maybe recorded with a lot of air between it and the mics.

Also, have you used an EQ to roll off the top end? I am not seeing anything over 4-5k - if so, you might want to wind it back some.

A little boost of 3db @ 1.5k seems to help things "brighten" up a bit on the track.

I would reconsider your 60Hz increase - I don't think it needs it. And the increase @ 130Hz may be adding to the muddy tone on the piano.

You might also want to run it through a compressor with a small ratio of 1.5:1 to tame the dynamics a little and allow you to deliver a fuller, louder sounding track to CD.

Nice job!

Q.
 
Q- thanks for the quick response!

I agree fully.. The high roll off is only at 15K and the noise reduction was in soundforge and I tamed it down a bit so as not to kill it totally.. I'll see what I can do.. it was only hiss.. maybe the 15K roll off would be enough... We'll see...

I'll do those things and repost tomorrow with another link.
I hope you can have a look at that also.

-I wish they were my chops.. LOL

Phreak- Out
 
:) Hey don't take me as gospel - I am just a mug trying to do what you can like the rest of us....

Have a play and see what the rest of the world thinks

:) Q.
 
I think I mostly agree with Qs comments. It's a little too dark. Also, for solo piano, I think it sounds a little too far away. It has a very "live concert" feel, but I'm not sure that's what you want for a studio recording.

His dynamics are fine though - I don't see any need for compression here.

Chris
 
in reference to other solo piano clasical recordings, i think this one stacks up reasonably well. it's a little dark, but it fits for this particular song.

the only thing is that there isn't much room involved. it sounds as if the piano was mic'd from a distance, yet the ambiance of the room never really comes into play.

the only thing i might consider would be to add a slight, and i do mean very slight, amount of multiband to try to get a little room sound out of the recording. i'm talking maybe 2db of compresison here... and that might be too much.

instead of that, perhaps use a quality reverb and add just the faintest touch of area into it... just enough that you can't detect it's there, but you *feel* when you take it away.
 
Would you please tell us exactly ... what kind of piano it was ?

A boosendorfer grand, and a kawai grand, and a yamaha baby grand have very, very, very different top ends, and even more characteristic mid-ranges.

And then .... there's a steinway ... and they are dark on the top ... rich ... comparitively.

The more wood, the thicker the wood, the older the wood ... the richer the overtones are driven from the mid-range strings ... by the upper string fundamentals, and that will make the high end sound rich, and dark ... comparitively.

A newer Kawai, less wood, younger wood, shiny laminates and brittle shellacs ... much, much brighter high end.

In an orchestra hall live performance for this genre, the mic is usually quite far away, usually an overhead and a good 15 to 20 feet overhead, an incredibly sensitive, incredibly omni, incredibly expensive microphone. $3,000 to $12,000 for the mic.

The two mics that hang over the stage at Carnegie hall are said to be irreplaceable ... $50,000 ? apiece ? They are fawking HUGE, and they are a balanced pair. They are ancient.

A LOT of room comes into play in these recordings. But ... it's the best room ... in the world. Pushing a verb unit, hard or soft to try to get there, will hurt everything.

Titrate your verb with a very subtle application of pure delay, use NO pre-delay. Use the pure delay to extend any verb you put on it.

Put a tiny, tiny amount of two different kinds of verb on it. Close your eyes, smell the concert hall, use your imagination. BE IN THE HALL.

Visit a concert hall, or at least go to a cathedral or church ... claps your hands, sing a series of pitches, softly ... etc ...

If you can't mix up a room for this gifted young boy, then mix for his playing, not the music ... mix for HIS expressions. Find the room in his playing. He is playing in a room in his mind ... the room he aspires to concertize in one day.

And I know this all sounds sappy ... but it's probably true.

The nearest audience member is again, 20 feet away. Do you want to capture approximately what the nearest audience member would be hearing ... or what the performer would be hearing ? Those are two very, very different sounds, when you are nitpicking in the MP3 Clinic especially. :)

I remember hearing Van Cliburn live, when I was 9 years old, when he was 28 ... in fawking credible. He was on an old, old steinway, and I remember how full and rich the high end was, and how he made it YOWL. I was about 50 feet away. He shook the chair I was in. I thought he would break this HUGE piano. He has tremendous hands, like lurch on the Adams family, only bigger. His hands FLOP as he crashes them about on the piano.

And I'm reflecting now on the kawai grand at a school I went to ... it had an irratating high end, the chicks loved it.

So the 'live concert sound' is much more where you are at this point. But ... like volt says, you ain't got the room. But you can find some of it. Just don't go for to much.

But please, give us specs on the piano and mic placement.

This crowd doesn't get a chance to examine a REAL nice piano with a player of this caliber from the 'classical' field.

IMHO, I wouldn't mess with the hiss. Some of the greatest recordings of all time have so much hiss, you can't hear yourself yell at the guy next to you to be quiet ... because the hiss is so loud :D . But those recordings are revered.

Don't worry about the hiss. If you mess with it at all, take out the tiniest amount you possibly can. Just so you know you took out a tiny bit.

Give us a good rundown on the main axe daddyo !
 
I agree with most here

The high is rolled off a bit and lose the boost at 130. Overall it is a good recording. If you are going for that live room sound, you need more room. If you are going for an isolated piano, it is about there--both are proper depending on the desired results.

What was the piano??
 
Groucho- thanks alot.. I'm kindof shying away from the Compression idea myself. I liked it when it was raw anywhoo. I'm not much for FX to be honest.. It was just my 7506's telling me thatn I needed more low end.

Volthause- I appreciate the listen. I assure yoiu that the room is actually quite large.. with a 3 second rt60 if I remember correctly. There is plenty of natural reverb for me to work with.. I might just have to remix. I will go into the piano type/micing below.

Studioviols- thank you SO much for your complete review. You've made me a better engineer in about 5 minutes. LOL.. It's the concepts that get me where I need to be.. I just have to grasp them.. you helped me do that.. ok.. What instrument do you play BTW?

The Piano was a Sewinway & Sons I believe it was about 9' long. It was fairly old and squeaked a good bit. I think it was 1940's ish.. but I'm no piano expert. The damper pedal made hellacious noise (thumping) It's more apparent in some other tracks.

Micing:
I miced with a pair of AT 4041's in XY 12 inches off the strings about 2 feet back from the hammers. The lid was up. I also put a Senheiser MD421 on the low end section strings at teh far end of the piano. I then Placed a Crown PZM on a plexiglass Directors' music stand in the 5th row of the Recital Hall. Then Piano was center stage about 30' from the PZM mic.
I tracked the AT 4041's through a Behringer Ultra gain and the other 2 mics went through my Behringer Eurorack MX 802a Mixer and then into a Roland VS-880 at the highest quality recording setting.

I mixed the song on the roland and sent the stereo mix through SPDIF to SONAR and encoded to 44.1K 16Bit stereo wav format.

The file you have all heard (Demo.mp3) is not the original. It is slightly altered in EQ like I have already mentioned. I will upload an original in a few minutes. It will also be encoded at 190kbps unless someone has heard MP3 artifacts.. I can also do a VBR if requested.

I hope this answers a few of your questions and I hope most of all that it gives you more questions. I am trying to make this sound as good as possibel and I believe that it is the best work I have done so far.

thank you all once again.
 
ZPphreak :

I perform and record with violin, viola and cello primarily. I also perform and record with keyboards, guitars, mandolins ... I'm mainly a string oriented musician. I like to sing also.

Unbelievably for me, I recently recorded a melodic alternative punk song based on a true story, it's on the board right now for review.

As it is an older steinway you are dealing with, the darkness of the upper keys can definitely be modified to be described as a 'richness'.

These steinway in their heyday appeared in many, many medium sized and private recital halls, many of which were adorned in fine hardwood floors and hardwood panneling, very verby and bright rooms.

The pianos selected for rooms like that are best described as the 'steinway class'.

Stone rooms based on marble floors, extremely reflective and brittle reverb, is very unpleasant with a Kawai Class piano.

The Kawai piano is for a tapestry or drywall oriented room with carpet.

The pictures RULE ! You da man on that score, thanks for those pictures !
 
Here's the Dry Mix:

Thanks alot man! I look forward to hearing what you may think about this cut.

The room had alot of hardwood and panels also so that makes perfect sense. You're right on with that! You're right on teh money with what you've said about piano tones as well. I can second everything you've said so far. It's good to see someone with an ear for natural instrument tone!

Here's the original with no FX. I only tailed the song with a fade and faded the silence in at the beginning of the file to kill some dead air type hiss. I repeat, No FX here.. only my quick and dirty mixing :D enjoy and I await eagerly!



Cheers!
 
More pictures:

Ok, since you enjoyed those pictures I'll add two more:

These are pictures of the Hall itself. Hopefully this will help to give you guys an idea of what I had to start with as far as room acoustics. Remember the RT60 is around 3 seconds If I remember correctly.. maybe closer to 2 now that I think back.. but the point is.. IT's REALLY FREAKIN REVERBEROUS!

The Stage View

The Hall

Hope that's helps to paint the picture for your guys
 
Converting to 192kbps was a good decision. As I have learned from 'The Ghost of FM' on this bbs, the loss of highs in conversions at 160kbps and especially 128kbps and lower can be described as an L-Curve.

The MP3 compression algorithm removes highs much more quickly than mids or lows in the conversion process as you proceed to lower bit rates.

To examine this high end well, we certainly will need the 192kbps bit rate.

As to the squeaky piano pedal, next time, bring a few of those birthday cake candles and a wet napkin in a sandwich bag. Use unscented candles.

Light the candle briefly and let it drip on the joints of the pedal as they are worked up and down.

Usually the squeak is internal, but sometimes, it can be the exposed joints. Sometimes you can get a bit of wax where you need it.

In a steinway and many other grands, especially the older ones, you can have oxidations in the brass joints that cause these squeaks.

But as I say, usually it is the joints on the ends of the damper bars, where wood meets metal, or wood meets wood and the little cloth washers have worn out. A technician has to address these problems.

Making the deacon of the church aware of this with a gift CD of the performance will usually inspire him to get this fixed, and get you a return engagement as the engineer.
 
I'll surely remember that Piano anti-pedal-squeak technique.. I plan to be doing this a while.. I'll probably get to use it someday...

The Hall was actually at my University- Georgia State University.. I got to rent it out for one day.. that was a LONG day!

I'm listening to your collab right now.... hmmm gonna have to post about this thing.......

:D
 
Yeah, piano's a bitch ain't it?!

I just listened to both the samples and played around with them a little. I think a major problem area here is the 300hz region (which is accented by the chords he's playing that land on the "1" beat - if you look at that left hand as going: "one-two - one-two...").

When I cut a little there, as well as adding just a little sparkle to the high end it sounded a lot clearer and less muddy. I don't think you need any artificial reverb at all. There's a nice room ambience already.

I wonder if ANYONE records piano and actually gets a sound right off that bat that's perfect - no need for eq or anything?

Cheers,
Chris
 
From the photos, I can see this is a young male pianist, who is not fully into his adult growth phase. He still has the musculature of an older child.

Occassionally, he has the strength and power to draw a real brightness from the high register, in the most dynamic passages, like the first few chords.

Van Cliburn would SLAM the keys with INCREDIBLE force and 'precision' and make the upper registers of a steinway 'scream' and 'yowl', but the upper registers were still rich, and never piercing or exceptionally bright ... that's what a steinway is all about. It is a very well-balanced and rich piano, some would call it quite dark.

The steinway is the Les Paul of the Pianos ... maybe.

Compared to the upright in the choir loft, it is indeed dark. The upright is maybe a 'Dan Electro' :D , or a telecaster.

This type of piano is designed for master players with HUGE CHOPS. It is the JUMBO DREADNAUGHT of all pianos. It can be made to sound sinister, and it can laugh like beautiful woman.

What I am hearing is very natural, and very close to what a steinway should sound like when played by this older boy.

There is actually quite a bit of room available in this recording. It's got a little bit ... of 'big huge room' in it.

What his mother hears as she sits beside him, and what his teachers hear as they coach him, is what you have captured ... they should be very pleased with the recording. We hear that because of the close micing technique. With the close micing techniques you get much more 'string' sound, and you can hear a bit of this when he attacks on the lower registers. His teachers will hear this too, and that's good that they will, because they will be able to seek a modification in his technique. The boy will hear this to and gain some introspection into his playing.

Also, when micing a real piano with the lid open, you get a lot of hammer noise and the noise of the damper and sustain bars going up and down, it is not noticeable really, but at a subliminal level, it does color the overall performance.

Pop musicians like to mic the piano closely, the pop style uses the piano much more as a percussive instrument and sometimes less ... as a melodic or lyrical element, so close micing is more appropriate in pop.

Usually, Van Cliburn will play with the lid completely shut. He is so powerful, the lid literally acts as the top of a guitar does. The less powerful a pianist, the more you may want to open the lid, but the lid ... provides a great deal of color and warmth to the sound.

With an adult pianist, never open the lid more than 1/4, you won't get anymore from it you'll just get stuff you don't want.

Overhead micing also limits pedal noise and squeak, but it is most appropriate for master level players with quite a bit of power in thier chops.

For this child, you did the right thing, close micing with the lid up. The hammer noise and damper noise is minimal at his level of playing.

The next time with a child, you might completely open the lid as far as it will go, take it off with several people if necessary, and suspend the mics above it, about 15 to 20 feet. You might be shocked at what you get. But only do this with a more gentle player, like a younger player.

I would not add any effects at all.

Do not use the de-esser, or de-hiss, or noise removal plug-in. Roll off gently at 15k. He is not going anywhere near that anyway, and the upper harmonics of the notes he is using, are not audible at all, especially in this old steinway. But roll off gently anyway, just to take 'some' of the hiss out.

Groucho has some very good comments here as to EQ, and you may want some EQ, but go for richness, because that is what you have here.

Hey ... it's a steinway, and you now have that in your bag of tricks.

By the way, the lower end of the steinway rocks like a big dog, but can get muddy compared to a Kawai.
 
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