A little piano for you...

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Okay, I had the opportunity to record a friend's daughter, Kellie. We recorded 10 songs in his living room. One of the songs is an original composition that Kellie wrote. The rest were songs she worked up for competitions and recitals.

I've posted the first two. One I cannot recall the name of right now but the second one is her original and it's titled Why.

The piano is a spinnet (sp?) which basically looks like a shorted upright. The songs are are 192/44.1 MP3s which makes them about 4 MB. If you need them smaller or would prefer .WAVs let me know.

I would appreciate anyone giving these a listen and maybe providing some feedback.

Thanks!


Listen here...
 
I like this.It has a spiritual feel to it.....very tranquil.......dont have much to say about the mix since it's just a piano but it does sound like it could use a little bit of presence/high end....something in that area...it's a little dull on the high end right now.

Nice playing.
 
Thanks for listening Kramer.

I agree it needs a little high end which is interesting considering this spinnet is a bit harsh and mid-rangy. Maybe it's the mid-ranginess (is that a word :confused: ) that makes us want more high end?

Kellie and her whole familiy are spiritual. Personally, I'm not Christian but her father is an amazing song writer and an even better acoustic player. Hopefully I'll get him near a microphone in the near future.

She does play nice doesn't she? Would you believe she's only 15?! Just imagine if she sticks with it and keeps practicing.

Peace,
B
 
The first song is "Golliwog's Cakewalk" by Debussy.

"Why?" has almost a Broadway feel to it. Does Kellie write lyrics as well?

Well done Kellie!

Sarah
 
That's exactly the tune! I kept wanting to call it Pollywog's walk :rolleyes: Guess you can tell I'm not a piano player :D

If she has written lyrics, I'm certainly not aware of them. I think right now she is strictly instrumental.

I thank you on Kellie's behalf. Chances are I'll alert her and her Dad to this thread so they can see what's going on.


Thanks for the input!
 
nice playing. the first had a joplin feel to it. I never would have guessed debussy...

the second tune almost had a rachmaninoff feel to it. very nice.
 
Okay, taking the advice into consideration, I took Golliwog's Cakewalk (thanks Sarah for the song title!) and opened the panning up a tad, added a touch of *very* short reverb, and brought up the highs just a bit. All effects were done using the RealVerb and Pultec effects of the Mackie UAD-1 card.

I also updated the webpage to reflect the name correction to Song1 and the new revision.

Please take a listen to the Revision A and tell me what you think of the changes.

The newest version of Golliwog's Cakewalk...

Thanks again!

Peace,
Brad
 
'why'...is a decent (actually very nice)composition. But is sounds like you stuck the mic(s) across the room....or more so...just pointed it/them at the piano and didn't really have it/them positioned very well. I suspect the piano might have been up against a wall, and you could not mic the back of the piano on the soundboard....

The piano certainly sounded 'real' VS a synth sample...but a high quality sample might have worked better....maybe....(as I duck!!)

15 eh? :)
 
I agree with mix....the piano sounds distant. It's spinet with one n BTW since you asked.
I'd definitely try to get that mic closer. You want to mic the back of it. If it's up against the wall....make sure it's at least 3 or 4 inches out and aim the mic at the wall from the treble end of the piano. It should reflect enough to get a better sound from it. Lots of people put the mic down in the piano but i personally feel like you don't get as good a sound. For one thing you pick up mechanical noises plus you tend to pick up the freq range right around the area you have the mic in. The reflection will tend to be fuller range.

Oh............very fine playing by a 15 year old BTW
 
Actually, we pulled the piano out from against a wall. We opened the top of the piano and used 2 MXL-603s. One on the left, one on the right and each one about three inches from the opening. Then, I placed an MXL-v67 at the soundboard but that track just didn't sound very good. Probably my mic technique :( . Maybe I'll play around with blending them all for a better sound.

Out of curiosity, Lt. Bob and Mixmkr, do you hear the same 'distance' in the Golliwog tune... assuming you had the opportunity to listen.

I really appreciate these critiques becaue I want to get this right! The only thing unfortunate is the inability to rerecord the tracks so I have to make due, but I am a determined soul ;P
 
I listened to why, and I would be understating it if I said I have listened twenty times.

I have listened to this piece over 50 times in the last two days. I just love it. I think it ranks up there with the best piano pieces I've ever heard, from any era.
 
She is indeed a talented young lady. I like the way the piano sounds, very real and warm. In WHY it seems really "midrangy", I think that was said already. But the slightly distant sound doesn't bother me. I guess the distant comment is referring to "studio" quality. Nice job! :D
 
The two songs had about the same sound to me.
I'm not a micing expert at all but I am a piano technician by trade and some of the limited sound is the fact that it's a spinet. As I'm sure you know....they're small pianos with small soundboards and in the bass they have to double and even triple wrap the strings to get enough mass in them because they're so short.
That's why spinets often have bass notes with harmonics so strong that it almost sounds like it's playing two notes at once.

As for the micing....if you are using three mics....maybe you're getting some phase cancellations between the mic since all three pick up all the freqs but they arrive at different times because of the different distances. Just an idea. evrytime I read about recordings of pianos....they seem to spend a lot of time trying different placement and when they find what works they carefully mark it 'cause apparently inches make a big difference. I'll be interested in hearing what you find out.
 
Cyan: Wow! That is indeed a compliment. I'm definately gonna point Kellie and her father to this thread. Everyone has been so gracious.

Barometer: Why is an unprocessed track so you're hearing the spinet in all it's glory. I'lll take a bit of the midrange out tonight and post a new version tomorrow. Let me know what you think!

Lt. Bob: I didn't use the third mic because I really think I didn't position the mic well. There is a ton of low end. I guess I could post the individual tracks and you can see what I mean. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a little phase problem between the left and right though as I am still working on my mic technique. As for the bass notes and their harmonics, I can hear some of that in the other tunes.

I'll post more of the tunes over the next week. Time seems to be an issue right now :rolleyes:


Thanks again to all!
 
Just a thought...(and I didn't read other comments, so I apologize if I'm repeating), but I'm listening on headphones, and I'm getting this scratching sound on both tunes...like shuffling paper almost.???

Liked 'em, btw.
 
i love why. Im just 18, and my understanding/apriciation of different styles of music is limited (well, maybe thats wrong, i have a wider taste in music, and more aprication than anyone i've ever met...)
i guess what i meant to say is i don't listen to jazz or classical nearly enough, and i don't know nearly enough about it as i'd like to.

But as someone who doesn't know a lot about the genre, and can't really compare, i think Why is really a great track. Awesome, if i may say so.
I listen to classical, jazz, underground hip hop, experimental hip hop, acid jazz, trip hop, rock, alternative, blues..... and about 20 other sub genres im not even gonna mention. Not to sound like a snob, but i've spent SO MUCH TIME listening to music, of every genre, that i only bother listening to the best i find. And this fits in there nicely.

but seriously, i spend most of my time listening to music, in school i always had headphones on, when i come home i listen to it until i go to bed, i listen in the car, etc... and when im not listening, im mixing, or breakdancing to music, or whateve.r..

blah!, how did this turn into a rant about my life! God i need to learn to shut up..

anyways, great track, keep it up, and can i get a copy of this to put on a cd? i dunno if i can download the version on that site.
 
oh, and one more small thing.
Sound quality doesn't make music even 1% better, and won't change the fact that someone either likes it, or they don't.

if you recorded that with a radio shack mic into a 4 track, or with a neuman mic into neve preamps (or whatever is super good), it would still be the same, great track.

Just as crap is crap no matter how you record it.



(and on the subject of the piano sounding distant... i kinda like it, it gives it more feeling in my opinion. not saying you shouldn't give up on trying to make better recordings, im sure it could be improved. But it sounds nice, it could be improved a bit, but i can't really understand what it is that needs to be done. Like, it sounds like something is a bit off, but it also sounds like theres nothing wrong at all. like it could be improved, but it doesnt' need to be, but there is somethign...
its really wierd, i think im going insane here.)
 
Chris: Scratching sound huh?! I'll have to check that out. I know we were having a very hard time with mechanical noise coming from the piano itself. At one point in the session, we stopped for almost 40 minutes to alleviate this 'squeak' that was coming from inside the piano. I'll give that a listen. I'll admit, I haven't checked it out with my cans yet.

Ambi: Thank you so much for the kind words. I'm sure Kellie will appreciate them. As for a download, you should be able to download the version from that site. Just try right-clicking on the link. There should be an option to save. It's only MP3 format. Maybe when the CD is done, Kellie would agree to send you one? That's up to her.

Well, I'm home sick today. I'll see if I can get some of the other tunes posted. They'll be in a raw format. No EQ etc, but people can give a listen if they'd like :D
 
I listened again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating; the noise is there...it almost sounds like a bench squeaking?

Much more importantly, "WHY" is a very cool piece of music...squeaks and all.

good job to her and you both,
chris
 
Yup. That is the piano noise. We tried very hard to get rid of it but alas... we couldn't. It had to do with the dampening pedal and how it was hitting inside the piano.

On that topic, anyone have any ideas in regards to eliminating that noise for future piano recordings?


Thanks for double checking and thanks for the kind words!
 
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