Keyboard issues.

[ClapHands]

Okay, so I've been recording keyboards lately. Most of the time I just record guitar and drums so I don't really know what to do. I use a piano setting which makes this more confusing for me. I have a few questions:

1) There are two outputs I can use, one left and another right. Should I plug both in and hard pan them, or would it make a difference at all?
2) If it's on a piano setting, would you eq and compress it as you would a piano?
3) Are there any tips for getting a gritty piano effect?

 

[pistachio]

Is this a MIDI keyboard? If so, you should buy a midi cable and record using midi. I just think that is much more simple.

But, if your keyboard only has 1/4" Left and Right outputs, then put a guitar cable into the left channel and plug it into your computer. If you have a stereo input on your soundcard or a mixer you could record in stereo. But I suspect you may be stuck with Mono.

You could always make fake stereo by re-recording your piano part over your left channel and panning your new track all the way to the right.


As for your other questions...there is a 99% chance you will need to EQ it and compression depends on the style of music and the sound of the tracks. No one can ever really tell you what to do without hearing anything.

Remember that if you want to ask about a track, always post a link to hear it. Hope to hear a recording of your piano sound soon.

 

[snatchman]

If you can record in stereo, try it. It opens up more sonic opportunities.. Especially if you play chords/run bass lines with both hands.. You can control levels for the left hand ( bass), melody (right hand)..Also, if you can, experiment with sending your audio out into analog hardware ( ie. transformer/tube DI etc..),to add some " weight/liveliness to the piano tracks..Good luck

 

[noisewreck]

As I stated in another thread, MIDI does not carry audio data, only performance instructions. So, whether you use MIDI to sequence or not, you will have to connect the audio outputs of the keyboard/synth/sampler to your mixer/interface/recording device.

As to whether to use both L/R outputs or only Left, it depends on a number of factors.

If you are strictly using this for piano sound, these are the things I would consider:

• Is the piano going to have a prominent place in the mix?
• Is the sampled piano or the piano patch in question in stereo or mono?
• If the piano was originally sampled in stereo, does the tone tone suffer if you only use one output?

If the piano is going to have a prominent place in the mix, I would tend to use a stereo sample/patch and would record in stereo, just because you get a fuller, richer tone. Otherwise, if it's going to have more of a backing role, and you need to pan it to one side or another, then it will be easier if you choose a mono patch, and use one output.
Sometimes, even if the piano is sampled in stereo, you can use one output, however, I would strongly recommend you play a scale going from the lowest notes to the highest to judge tonal balance of the various registers, and use the output (L or R) that produces the best result for the scenario at hand. For example, if the piano part was mostly in the higher registers, then I would likely choose the R output as it will likely emphasize this register, and conversely make the lower register sound somewhat ligher. However, every sampled piano is different, and different keyboards/synth/workstations sound vastly different from one another, so final judgement based on experimentation is key here.

If you choose to record the piano in stereo, then you would pan the L and R output hard left and hard right respectively, as this is almost always how it is intended to work.

Hope this helps.

 

[noisewreck]

Grunging up piano.

Unless you're doing some noisy harsh, industrial stuff, distorted/grunged up acoustic piano patch will sound anywhere between weird and awful.

However, electric pianos respond rather well do all sorts of stuff that you'd normally do with guitars. Some mild distortion, flanging, chorus, phasing can work wonders to liven up electric pianos. You can put them through leslie emulations and even wah pedals with great effect. Further stuff that works well would be envelope followed filter sweeps and such.

Have fun!

 

[gecko zzed]

If your piano has two audio outputs, they are (these days) usually marked as "L R/mono" or L/mono R", meaning that you will get a combined mono signal if you just stick a lead in the 'mono' designated socket.

Whether you record the piano as mono or stereo depends (as noisewreck and others have said) on the position and prominence of the paino in the mix.

If you record as stereo, record these into a stereo pair. If you record as two separate mono channels, one for left, the other for right, pan them hard left and right.

Before you grunge up the paino, see how it behaves unmodified in the mix first.

 

[ClapHands]

One thing I forgot to mention, I also have the option of plugging into an amp. The only problem is that none of the amps I have aren't specifically designed for the keyboard (one bass amp and one acoustic guitar amp.) Would either one of those suffice? And if so, how would you record it that way?

 

[gecko zzed]

You would stick a mike in front of the amp and record that.

Whether you would want to is another question. Pianos have wide frequency ranges, and it is possible you would not get a good paino sound through either of your amps (though the acoustic guitar amp might be better).

But what I don't understand is why you are asking instead of doing. You have all the means at your disposal . . . just try heaps of things and pick which you like best.

 

[haymedic]

depending on what you want, it's usually better to record in stereo. two mono tracks don't really make a stereo... sorry to argue on this, but they are set up that the low notes will be on the L and the high notes on the R to get a player perspective panning field. if you want audience perspective, you just switch the Left and Right. (at least this is what my keyboard does) in other words, if you do a slide from top to bottom you will likely hear the sound coming from the right and moving to the left.

from there you can tighten up the sound by narrowing the pan field... ie: if you pan 30% R and 10% L you'll get the piano coming from 10 degrees right as the center point. (know what i mean?) if you hard pan to the sides, you'll get the full piano sound across the speakers. the 'wide' piano sound works great in some applications... but a narrower pan field can work well too, depending on the song.

s

 

[witzendoz]

I very rarely record stereo keyboards, they get that big stereo spread sounds by using phase shifting, when you hard pan them left and right then check the mix by summing to mono, the keyboard sound either disappears or dulls out. I also find that having multiple keyboard sounds in mono that you can position pan wise in the mix is better for building the mix rather than having 3 or 4 stereo keyboard sounds.

If you have a sound that really has to be stereo, for example bouncing echo effects in dance music, check it with mono monitoring to make sure there are no problems.

One keyboard module I do record in stereo is the one with my orchestral sounds as this pans the orchestra like you were standing in front centre.

Had a similar problem with a guitar player who had a stereo effects unit and insisted we record everything in stereo, when the left right was mono-ed the guitar disappeared completely as it was 180 deg out of phase.

Cheers

Alan

 

[haymedic]

I very rarely record stereo keyboards, they get that big stereo spread sounds by using phase shifting, when you hard pan them left and right then check the mix by summing to mono, the keyboard sound either disappears or dulls out. I also find that having multiple keyboard sounds in mono that you can position pan wise in the mix is better for building the mix rather than having 3 or 4 stereo keyboard sounds.

If you have a sound that really has to be stereo, for example bouncing echo effects in dance music, check it with mono monitoring to make sure there are no problems.

One keyboard module I do record in stereo is the one with my orchestral sounds as this pans the orchestra like you were standing in front centre.

Had a similar problem with a guitar player who had a stereo effects unit and insisted we record everything in stereo, when the left right was mono-ed the guitar disappeared completely as it was 180 deg out of phase.

Cheers

Alan

hey alan: i'm curious: why are you monitoring in mono? is it just to figure out the summing of the mix in case you play through a mono source like AM radio? i'm not AT ALL being challenging or questioning what you are doing as 'wrong', i'm just wondering, as i usually don't ever go into mono mode on anything... and i'm wondering what the benefit is?

sean.

 

[moresound]

One thing I forgot to mention, I also have the option of plugging into an amp. The only problem is that none of the amps I have aren't specifically designed for the keyboard (one bass amp and one acoustic guitar amp.) Would either one of those suffice? And if so, how would you record it that way?

This may be the way to go in your case. Try the acoustic guitar amp with the keys, mic that up and add any distortion or effects that you want to get your desired sound.

 

[witzendoz]

hey alan: i'm curious: why are you monitoring in mono? is it just to figure out the summing of the mix in case you play through a mono source like AM radio? i'm not AT ALL being challenging or questioning what you are doing as 'wrong', i'm just wondering, as i usually don't ever go into mono mode on anything... and i'm wondering what the benefit is?

sean.

Yes, there is still some AM radio stations in our part of the world, and one of the stations (or many stations across the country) is the Government owned ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), and they do play some local content and I have had several of my recordings played on the ABC (as well as interviews). If the stereo is out of phase the result can sound awful on mono AM radio, remembering that mono AM is limited in quality already.

The other problem you have is FM Stereo, when the reception is poor a lot of car stereos automatically switch to mono to maintain the signal, so you could have a mono compatibility problem there as well.

All mixes should be checked for mono compatibility, I know that the mix won't sound as good in mono, but I just check that nothing goes missing and that you can still hear the vocal clearly.

Just one last footnote: I also work on radio as a volunteer at a community station, Radio Fremantle 107.9fm, (shameless plug), and one CD I received must have had an out of phase effect on the vocal. On air in FM stereo it sounded fine, but on the Cue monitor (my off air monitor for cueing songs which is a mono speaker on the console) the vocal disappeared completely, I almost did not play the song as I thought it was a boring instrumental. Someone listening to this at home on a mono radio would have the same problem.

Cheers

Alan

 

[haymedic]

Yes, there is still some AM radio stations in our part of the world, and one of the stations (or many stations across the country) is the Government owned ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), and they do play some local content and I have had several of my recordings played on the ABC (as well as interviews). If the stereo is out of phase the result can sound awful on mono AM radio, remembering that mono AM is limited in quality already.

The other problem you have is FM Stereo, when the reception is poor a lot of car stereos automatically switch to mono to maintain the signal, so you could have a mono compatibility problem there as well.

All mixes should be checked for mono compatibility, I know that the mix won't sound as good in mono, but I just check that nothing goes missing and that you can still hear the vocal clearly.

Just one last footnote: I also work on radio as a volunteer at a community station, Radio Fremantle 107.9fm, (shameless plug), and one CD I received must have had an out of phase effect on the vocal. On air in FM stereo it sounded fine, but on the Cue monitor (my off air monitor for cueing songs which is a mono speaker on the console) the vocal disappeared completely, I almost did not play the song as I thought it was a boring instrumental. Someone listening to this at home on a mono radio would have the same problem.

Cheers

Alan

thanks for the reply! i heard that in the past the 45's were mixed mono for summing reasons (even though they were playable in stereo) but i didn't think it was still worried about today. also heard that the mixes are different on the 33's than the 45's because radio stations only got the 45's. either way, what you said makes perfect sense.

that said, i wonder what would be missing if you put my recordings on mono! eek!

thanks again.

sean