Old 10-18-2019, 01:20 PM   #1
kirk1701
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Default Found perfect Piano Comp/Limit

The solution for all pianos is the CLA-3A. I assume any LA-3A would do. My last few mixes have had piano prominently featured. I've been struggling to get the sound right.

I've been using Analog Lab 4 with the Piano V presets. They're okay, but awfully bright. The high end is shrill with these presets. Any attempt to roll off highs drops the track out of the mix. So compression/limiting is essential to keep it from clipping and holding it steady in the mix.

I've tried all versions of MJUC (vari-mu), CLA-76, V-Comp (diode-bridge), S.LA.X, etc. Pretty much tried everything. Nothing really sounded right to me, somehow. They weren't what I was looking for, tonally. A piano is a huge sound and is the most difficult instrument to fit in a mix, for me. It may be different if you track it, but virtual pianos are like wet clay. One false move and it collapses.

Anyway, the CLA-3A came on sale the last couple of weeks, so I gave it a good solid try. It worked immediately. Now, I still clip the track and sometimes the buss, but it's holding well in the mix and is what I want to hear (all things considered).

I'm very happy with the compressor, which shouldn't be a surprise, but it's not one of those items with a ton of caché. My point is, if you don't have one, do yourself a favour and head over to Waves and pick up yours while the sale is on.

I do have have a promo code from my purchase, so if you do decide to buy, PM me for the code.
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Old 10-20-2019, 12:21 AM   #2
serr
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Lots of hot peaks and bright eh?

Piano is tricky to capture sometimes. More so when there's bangin' drums and bass next to it! How did you mic it up? A pair of condensers over the strings by themselves can get bright and peaky. I find a bottom mic very important. Those holes in the metal top plate on the side when you walk up to the open lid side? Put a 57 over the 2nd from the left. You'll get some midrange meat fairly free of bleed to help cheat. Room miking can be a thing if the piano is recorded by itself.

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Old 10-20-2019, 03:54 AM   #3
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Lots of hot peaks and bright eh?

Piano is tricky to capture sometimes. More so when there's bangin' drums and bass next to it! How did you mic it up? A pair of condensers over the strings by themselves can get bright and peaky. I find a bottom mic very important. Those holes in the metal top plate on the side when you walk up to the open lid side? Put a 57 over the 2nd from the left. You'll get some midrange meat fairly free of bleed to help cheat. Room miking can be a thing if the piano is recorded by itself.
He didn't mic it up, it's a modelled Arturia piano.
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Old 10-20-2019, 08:45 AM   #4
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He didn't mic it up, it's a modelled Arturia piano.
Haha. Well, that doesn't speak too highly of the modelling if you need to "fix" it by smashing peaks with limiting compression! If it sounds right though then it must be, so carry on.

Now I'm curious if some of these sampled or modeling instrument plugins give you separate outputs for separate elements of the piano as captured/modeled? Strings vs body top vs body btm vs room for example. Or if they all just give you a stereo submix. Maybe that's the problem?
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Old 10-20-2019, 09:58 AM   #5
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I like TDR Kotelnikov sometimes for piano
https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-kotelnikov/
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Old 10-20-2019, 02:05 PM   #6
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Haha. Well, that doesn't speak too highly of the modelling if you need to "fix" it by smashing peaks with limiting compression! If it sounds right though then it must be, so carry on.

Now I'm curious if some of these sampled or modeling instrument plugins give you separate outputs for separate elements of the piano as captured/modeled? Strings vs body top vs body btm vs room for example. Or if they all just give you a stereo submix. Maybe that's the problem?
Yeah, the Analog Lab version is like a "lite" version of their modelled piano. I've not used that much, I generally use Pianoteq. You can move mics around quite a lot, but you can't put them underneath, as far as I know.

I've not tried mic'ing underneath myself, only recorded solo piano with a natural distance to get the room, but I got the Addictive Keys upright for free a while back (Focusrite deal because I had one of their interfaces), and the floor mic sampled in that did add a really nice dimension to the sound.
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Old 10-21-2019, 11:04 AM   #7
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I read a gearslutz thread where Michael Brauer discussed his method for rock/pop piano.

"Remember the early Elton John records? Remember how his piano shimmered? At mediasound we loved that sound so a lot of us were always playing around with getting different versions of it. No lacquered hammers, no Dolby A off, just a combination of compression and EQ.

I only recorded Luther's voice, may he rest in peace, on that song along with "searching" and then mixed both. Luther was on a whole other level of singers. He walked into that session and listened to the song in the control room once, then he walked out into the studio with the lyric sheet in his hand. What you hear on"Glow of Love" and "searching" is his first fun down reading the lyrics from a yellow pad. No punches.

The piano sound you’re referring to is probably the same one that I did for Vandross on the “Never too much” song.

Ok, this is how you do it. First insert an LA3A or LA2A (depending on the version of sound you’re going after) across the stereo piano tracks. Bang those meters and out of the compressor go into a couple of pultecs and push up..way up the 3 or 5 k on the low end and the 8 or 10 k on the high end. Don’t be safe. Now go to the desk EQ and start clearing out some of the muddiness and EQ up the remaining mids so that it just shimmers like a baby. When it’s done right, you can hear the harmonics riding up during each sustain. The LA2A is good if the song is slow and the chords are quarter notes. The LA3A is good if the chords are faster with a harder attack like in “never too much”. I remember hearing that song on the radio and man that piano was making me feel good all over. Sounds pretty simple when you know how to do it right?”

This method works. It's the one sure mixing rule I know, next to 360hz on the 1073 midband. (That's another must-have. I can cut that frequency on just about everything and get a better/clearer sound. In fact, I always look for that frequency on any eq. If it doesn't have it, I won't buy it.)

It's true. Arturia is incredibly bright. I don't know why. I suppose if I had the option of moving mics around or closing the lid, I'd have an easier time of it.

I always print the MIDI to audio. Mainly because Analog Lab uses a lot of CPU.

I wonder if I shouldn't be printing at 48k, rather than 44.1? That's the one thing I haven't tried. Maybe I'd hear less crunchy, stringy trebles at a higher resolution?
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