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[Thomas W. Bethel]

I have a client in house now that recorded all of his compositions on an electronic piano (about 40 of them). He wants them to sound more like a real piano. I have it pretty darn close but I wondered if anyone would like to share some additional tips with me for making a synthesized piano sound more like a "real" piano. He cannot redo them with a different piano setting since they were all played in real time and there are no MIDI tracks available.

So far I have used some reverb, some widening plug-ins and some eq. On a scale of 1-10 with 1 being a $29.95 keyboard bought at Wal Mart and 10 being a B

[astroshack]

I once got a clean "sterile" piano to sound more like an old honky tonk barrelhouse by "re-amping" the tracks into the chamber of an old upright, using a nearfield. Time aligned and mixed to taste....blew me away how well it worked, but that was for a specific effect, using a piano which wasnt perfectly tuned. Might not work well with more sophisticated types of music, particularly with respect to string dampening (the strings in the re-amped piano will ring sympathetically irrespective of pedal position in the original recording).

Sean

[Greg Youngman]

Record the played-back track through your monitor system with either a stereo mic or spaced pair around ten feet away.  Blend to taste.  Also, with a little practice, record the tapping on a wooden desktop or synthesizer keyboard with your fingers assimilating the playing of the piano keyboard and mix that in with the track.  I recently finished a song that has starts with a solo flute using samples.  The samples worked excellent.  But to give the flute that finished touch of believability, I recorded some breath sounds as if I was actually playing it.  No one has ever asked if the the flute was real, only who played it.  

[Bob Boyd]

In addition to running direct, I like to put 2 small condenser mics in an X/Y pattern about 6" back from the 1/4" jacks and blend to taste.

Placement is critical though as those jacks tend to be pretty close together.

[tom eaton]

Do you have a preferred preamp for that pair, Bob?

t

[JimK]

api-ano?

[Tomas Danko]

Depending on the original sound of these recordings, maybe you could find an impulse response of a grand piano soundboard and blend to taste.

Another nifty trick could be to have another impulse response or sample/source from lifting all dampers on a grand piano when stepping on the sustain pedal. Side chain it to the original track, so that it comes up into the picture ever now and then.

Other than that, adding a nice room is key. Which you've already done.

[Peter Beckmann]

When I have to use a sampled piano like Ivory or Steinberg's The Grand, I always turn off ANY onboard reverb the VI has. They are usually not great.

Then I add reverb in two stages:
1. Room ambience. Revibe in PT HD has a nice orchestral ambience: or use a room convolution reverb to create just the initial reflections as you would hear in a nice room/auditorium.
2. For the main reverb sound if I want a natural sound I use Altiverb, or for more lush, but less 'accurate' sound a hall from a Lex 480L.
Sometimes I run the reverbs in series, sometimes in parralell.

For solo piano, you will never beat a real recording of a piano in a nice room tho.
Given a reasonable sampled piano a la Ivory you can do OK....



Peter

[Patrik T]

I'd route his recordings thorugh a Fender Twin Reverb (or whatever) and mike that one up.

Talk about impulses.

It would not be "mastering" but what the F. He needs salvage.


Best Regards
Patrik