Quick feedback on ragtime piano sound?

[ncc1701]

Hey, whew. I'm finally catching up on the forums after nearly six days without power - I still don't have it at home where my studio is, but the lights and heat are on at work.So I've got my ragtime piano piece recorded using the Steinway - mix voice on my EWQLSO Silver Pro XP library, but it still sounds fake to me. I need to do some more tweaking on the individual note velocities to sound like it's being played by a real person, but can anyone give me some help with the production itself? I use Sonar Power Studio (Sonar 5 Studio Edition) for my DAW and the plug-ins that come with it are the only other piano voices I have at my disposal. Is there anything else I can do with EQ, etc?Here's the link:Liberty Raghttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=81166&stream=trueThe deadline is today, I know, but I called TAXI and they said I could have a couple of days grace because of the storm situation.Any help is appreciated!!Kathleen

[matto]

Kathleen,Okay first of all this is an excellent track and the most on target for this listing of anything I've heard posted so far!! I don't think there's anything wrong with the sound, the piano sample you use suffers from not having enough velocity layers which can't really be solved without getting something a bit better, but it's not a problem that I think is big enough to keep this from getting forwarded.I think the performance sounds too mechanical for two reasons:1- Not enough dynamics. Certain sections, or even certain bars withing a given section, would lend themselves to be played a little more softly, others a bit louder. There also points where a player would naturally do a crescendo. There are "faint" dynamics in your piece, but I think a real player would "interpret" the piece more and have bigger dynamic variations.2- The tempo is too steady. A real player will slow down/speed up at certain points throughout the piece, not a lot, perhaps not even in an obvious way, but the result is a more organic, real sounding performance. Remember no real ragtime performer plays to a click...I'm sure Sonar has some sort of a "Master Track" or "Conductor Track" or "Tempo Track" where you can insert such small tempo variations/fluctuations after having recorded the piece.Try to figure out or "feel out" where you'd be likely to slow down/speed up as a way of "interpreting" the music, and insert your tempo fluctuations accordingly.If you can fix these two issues and thus put some more "human factor" into your piece I think you'll have a forward...Love this piece, and best of luck with it!!matto

[ncc1701]

Thanks so much for the suggestions, Matt. And I hope you know how much a compliment from you means to the rest of us!I'm glad to hear you think this has potential even with that piano patch. I just had a lightbulb go on over my head regarding using velocities to help with phrasing in the intro - adjusting the note lengths just wasn't working for me. Now I'll have to decide what to unplug from my rented generator - lights, heat or XBox 360 - to get my DAW back and make these fixes!Kathleen

[bmete]

Hi Kathleen,I liked your tune a whole lot. Good Luck! And I thought ragtime had gone extinct, not so with all the talented TAXI members around wonderful sounding ragtime!!Hope you get all your power back soon!Bob

[ncc1701]

OK, I was able to plug in my computer for a couple of hours last night and do some tweaking. I'm pretty happy with the results.Liberty Raghttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=81166&stream=trueNow, if I could only PLAY like that for real!Anway, thanks for the support, bmete. I really hope you have some success with the piece you posted because it's very cool. Stansongman, if you're reading this, I tried to listen to yours but couldn't here at work. Best of luck with it anyway.This one was fun. I'm going to try and make it my ringtone for my phone.Kathleen

[bombaycharlie1]

Hey Kathleen, Really nice track...I wish I could play like that I love the different sections. I tried to do that in my post:The Claire Bear Raghttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=80803&stream=1 but not to the extent that you did. I also questioned my piano sound. I think yours is more ragtime-y (sp) than mine. Good luck on getting the forward. Since we really don't know exactly what they're looking for, we all a chance Charlie

[matto]

Quote:OK, I was able to plug in my computer for a couple of hours last night and do some tweaking. I'm pretty happy with the results.Liberty Raghttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=81166&stream=trueBIG improvement! Best of luck with this, hope you get forwarded.

[matto]

Quote:Really nice track...I wish I could play like that I love the different sections. I tried to do that in my post:The Claire Bear Raghttp://www.taximusic.com/song.php?song_id=80803&stream=1 but not to the extent that you did. I also questioned my piano sound. I think yours is more ragtime-y (sp) than mine. Happy belated b-day Charlie! I like your rag too, nice and lilting. I agree the sound is not great. It's too in your face close miked for this type of music, and the samples don't sound very "real", it sounds like a workstation piano sound. Kind of plastic-y.Tell Santa you need a better piano sample library for Xmas...and if you own one of the leading soft samplers (Kontakt, Giga, Halion or EXS) you might point him in this direction http://www.sampletekk.com/products.php?cat=44, he can get a 50% discount there... (And no...I don't have any affiliation with that company...)matto

[ncc1701]

Quote:Hey Kathleen, Really nice track...I wish I could play like that So do I!!

[stansongman]

Nice rag. Another way to warm a track up, is to tweak the dynamics. Typically, I record everything MIDI, then I go back and tweak the velocity (not the volume), which does the right thing in terms of how the piano would really sound if you were playing live with dynamics - which is not to say I haven't already played dynamically. But, if you're composing at the keyboard into MIDI, especially if you take multiple passes creating left and right hands separately, not everything will be consistent. This helps.