Best monaural (software or hardware) acoustic piano sound

[WesG]

I agree with Al. Especially if you select one of the mono patches.

[The Real MC]

The jazz band at work has a CP33 with Roland mono amp. The stereo pianos were fine for solo playing but not for ensembles.

 

The mono piano on the CP33 worked REALLY good for ensembles.

[area51recording]

 

It's all about taking control of what you're going to sound like out front, assuming you're in the mix at all.

 

This. Many FOH dudes don't really believe in keyboards anyway....

[I-missRichardTee]

Sigh.... you guys are so selfless, willing to sacrifice hearing yourself with the quality you're able to, because the audience won't, or can't. I will seek out my sensei and try to become enlightened to the point where I can deliberately and happily degrade my sound for others' sake.

 

I know I'm getting a litle sarcastic here, sorry! Really though, so what if the venue PA is mono? Why should that stop you from monitoring yourself the way that's best for your own sound? This I will never understand.

 

By all means continue to debate, then spend thousands on killer speakers, the best sampled pianos or software instruments, then shlep this great stuff to a gig, etc., then... what? Make it mono because it's "better for the audience." Really?

 

Now if you prefer mono, that's a different story have at it! My thoughts on this will never change: when it comes to your sound, make sure you're happy first worry about the audience next. It's not hard at all to use a stereo piano, monitor it yourself in stereo, and send a summed feed (or one of the two channels) to a mono PA system. Yes, if I was playing a lot of gigs in venues with mono PAs I would probably search for a stereo piano that collapsed to mono well but any compromise would favor me, not the audience. Maybe I'm lucky; I almost never play places with a mono PA.

 

The point is that if it sounds like shit when collapsed to mono, then you sound like shit, but you have no idea. If you ensure that you sound good in mono, then you pretty much ensure you sound good out front.

 

It's all about taking control of what you're going to sound like out front, assuming you're in the mix at all.

 

"Now if you prefer mono, that's a different story have at it! My thoughts on this will never change: when it comes to your sound, make sure you're happy first worry about the audience next."

 

This is my opinion as well.

 

Sounding THAT poorly out front is not likely.... just not optimally. But even if too soft, or half the sample is heard.. none of that is as important to me, as how I sound to the drummer , and other musicians in the band, not to mention how I sound to myself .

This concept seems to be in the minority , which encourages me.

My sound, my artistry, my groove, and ditto for the collective sound on stage, for me that domain is number one. Clowns ( half are ) doing sound or the audience are secondary.

 

Stereo is for stage, mono is for FOH.

Is there an optimal way to achieve this?

[harmonizer]

...

Stereo is for stage, mono is for FOH.

Is there an optimal way to achieve this?

 

You can choose a keyboard that sounds really good in mono, and whose AP sounds sits well in a live mix of however large your band is.

 

I will admit that I did not follow this guidance with my most recent major keyboard purchase - I was really missing having a good B3 organ sound, so I bought a board which addressed that.

[I-missRichardTee]

...

Stereo is for stage, mono is for FOH.

Is there an optimal way to achieve this?

 

You can choose a keyboard that sounds really good in mono, and whose AP sounds sits well in a live mix of however large your band is.

 

For the slower minds like mine

Might you give more specific detail on how the piano sounds in mono for House, but stereo for my 2 speakers/amps?

 

In other words, what connections, left and right out of keyboard, into what, a DI, etc?

a mono or stereo piano sample ?

Thank you

[MotiDave]

Well, since the criteria included hardware, I would go with a 9' Baldwin grand with a Neumann omnidirectional microphone about 12 feet (3.5 meters) from the fully-raised lid, about 2 meters off the ground of a wooden floor.

 

Snide aside, I do concur with the folks who say "I prefer stereo, but the front-of-house will almost always be mono." Both my Kurz and my Casio have mono pianos just for the purpose, if I remember right.

AHA! I knew it! I stared at my piano sitting against the wall a hundred times and have always wondered since I joined KC - how is this singular wooden box device stereo? Which of the infinite possible datum points on this box are selected for these stereo signals. A piano does not have dual outputs, it has no left and right. It is a piano. Sound can be theorized to emanate from throughout the construction, but not from any two particular points I can see.

 

At last, the jig is up, the cat is out of the bag, the truth be told. pianos are not stereo!!!

[Doerfler]

At last, the jig is up, the cat is out of the bag, the truth be told. pianos are not stereo!!!

 

Acoustic pianos are not stereo. Digitally recorded pianos are most often sampled in stereo. There is a difference.

[Tom Williams]

At last, the jig is up, the cat is out of the bag, the truth be told. pianos are not stereo!!!

Acoustic pianos are not stereo. Digitally recorded pianos are most often sampled in stereo. There is a difference.

Huh. As the discussion was about mono, that was how I was approaching the question.

 

In the 1970s, with that aforementioned 9' Baldwin in a concert venue (a large reflective chapel), I was asked to record a classmate's senior recital. She didn't want two boom mics between the piano and her audience, so I ended up with a couple of little omni mics about 10 meters apart, close to the wooden floor to minimize phasing messes, and totally invisible to recital attendees. The result was not any Bass-left/Treble-right thing, but it certainly was a beautiful stereo recording, probably due to the kind of phase differences we would hear in the live setting.

 

By the way, my onstage philosophy is quite different from most of youse guys: I don't expect to get pristine sound on a stage with all the guitars using backline amps. I don't expect a good balance. I run mono monitoring during the gig. I only aim for a usable reference -- generally, monitors with More Me -- and I don't worry about whether I personally get the optimal audio experience. I save that for home.

[harmonizer]

....You can choose a keyboard that sounds really good in mono, and whose AP sounds sits well in a live mix of however large your band is.

 

For the slower minds like mine

Might you give more specific detail on how the piano sounds in mono for House, but stereo for my 2 speakers/amps?

 

In other words, what connections, left and right out of keyboard, into what, a DI, etc?

a mono or stereo piano sample ?

Thank you

 

I was just trying to point out that there are boards that have AP sounds that sound very good in mono, without you as the keyboard player having to do anything special. The Real MC mentioned that the Yamaha CP33 sounded fine in mono. If such a board sounds even better in stereo, you can enjoy that stereo sound for your monitoring back to you, while still being fully confident that your audience is also getting a good AP sound (in mono).

 

Based on my experience trying multiple AP sounds with the Electro 3, I would say the Nord AP sounds do not make it simple to send a good mono AP sound to the FOH in a largish covers band. I love the Royal Grand in mono, for playing at home, but it does not work for what I do in our covers band. I am trying to find an aperture to allow the audience to hear my AP "chucka-chucka" on the Gladys Knight version of Heard it thru the Grapevine, alongside 2 guitars (rhythm & lead), bass, drums, lead vocal, and 3 backup vocalists. And I need to do this without the AP sounds getting in the way of everything else.

[I-missRichardTee]

....You can choose a keyboard that sounds really good in mono, and whose AP sounds sits well in a live mix of however large your band is.

 

For the slower minds like mine

Might you give more specific detail on how the piano sounds in mono for House, but stereo for my 2 speakers/amps?

 

In other words, what connections, left and right out of keyboard, into what, a DI, etc?

a mono or stereo piano sample ?

Thank you

 

I was just trying to point out that there are boards that have AP sounds that sound very good in mono, without you as the keyboard player having to do anything special. The Real MC mentioned that the Yamaha CP33 sounded fine in mono. If such a board sounds even better in stereo, you can enjoy that stereo sound for your monitoring back to you, while still being fully confident that your audience is also getting a good AP sound (in mono).

 

 

If I may appeal to your patience one more time.

I use a single keyboard

How do I best set up the mono to FOH part of this scheme?

 

I know I go left and right outs into my powered speakers

but I am not sure about the rest of the signal chain.

 

Do I use a DI?

But then which side of my stereo sample do I send to house?

I am sure this has been discussed... and I don't want you to get heat, on going over the connections and the choice of whether a mono or stereo patch on my keyboard, but I am slow with grasping this. It seems like if I use a stereo "patch" of my Yamaha

I am left with decision about sending a poor sound to house.

This leads us back to what Sven said... use Mono patch... but then that defeats the stereo monitor preference.

 

Thank you

[3rdAct]

Based on my experience trying multiple AP sounds with the Electro 3, I would say the Nord AP sounds do not make it simple to send a good mono AP sound to the FOH in a largish covers band.

Does the Electro 3 have the mono setting?

[3rdAct]

If I may appeal to your patience one more time.

I use a single keyboard

How do I best set up the mono to FOH part of this scheme?

 

I know I go left and right outs into my powered speakers

but I am not sure about the rest of the signal chain.

 

Do I use a DI?

But then which side of my stereo sample do I send to house?

I am sure this has been discussed... and I don't want you to get heat, on going over the connections and the choice of whether a mono or stereo patch on my keyboard, but I am slow with grasping this. It seems like if I use a stereo "patch" of my Yamaha

I am left with decision about sending a poor sound to house.

This leads us back to what Sven said... use Mono patch... but then that defeats the stereo monitor preference.

 

Thank you

One solution...Some DI boxes take in stereo inputs (from the powered speakers, for example) and are able to sum them to provide a mono XLR output that you could send to FOH

[Reezekeys]

How about sending L&R to the house and letting the sound person sum? (Hint: you take those "pan" knobs for each channel and point them in the middle ). No special DIs to buy, nothing else extra for us to bring or think about. I know - that "wastes" a channel on the FOH board.

 

[edit - OK, I just realized that pan knobs for a mono FOH system might not be that useful, ha ha! So, even better just send FOH your L&R and, like magic, you will have a summed mono piano! Ain't technology great?!]

[harmonizer]

I-missRichardTee, sorry I was so engrossed in thinking about what AP sounds to use, that I had overlooked your question about the connections. I am definitely not the smartest person here at KC on what connection options to use.

 

I always connect from the line out of my (single) powered speaker to the main mixing board, which is almost always our band's. I use a small 2-track mixer (with multiple outputs) to premix the output of my Electro and a rack rompler module, so I could use one of its outputs for stereo monitoring for me. Your gear may offer different options.

[I-missRichardTee]

I-missRichardTee, sorry I was so engrossed in thinking about what AP sounds to use, that I had overlooked your question about the connections. I am definitely not the smartest person here at KC on what connection options to use.

 

I always connect from the line out of my (single) powered speaker to the main mixing board, which is almost always our band's. I use a small 2-track mixer (with multiple outputs) to premix the output of my Electro and a rack rompler module, so I could use one of its outputs for stereo monitoring for me. Your gear may offer different options.

 

Hey, that's perfectly cool. I AM slow at this stuff. ( Not the music part, now :roll eyes:)

 

My situation is different

I carry two small monitors with me

Can you start the map of the signal flow, from the L and presumably R outputs of my keyboard, and from there tell me the signals path?

 

[RudyS]

Based on my experience trying multiple AP sounds with the Electro 3, I would say the Nord AP sounds do not make it simple to send a good mono AP sound to the FOH in a largish covers band.

Does the Electro 3 have the mono setting?

 

Yes it does. I used it, but was not always sure about it's effectiveness.

[3rdAct]

I use the mono setting on the 5D and it sounds pretty good in terms of not having unevenness due to phase issues, etc

[Stephen S]

Here's my experience with multiple Nord products and the "mono" button. I have a Piano 2 and Electro 5D. I previously had an Electro 3 which also had the "mono" button.

 

The mono button achieves its goal of creating a mono output.

Just like any stereo to mono conversion, results are highly variable depending on which (stereo) sample you are starting with. I don't know what this button does beyond simply mixing the L&R signals. Its reported to do something else to improve the mono result, but I've never seen any detail as to what that might be.

 

I've found a specific piano sample or two from the Nord library that seem to work better than others in Mono. Regardless of how mono is achieved (via a mixer mixer, via the "mono" button, etc) I always use the same sample or two when I need good mono compatibility.

[As60i0Ul4m5ps3]

No, I'm not kidding.

 

Thanks to the other posters who actually provided some suggestions.

 

I thought you wanted THE BEST. As in singular. As in objective. You give no context - is this bright rock piano live? Jazz in the studio? Your question as posed cannot be answered.

 

I'm sorry if my question was too indeterminate to be answered. Here are some clarifications.

 

I worded the question in a way that appears to presuppose that there's a unique piano sound that works better in mono than every other other piano sound does. This was merely for the sake of simplifying the phrasing of the question. If this is part of what made the question unanswerable, here's a more precise formulation:

 

Which (hardware or software) piano sounds are such that there is no (hardware or software) piano sound that works better in mono than it does (either because it uniquely best, equal best, or--more plausibly--one of several for which there is none better, each of which is on a par with the others without being better than, worse than, or equally as good as any of the others)?

 

Apparently my original question was taken by some to imply that the better-than relation is 'objective', and was unanswerable on that account. In fact I have no view about whether the better-than relation, as it applies to piano sounds, is objective or subjective. I'm simply using the ordinary English expression 'better than' and, assuming that my reader is a competent speaker of English, leaving the interpretation up to them. Charity would suggest that I not be interpreted as asking which piano sound is my favourite, but, at the same time, I don't think charity requires interpreting me as asking which piano sound is best according to some authoritative aesthetic standard written into the universe by God either.

 

Having said all that, my question probably was indeed unanswerable due to lack of context. I deliberately left out the context because I wanted to get a broad range of perspectives and assumed people would fill in the context as needed as they answered. Here's some more context. I'm mainly interested in (software and hardware) piano sounds for live performance in jazz ensembles, usually using my own amplification, but sometimes going through a house PA. So I am looking for some balance between fine detail and cutting through a mix. I am also interested in piano sounds for both live solo jazz piano performances and live performance in pop/rock bands, though, which is why I was deliberately vague in asking the question.

[PianoMan51]

Stereo for me. Mono ® for the audience.

 

The stereo for me isnt because it sounds better, although it does. Its because I grew up playing an acoustic piano. And from a pianists POV the piano is a six foot wide sound source, best reproduced in stereo. When I hear it this way it helps me pretend Im playing the real deal rather than ersatz. And this helps my performance and my state of mind.

 

For the audience I stand with Kevin. Oh yeah theyre so proud of the stereo PA, but less than 30% of the audience hears more than just L or R.

 

BTW, when I play in classical concert halls in my area the PAs are mono.

 

 

[RudyS]

I'm glad this one pops up again, along with two transpose button threads....

[jimkost2002]

As this thread is about the "best" mono AP is there any point rehashing the mono v stereo debate?

Is there any point in trying to determine the "best" mono piano? How many answers to that question have we come up with so far?

 

Mono vs stereo... I admit I get triggered when I hear musicians say they prefer stereo but will compromise for the audience's sake. Guilty as charged.

 

I don't like mono pianos in general... even if we could come up with a consensus as to the best mono piano, I would prefer mine, and probably a lot of other stereo pianos. A realistic piano sound is a binaural sound. In my opinion of course. If you can't do it for the audience, at least do it for yourself.

 

Of course there's nothing wrong with debating which piano sounds "best" in mono although the chances of arriving at a definitive conclusion are most likely nil. We'll all list our favs and the OP will then get to winnow his list of 39 pianos to... 15? 20?

 

I agree with Reezekeys that the PLAYER needs to hear HIS sound in the most optimal manner to deliver the best performance.

I tend to find the Yamaha APs usually work best collapsed to mono if you are going through a mono PA.

Nord Pianos are good too

[drawback]

I tend to find the Yamaha APs usually work best collapsed to mono if you are going through a mono PA.

Nord Pianos are good too

 

Im not disputing your experience, but mine has been that those APs in particular depend the most on stereo. I always got the best mono result from Kurzweil Trip... oh you know.

 

[mdenriet]

The kawai mp7 has a setting where you can change the L/R output to 2xmono. Piano sound in mono is good enough i think. For monitoring i want to use the headphones output. Only problem atm is that i get distortion because the headphones out is not at line level. But you could make a cable to correct that.. https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-how-to-hookup-guitar-pedals-to-synth-or-keyboard (this is a mono version..but can easily be adopted to stereo.

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Kurzweils generally have a few patches that are specifically made to be mono. Having said that, some folk really like Kurzweil's take on acoustic piano sounds, and others not so much.

 

Depending on how the samples are originally made, some stereo acoustic piano patches condense to mono better than others. This is generally because of phasing issues between left and right channels which vary according to what notes are being played; and some of the combinations add and subtract when condensed in a manner that doesn't sound as good.

 

If I'm in my own home space, I like the sound of my keyboards better in stereo. If I'm playing elsewhere, much of it depends on the venue (and on just how much stuff I have to haul back and forth, especially as I've gotten older and somewhat weaker, and also no longer have a van to haul large amounts of stuff).

 

Either way, most frequently, the venue's sound system is in mono because it is much more difficult to set things up in stereo so that any seat in the house gets a good sound.

 

Also, if I'm playing in a band (most frequent for outside the home), there is enough other sounds from the other players that my own mixdown into mono isn't as noticeable. Unfortunately, most Leslie emulations on keyboards do sound better in stereo, it emphasizes the "swirl" of the horns. Irrelevant in the context of just acoustic piano, but my primary band (at church) has two keyboardists, and the lady on the acoustic grand is a much better player than myself. I very rarely use an acoustic piano patch because she has it covered so well.

 

[As60i0Ul4m5ps3]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm gradually narrowing down a shortlist of monaural piano sounds to test. Here are the front-runners at this stage:

 

GEM RP-7/RP-X (hardware stage piano/rack module)

 

The few existing threads that I could find regarding monaural piano sounds were pretty old, and the GEM RP-7 and RP-X were mentioned quite often. Since nobody mentioned them in this thread, I assume that there are better options these days. I imagine it would also be quite difficult to find either one second-hand these days in my part of the world.

 

Nord (hardware stage piano)

 

Various Nord models have been suggested: Nord Piano; Nord Electro 5; Nord Stage EX; Nord Electro 3. I take it that all of these use the Nord Piano Library, and so use the same piano sounds.

 

Kurzweil PC2/PC2x/PC2r (hardware stage piano/rack module)

 

The Kurzweil PC2x was recommended in the existing threads I could find, and its Triple-Strike Piano was also recommended in this thread. I have used the PC2x piano sounds in mono and they work well. It is quite old now, though, so perhaps there are better options.

 

Yamaha MOTIF XF/MOXF (hardware workstation)

 

The MOXF uses sounds from the MOTIF XF. I also saw the MOTIF, MOTIF ES, and MOTIF XS recommended, but I read that they don't sound quite as good, even if you use the same sounds as on the XF (for whatever reason). Maybe someone can straighten me out on this. If the sound quality is comparable, a MOTIF RACK XS might also be an option.

 

OTS Rosewood Grand (software)

 

I found this one in an existing thread; there may be better options now.

 

Pianoteq (software)

 

I use Pianoteq in stereo and it is fantastic. It's decent in mono.

 

Yamaha CP-33 (hardware stage piano)

Roland FP3 (hardware stage piano)

Kurzweil SP76/Micropiano (hardware stage piano/rack module)

 

Again, I found these mentioned in existing threads, but they are quite old now.

 

Kurzweil PC88

 

If you have any more ideas, let me know.

 

Thanks again.

[pianoproducer]

Check this out. It was sampled in Mono:

 

https://www.sampletekk.com/grand-pianos&product_id=294

 

I don't own it but I have many other Sampletekk Pianos and they are great. The Developer samples pianos for Nord.

 

They often have a sale around Easter each year - anywhere from 40-60% off.

[As60i0Ul4m5ps3]

Oops, I forgot:

 

Yamaha CP4 (hardware stage piano)

 

I'll put that on the list in between Kurzweil PC2/PC2x/PC2r and Yamaha MOTIF XF/MOXF.

[Doerfler]

Oops, I forgot:

Yamaha CP4 (hardware stage piano)

 

Certainly sounds fuller in stereo than in mono, however it is quite capable in mono of sounding very good.