Recording with hardware, software or the real thing?

[marczellm]

I might actually be heading into the studio sometime in the coming months to record some of my own stuff together with some fellow musicians. I want to use piano, Rhodes and Wurly mostly, with very little additional sounds. Now I have no problem with the sounds in my Nord but I'd like to ask for some advice from more experienced members here.

In your experience is it possible to get a satisfying recording using hardware sounds only? I am inclined to think that a good mix can go a long way. On the other hand though, it always makes me cringe when I hear some recording using the same piano sound as my Roland FP-5 that I grew up practicing on. (All the Rolands of that era had the same sound.) It feels way too fake, much more so than the Nord I'm using now. Will I feel the same thing about the Nord sounds a few years later?

 

And if you don't recommend the hardware, is software any better, and at what cost? I don't own any good software instruments currently.

Obviously trying to get a hold of the real things would be logistically difficult because only some of the most expensive studios have them hereabouts.

[bourniplus]

If using the real thing is too logistically difficult, then it leaves hardware and software. If you have a hardware keyboard you like, you could always record both the audio and MIDI, so afterwards you can experiment with whatever software/VST/plugin you want. You might want to make sure that the recording person you'll work with is comfortable with doing this.

[yannis D]

I think your Nord can do the job just right. I have recorded with Rhodes and Nord and the differences are so small, only a few handful of keyboardists can tell (and even not all of them) . So if you don't have a well maintained Rhodes and Wurlie in the studio, i would go the Nord way. If the producer/mixer is good, the results will be satisfying.

 

Acoustic piano, though, is another story. If your Nord isn't weighted i would try to find either a real piano or an 88 controller and go with both VST's and the internal Nord samples. I like Pianoteq for it's sonic possibilities. Of course a real piano is always ideal, but most studios don't have them and you will have to rent it, tune etc. It's all about your budget.

Overall, besides the Nord i like Pianoteq for APs and Scarbee Rhodes and Wurlie for EP's.

[Jonathan Hughes]

"In your experience is it possible to get a satisfying recording using hardware sounds only?"

 

I assume by "hardware" you mean physical keyboards like your Nord? If so, the answer is, of course, yes. I would bet that a good chunk of what is recorded at professional studios (as opposed to home studios) is done using the sounds from the keyboards. A lot of commercial studios are fairly old school and don't keep up with current trends in software instruments. Unless the engineer/owner is a keyboardist, there's a good chance they know little about software.

 

Personal studios, of course, are another story, and I have to assume that most people, if they have the choice between a Nord piano sound and a multi-gig library, are going to choose the latter.

 

If you're hoping to use real pianos, Rhodes, and Wurlitzer at the studio, see if you can get in there before you commit and check them out. If the studio doesn't cater to keyboardists, and/or if they just keep that stuff around to look cool, then there's a good chance it's out of tune or not in great condition.

[Doc Tonewheel]

In my experience, when recording a 'real' instrument (no matter what, Hammond, acoustic piano, electric piano), you are really dependent upon how good the recording engineer is. If they are good, you can get your ideal sound and they can capture magic. If not, even the world"s most magnificent sounding piano will sound bad. If you"re using software or direct recording of a ROMpler or similar keyboard, the sound is already there. It"s much easier for an engineer to just press record, rather than to set up all the miking and processing to accurately capture a sound. That said, nothing beats a wonderful recording engineer in my opinion. You also need to take cost of recording into account. Setting up miking, etc will take time and $.

[The Real MC]

Another thing to look out for is if the studio has a variety of tube guitar or bass amps in their collection. As a Rhodes owner with some vintage tube amps in my collection, I found that you can get different tones out of a Rhodes and Whurly by experimenting with tube amps. Bass amps will be cleaner, they are designed so the tubes don't overdrive as much. The vacuum tube can impart a tone that you can't get with EQ or other processor, especially with dynamic playing. Different speakers can change the tone too. Between tube amps and speakers there are a world of permutations.

[David R]

I regularly use both my Nord and lots of software. The choice often depends on the track and how exposed my part is going to be. I did one tune which I recorded on my Nord because finger-to-sound connection was better there, but the producer much preferred the sound of the Native Instruments Gentleman Upright.

 

There is nothing like a real grand piano under great microphones. The closest thing I have found are large sample libraries with a variety of microphone positions. I haven't tried the Ravenscroft but I hear only good things. For the amount of times I need to record sampled acoustic piano at home, the NI Grandeur, Maverick, Gentleman and Giant work for me. (They also happen to be on sale now.)

 

For electromechanical keyboards, I have learned that even if the studio has the real things to bring my Nord or my laptop rig along as a backup. I did a session that was very Wurlitzer-heavy, and the studio was selected in part for their collection of electric pianos â none of which worked when I got there. My go-to sampled Rhodes is the Scarbee EP-88. I often go between my Nord, Scarbee, the Purgatory Creek Rhodes (hi Busch!), and even Lounge Lizard. The stock EP in Logic is fine as well. It really depends what will fit best in the mix to my ears. There are so many discrepancies between real Rhodes "in the wild," too.

 

I still love the old Scarbee 200 Wurlitzer library. I like the Amped Wurlitzer expansion for Nord too. I find the tremolo is the giveaway for Wurlitzers, and nothing can replicate the thunk of the keys and the internal speakers resonating the chassis.

[AWkeys]

How big is your budget? Nothing touches a real studio with a real engineer and the real instruments, the nuances created with all of these things together. You may be able to get a good studio rate during the pandemic - it costs a lot of money to keep the gear up and running and pay rent on the space, and studio owners need revenue.

 

That said, it doesn't hurt to try to do as much pre-production as possible on your own. You may end up with tracks you recorded on your own that capture the moment and you don't want to replace, which will also save you time and money. My Nord is my main axe, and I use it on recordings all the time. However, it really can't compete with the sounds I get at a real studio using an actual piano, Hammond, Rhodes, Wurli, etc. Most people won't know the difference, but I will.

 

It depends on what your style is as well. Are you going for the most organic sound possible? Do you like any music that people created inside their bedroom studios, and do you want to create that same vibe? Certainly, since this is your music the keyboards I assume are going to the forefront. Many times you can get away with samples or models when they are in a mix, but if they are up front they might sound too "perfect".

[Reezekeys]

At the risk of opening up the typical hard vs soft back & forth, and focusing on acoustic piano here:

 

Native Instruments pianos are half price now. I just got the Grandeur. You can't compare a Roland FP5 or any older slab DP with today's piano plugins that have all the sympathetic resonances, pedal noises, etc. Does the Nord have all of that stuff? If so, is it as tweakable as what some of these piano plugins can do? I'm not shilling for the NI pianos, most of the high-end guys offer this kind of adjustability (but $54 USD was an offer I couldn't refuse!).

 

I'm confident I can tell a studio recording of a slab DP, as most have a bit of a "sterile" vibe to them â too "perfect", in a way. When I record with a piano plugin I use all the noises and also a touch of a "recording studio" convolution space to add some air. I've also taken the time to adjust buffer settings, velocity curves & keyboard dynamics, pedal & string resonances, etc. Stuff that hardware guys may not deal with or even be aware of. It all adds up to increased realism, imo - but it does take work to get everything dialed in to where you feel good. I actually enjoy getting "under the hood" and as a result I've felt pretty good about my setup for a while now.

[mate stubb]

I recorded an entire Americana album over a weekend using just my Nord Stage for AP, EP and organ. It sounded perfectly fine.

 

Tip: Play the EPs thru an external tube amp like a small Fender and mic them.

[ElmerJFudd]

Yes you can get excellent sounding recordings with sampled or even modeled instruments. You would record your own piano if you have a nice location and mics, a unique sounding instrument or an exceptional instrument of the quality the makers of software pianos have access to. Obviously you"d also want a controller that interacts well with the software instrument of your choice. A Yamaha Avant Grande is an excellent choice. In more affordable territory there is the Kawai VPC-1.

[Dave Bryce]

Tip: Play the EPs thru an external tube amp like a small Fender and mic them.

 

Running them direct through a nice tube pre can take the digital edge off things nicely as well.

 

dB

[KuruPrionz]

Tip: Play the EPs thru an external tube amp like a small Fender and mic them.

 

Running them direct through a nice tube pre can take the digital edge off things nicely as well.

 

dB

 

This is also true. For that matter, some of the tube guitar amp plugins are pretty amazing in their own right. I've got the Fender Collection 2 and an Ampeg bass amp collection in Amplitube that are both great sets.

No worries about the tubes being in good condition, biased properly, etc. Speakers are never in need of s re-cone either.

[David R]

I third this (even the real thing). On the Trio Bruxo album, we ran the real Rhodes through a Magnatone amp, mixed with the DI signal. On another album recorded at the same studio, I ran the Rhodes and Wurlitzer through a friend's Fender Princeton. When I'm recording at home, I will likely run my Nord or samples through Guitar Rig or Softube's Amp Room.

[Reezekeys]

Yes, a good amp sim on a good rhodes plugin can sound great. I would be hard-pressed to tell the difference on a recording. More importantly, I would be hard-pressed to care about any differences, even if there are some â especially if the music is happening. What would make a difference is how it felt to the musician playing â that's more important imo. Some folks need the real thing(s) to be happy and that's totally cool. It would be great if I had a music room with a beautifully maintained Rhodes and Twin that I could go to and blast away in â but that's not gonna happen!

[MAJUSCULE]

Like everything... it depends.

 

But as you can see from the replies so far, your NS2 will likely do most of what you need just fine. I've used my former NE3 and my current NS3 on many recordings and I regret almost none of it.

[Docbop]

What is important no matter what you use is to have a good recording engineer who will get you bright, defined tracks, that you can take whatever way you want later.

[timwat]

There are recordings out there that are ruined by using digital replicas - the one that comes to mind immediately is that Allan Holdsworth album of standards.

 

But we've come a long way since then - better hardware with better sounds. One thing that I've been told multiple times - record the MIDI simultaneously if possible so you can keep your performance and experiment with different sounds after the fact. And +1 on a tube amp in your signal chain - they're often your friend, even if it's a little Fender amp (I've done the same thing recording rhodes).

[Mighty Motif Max]

This is something I struggle with...if I'm going to record something, I'd better be able to reproduce it live. Hence I avoid virtual instruments for pretty much everything except electric bass and drums. VIs have gotten quite good, but I just don't want to be forced to take a laptop and interface out to reproduce the music. So I mostly use sounds from my keyboards, or mic up the accordion/flute etc.

[Reezekeys]

This is something I struggle with...if I'm going to record something, I'd better be able to reproduce it live. Hence I avoid virtual instruments for pretty much everything except electric bass and drums. VIs have gotten quite good, but I just don't want to be forced to take a laptop and interface out to reproduce the music. So I mostly use sounds from my keyboards, or mic up the accordion/flute etc.

 

I'm not sure I get your logic here. Playing live and making a recording are two different things. Why not use the best tools you have for a recording, even if they're not the exact same sounds you use live? A recording is "forever" in a sense â a permanent record. Make it sound the best you can, I say. A gig is a different animal with the energy of a live audience (well, eventually, lol!), the sound of the room, the acoustics on stage etc. It's probably not gonna sound the same even if you use the same keyboards you did on the recording. If you wanted to record a song with acoustic piano and were in a studio with a beautiful Steinway or Yamaha concert grand, would you still use the piano sound in your keyboard because you wouldn't be able to bring a real acoustic piano to the gig?

[nadroj]

I've recorded with my Nord several times. Mostly happy with it, but it depends on your engineer. When I'm allowed to tweak and use the sounds myself, it's fine - I know what I want and what it's supposed to sound like. However, in this era of software dominance not every engineer knows how to work with keyboards. I had one guy who wanted to record my Nord's pianos in mono for a studio recording - didn't go back to him.

 

In another session I was asked to play for, the engineer was a very young technical guitar player, who took a MIDI output along with the audio and redid all of my piano with software, which was fine. The problem came when he wanted to do my B3 parts through MIDI too. There was a specific part I was doing in the verse which the artist loved - a quick swell in and out on a certain beat with just the third drawbar out and the rotary on fast. He couldn't get the Nord to send swell/rotary data to his DAW so just asked me to play the notes. "What about the parts where I toggle rotary and use the swell pedal?" I asked. "I'll just add those in myself later." The organ part was just a background part, and I was just there for the session, so I didn't bother arguing any more than I had to. Despite my hesitations, the artist seemed to trust that he'd be able to get the same effect in post. In the end I think he made the rotary go fast once, and it was at the totally wrong point in the song. The swell was totally ignored, of course. Needless to say the resulting organ part sounded awful. That pissed me off.

 

So yeah, my experience is that software or hardware works, depending on the engineer/producer. Generally I record all of my parts myself now. I prefer my Nord uprights to some of the cheaper software pianos I have - they sound plenty good in most mixes. However, on those rare opportunities when I get access to someone elses top of the line software pianos I jump at the chance and go with them.

[marczellm]

Max"s post makes sense to me only if he"s talking about synth sounds.

[Reezekeys]

I've recorded with my Nord several times. Mostly happy with it, but it depends on your engineer. When I'm allowed to tweak and use the sounds myself, it's fine - I know what I want and what it's supposed to sound like. However, in this era of software dominance not every engineer knows how to work with keyboards.

 

[...]

 

In another session I was asked to play for, the engineer was a very young technical guitar player, who took a MIDI output along with the audio and redid all of my piano with software, which was fine.

 

I've always looked at recording midi in addition to audio as a great thing for us keyboardists who use synths or virtual instruments because it does two things: 1) lets you do virtually (sorry!) any kind of editing after the fact, which leads to 2) not taking up studio time doing minor fixes at the session (I usually have quite a few!). However, when I've done CD projects for others and I'm in a real studio and don't know the engineer, I've learned to never let them record my midi. Some engineers see themselves as "producers" and want to replace your sound with theirs. Especially with a piano, that's a recipe for disaster. I've spent a lot of time adjusting my controller's velocity curve settings, along with similar settings in my software so my playing dynamics hit the sample layers exactly where I want them. You can't substitute a different piano plugin and expect it to sound the same â most likely the dynamics will be wrong, and once that CD is out it's your name on there after "piano:", so that's a non-starter with me. I look at my piano plugin like a guitarist might look at their own vintage strat or tele they've lovingly set up to fit their playing style and technique â it's a sound that represents me and I'm not gonna let anyone mess with that. My usual workflow is to record my midi independently on the same laptop that hosts my VI, do my fixes at home, re-render a new audio track and Dropbox to the engineer to replace the original track. I know this is not exactly the situation with your organ track. That's a different animal but points out another landmine of incompatibility â matching non-standard midi controller commands between different softwares. With a piano track you're dealing with note ons/offs and sustain pedal info; every hardware & software piano is gonna recognize those. Swell & rotary control #s are apparently not standardized!

[Tusker]

As to the original question, if the rest of the band is pretty acoustic and small, and the producer has the miking and signal chain set up on a great instrument, I'll often go for that, because sometimes the room sound and acoustic instrument blends well. The more electric a band is and more layers there are in the music, the less difference it makes. Sometimes a studio will allow you to go in beforehand and test the instrument. I am used to a pretty soft action so I take advantage of that when available.

 

On the subject of regret avoidance, you can always regret some aspect of a project. Where I have had disappointments with my work later .... it's not the sounds. It's usually that little comping pattern I could have simplified, the smoother voicing I could have used, etc. It's the music. That's the gift you are giving.

 

All the best.

[16251]

I was listening to Yellowjackets Altered States and just so happen was thinking about the Rhodes sound on Cross Current. (Solo starts at 1:46.) I keep going back and forth if it's a real Rhodes or a VST. I think the plunk when key is struck hard is not real so I keep swaying to VST.

 

[video:google]

 

Then I just so happened to listen to Phoenix album by Cannonball and George Duke's solo on The Sidewalk's of New York, solo starts at 3:15. Now that is what I'm talking about!

 

[video:google]

[ElmerJFudd]

As to the original question, if the rest of the band is pretty acoustic and small, and the producer has the miking and signal chain set up on a great instrument, I'll often go for that, because sometimes the room sound and acoustic instrument blends well. The more electric a band is and more layers there are in the music, the less difference it makes. Sometimes a studio will allow you to go in beforehand and test the instrument. I am used to a pretty soft action so I take advantage of that when available.

 

On the subject of regret avoidance, you can always regret some aspect of a project. Where I have had disappointments with my work later .... it's not the sounds. It's usually that little comping pattern I could have simplified, the smoother voicing I could have used, etc. It's the music. That's the gift you are giving.

 

All the best.

 

A recent Nord Piano 4 promo video shows why a well maintained acoustic with proper micing is preferable in this setting.

 

Granted you can do a lot in the mix to get it to fit in right. And of course you can go direct. It"s really piano from the PA speaker that kills it for realism. Re-amping drums sounds really cool. Micing an electric bass cabinet, also can be really pleasing. But acoustic piano, not so much. imho

[Stokely]

There's something to be said for getting the sound you want and printing it.

 

As others have said, the thought of someone messing with the midi is a bit...off-putting, whether that is editing or reassigning sounds. I just went through this a bit on a friend's project, I have way better virtual analog synth plugins (Diva, Repro, Monark among others) but he was getting so picky that finally we just agreed that he gets the midi and have fun with it. He ended up creating a new part out of several takes and used his (IMO, lousy) moog sound, but hey it was his project and I knew that going in.

 

That said, for my own projects I'm all "in the box"; if I did ever want to record audio from hardware I'd record both audio and midi just to have options later. I can't imagine ever going back to hardware keyboards except for live gigs (if I ever do any again.) I'd want to do the same with guitars (which puts the guitarist in my spot!)--record an amp or sim pedal if they had one, but also record the direct guitar signal. Feelings can get messed with so you have to tread carefully and establish who has control over the final sound (not really talking pro situations here, as I haven't been in one of those for decades.)

 

Going back to point 1 though--unless I force myself to commit to a sound, I'm liable to keep monkeying with it, trying different presets etc. Someone on kvr gave me some advice that when its time to mix, render all the instruments to audio and remove the temptation to fiddle with them (this also helps out with any cpu usage issues, since you aren't using a bunch of instruments plugins.)

[Reezekeys]

Yes, because midi gives you a lot of editing options it's very easy to get "microscopic" and by the time you're done the track doesn't sound that great when you listen in context. I've learned a lot over the years of doing this. It's mostly a matter of self-discipline and knowing when to stop & move on from whatever perceived imperfection you hear. I always try to get it right when I'm recording â having the ability to edit midi is a not an excuse to get lazy or not care about what you put down on the original track. In my experience it always works out better to start with a well-played track, go in and fix the obvious clams and maybe move a few notes here & there if they sound rhythmically out of place. You can't "manufacture" a good-sounding track from one that's not too good.

[nadroj]

Someone on kvr gave me some advice that when its time to mix, render all the instruments to audio and remove the temptation to fiddle with them (this also helps out with any cpu usage issues, since you aren't using a bunch of instruments plugins.)

 

That's a great tip, I'm stealing that and using it. Mixing time is the worst for tweaking!

[SamuelBLupowitz]

Here's a variation on the theme of using tube amps to bring sampled/modeled electric pianos and such to life -- if your acoustic piano sound feels too pristine or synthetic, try running that through some speakers and recording the room sound, too.

 

I know, it sounds silly. And maybe it's wrong for your production (of course, anything can be wrong for your production, no matter how cool it is out of context). But I've learned firsthand how much more "authenticity" that can lend a digital piano sound, particularly if you're tracking with a band.

 

Here is an article from bmi.com about exactly this phenomenon (I'm the keyboard player mentioned in the first paragraph). I swear, having some room bleed into those dynamic (!) mics on the speakers was the difference between "kind of a shitty piano sound" and "hey, he's rocking a piano with a band."