Recording Integrity--Piano and Organ

[Jim Alfredson]

I used my XK3 / XK System on Groovadelphia, organissimo's latest disc. I did an A/B comparison with it and my 1958 B3 through the same Leslie. My B3 is no slouch; it's a great sounding instrument with a very good action. But the XK3 just sounded better in the mix so that's what I used.

 

I used a software piano (specifically The Grand) on "Hold On" from Root Doctor's first album. It sounds great.

 

http://cdbaby.com/cd/organissimo3

 

http://cdbaby.com/cd/rootdoctor

 

Use what sounds the best. For Root Doctor's second disc, I used the piano at the studio, which was a little Wurlitzer spinet. We wanted that "church piano" vibe, and that's what we got. Sounded perfect in the context of the song.

[CEB]

A while back I recorded on a blues project. This band was doing a version of an old Robert Johnson song called 'Me and the Devil'. They wanted a "honky tonk" piano sound so I played it with a patch called Honky Tonk Piano. They loved it. They said it was perfect. I hated the sound. The sound of out of tune piano is like fingernails on a chalk board to my ears .... but you have to give the people what they want.

[lucasb]

Enjoy the new Mac, Dave.

 

Marino- I enjoyed your "philosophically speaking" point.

 

It seems as if this issue is almost the sort of "if money were no object" question. Would anyone take the digital emulation of the B3 or the Steinway instead? (in the non existent "perfect" world...)

 

I'm finding myself wondering about my gigging rig reading this thread but I guess that touches on what people have brought up here regarding the situation you are playing in. On the gig in the right room (one where I get a sound I like) my CX-3 though the Motion Sound Pro-145 sounds great to me. But I cringed when someone hired me to record and told me just to bring that because they couldn't get an organ (this was for a jazz organ trio project). With my ears, in a crowded room with a nice stage and acoustics it sounds excellent, but with a mic or two cozied right up to that speaker and then stuck on CD all I hear are all the 'imperfections'...

[Dave Ferris]

Hey Lucas-Welcome to the forum. Went on your site, really nice B-3 playing, enjoyed.

 

Good to have another player on here, hope to see ya around.

[Yoozer]

As for pianos; I feel there's a difference between the piano included in say, a Motif, which has a known and limited set of velocity layers, and a gigabytes-and-counting piano library for a computer.

 

In a way, Roland's solution to just do away with the memory and model the thing is sane. The compromise is only in the processor speed and algorithm quality, and with one doubling and the other improving every few years since more speed = more possibilities, it's good. That perfect sampling recording session with pristine mics and converters is harder to top.

 

Feeling is the next step. The quality of the feel of the instrument amplifies the enthusiasm; rather give me a piano sample that doesn't span gigabytes but with a great-feeling set of keys than an awesome multi-gigabyte library with a cheap controller.

 

Properly micing a piano isn't easy, and for that reason alone I'd be happy to leave it to people who've been doing that for the past 2 decades and who've put the result in a box.

 

The Mac is still sitting in the box waiting for my friend to come over and install Logic and show me the basic OS has I've always used a PC.

 

But you bought this thing because it's advertized as being easy to use and set up, and because it just works!

 

Why not go ahead, pop in the DVD and follow the instructions on the screen? From experience I can say that it's far easier than installing Windows 98 or XP .

 

Installing Logic isn't a chore either, because you have far less to worry about (e.g. where should I put it) than on Windows.