Recording with hardware, software or the real thing?

[Docbop]

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."

 

 

If you want some grit you can always reamp the track then blend it in with the original.

 

As for room like more warm live sound there is something we did for a artist back in my day. It was a big name artist but he house was underneath the flight path of LAX airport. So jets sounds all the time so he sound proofed the hell out of his studio. So he tracked at his home studio then came to ours to mix and get access to all our outboard gear. Well this album we played his track and they were SO DRY and DEAD you'd need to drink water while you listened. So Keith Olsen the engineer on this came up with an idea to add some life to the tracks. We had big Altec Voice of the Theater PA speaker for play and talk back in our studio (it was a big room). We took one of the Voice of the Theater cabinets laid it on its back and slid it under our grand piano, it just barely fit. Then we put a cinderblock on the sustain pedal of the piano and mic'd the piano up. We blasted the tracks into the Voice of the Theater which played them into the soundboard of the piano. Then with the sustain pedal on out mic's picked up the sympathetic vibrations of the piano strings and gave lots of warm overtones to blend with the original tracks.

 

Back in the day before digital and a zillion plug-ins we had to get creative to get the sounds we needed. So always a way to warmup or add grit.

[KuruPrionz]

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."

 

 

If you want some grit you can always reamp the track then blend it in with the original.

 

As for room like more warm live sound there is something we did for a artist back in my day. It was a big name artist but he house was underneath the flight path of LAX airport. So jets sounds all the time so he sound proofed the hell out of his studio. So he tracked at his home studio then came to ours to mix and get access to all our outboard gear. Well this album we played his track and they were SO DRY and DEAD you'd need to drink water while you listened. So Keith Olsen the engineer on this came up with an idea to add some life to the tracks. We had big Altec Voice of the Theater PA speaker for play and talk back in our studio (it was a big room). We took one of the Voice of the Theater cabinets laid it on its back and slid it under our grand piano, it just barely fit. Then we put a cinderblock on the sustain pedal of the piano and mic'd the piano up. We blasted the tracks into the Voice of the Theater which played them into the soundboard of the piano. Then with the sustain pedal on out mic's picked up the sympathetic vibrations of the piano strings and gave lots of warm overtones to blend with the original tracks.

 

Back in the day before digital and a zillion plug-ins we had to get creative to get the sounds we needed. So always a way to warmup or add grit.

 

That's funny!

I used to do a similar thing when I was in my early teens. I used an upright piano and a brick though. I'd flip the top half-lid back, flip the upper front panel up out of the way and put a small guitar amp up on the music shelf above the keyboard, aimed at the strings. REVERB!!!!! Sort of. Simulated ambience, it sure sounded better than a completely dry guitar. Mom thought it was funny.

 

I bet it sounded awesome blended into the record too!

[brenner13]

It"s a mix for everyone, right?

 

My first real recording project was completed with a pair of second-hand ADAT"s...2002, I think. Worked out fairly well. I barely scratched the surface of the computer thing with n-Track3 a decade ago or more before my last desk top pc bit the dust.

 

Right about then, I dove in deep with iPad and have purchased nearly every gadget and gizmo app that is music related up until the last couple of years when I got very involved with co-running a local bar-gig cover band. Before that time, iOS opened a whole new world of musical experience, exploration, and experimentation for me. I had a couple of years of exceptional creative energies before slipping into the black hole of musical app addiction. Now my devices have the proverbial 'too many choices to get anything done' syndrome. Thank goodness for the cover band duties that helped me climb out of the self-inflicted pit of acquisition despair...buying stuff just because I might really need it someday. I can"t tell you how many apps on my devices that I have no idea what they do or how to work them.

 

Wow too heavy, SORRY! Anywhooooo...I"ve always been more of a hardware guy. The cover band usurped my need to create and record so my comments here are peripheral to the OP"s subject, I suppose...but I DID mostly record original stuff several years ago. Yet the band required I get the best tools for the job...relatively inexpensive, gig-worthy hardware.

 

I have to agree with Joe Walsh album release last decade: I"m an analog man. I love the tactile response of hardware. Case in point, my best sounding Hammond B3 emulation is arguably the B-3X on iPad, and even though my last two keyboard purchases were swayed to exploit that software tech, I"ve gone on to spend more time and money on amps, speakers, pedals and such to help my sub par hardware organ sound get as close as possible to the iPad app so that I don"t have to run the wires and tie up that device as only a sound module. It is rather sillily in retrospect because for far less money and effort, I could have simply bought another iPad. But the wonderful sound of my Numa Compact 2X running through a couple of choice pedals into a small 5 watt amp head and boutique 15' cabinet...oh GEEZ! It sounds sooooo good and makes me so happy.

 

Back OT...For recording? Pick and choose, mix and match for convenience, availability, and taste.