Journey Band Piano sound

[Dlrshort]

Those of you who cover Journey, could you tell me what settings are being used for ‘Faithfully’ and ‘Don’t Stop Believing’?  It it a CP80 with effects?  TIA.

[Moonglow]

I’m pretty sure the entire Escape album was recorded using a (bright) Steinway. Don’t Stop Believing sounds like a chorus effect was applied. Not sure what was used for Faithfully (different album).

 

The Kronos 2 has excellent stock programs for both of these tunes, so if you have access to one you can investigate how they were constructed.

[Stokely]

I'd personally just use a grand piano sound, but then I'm not a stickler.   Worked for Journey live back in the day I believe.    EscapeRocks is probably the one to ask here!

[Ivan May]

When Gregg Rolie played in Journey, he primarily played a grand piano and a Hammond B3 organ. Neal has claimed that Gregg also used a Mellotron on Any Way You Want It, and the inner sleeve of Captured shows Gregg with a Mini Moog on his keyboard rig along with a Prophet 5.

[vonnor]

For both Faithfully and DSB I use a very bright layering of AddictiveKeys Studio Grand and the Forte stock "Bright 9' Grand" The AddictiveKeys is eq'd with most of the low end rolled off. Mix is roughly 60/40 AK over Kurz.

 

Only difference for Don't Stop Believing is I add a bit of chorus to the AddictiveKeys patch, none to the Forte patch.

 

@EscapeRocks (David) may be a good reference for this.

 

~ vonnor

[wineandkeyz]

10 minutes ago, IMMusicRulz said:

When Gregg Rolie played in Journey, he primarily played a grand piano and a Hammond B3 organ. Neal has claimed that Gregg also used a Mellotron on Any Way You Want It, and the inner sleeve of Captured shows Gregg with a Mini Moog on his keyboard rig along with a Prophet 5.

 

Both of these songs were from the Jonathan Cain era.

[Dockeys]

When I ever used to do Don’t stop believin I used the stock CFX piano on the modx with the mod wheel turned up for the chorus effect. It worked for me. 

[HammondDave]

For “Don’t Stop Believing” I  use the Korg Module’s 80’s Ballad Piano with Polysix chorus and slight reverb, and the Synth Stab for the synth parts. 

[EscapeRocks]

For this song Jon did use a Steinway.  mic'd with a U47 and a 414   Unlike a lot of the rest of the album's synth, Jon used his old Arp Odyssey for the string stabs parts

 

The piano was routed thru outboard effects, especially the classic Roland Dimension D Chorus

 

Currently in my stage rig my Don't Stop piano layers : Steinway from Mainstage with on board SN Concert Grand from my Roland Fantom -08

I run a compressor plug in, tape delay plug in and chorus plug in, and eq plug in on the Mainstage piano.   The Fantom-08 piano is routed thru a very slight phaser plug in in Mainstage

For the stabby parst I use Arturia Solina V played from my Arturia Keylab 61 MK2, layerd with zencore FullChamberString from the Fantom  

 

[Moonglow]

42 minutes ago, EscapeRocks said:

Jon used his old Arp Odyssey for the string stabs parts

 

 

I always thought it was an Arp Omni, with chorus liberally applied. The Odyssey was only duophonic (?).

[EscapeRocks]

19 minutes ago, Moonglow said:

 

I always thought it was an Arp Omni, with chorus liberally applied. The Odyssey was only duophonic (?).

oh yeah oops... I meant the Arp Omni.... the one he used with the Baby's

 

Side note, have a friend who uses UAD interfaces, so he can use UAD plug ins.   He let me mess around one day.  He has their Dimension D plug in,  and dang it it doesn't easily give the Don't Stop piano sound with his PianoTeq Steinway D

[The Real MC]

Jonathan admitted that he recorded DSB on his Yamaha CP70 going through a Harmonizer set to micro pitch change.  It's a nice effect.  When I last covered DSB, I layered Kurzweil piano with chorused piano from my Andromeda, got pretty close.

[hookie]

Just FWIW, when I did DSB, I combined two different piano patches on my PC3 (don’t remember which ones anymore), slightly altered fine-tuning on each, with a sprinkle of chorus, delay, and reverb IIRC.

 

Also, split keyboard using two piano patches on the LH (for bass notes) pretty much same as upper split, but one was +octave, and disabled the sustain pedal. Might sound weird, but it sounded better to me - kept the bass noted cleaner, easier to play cleaner when using some sustain on upper part, if that makes sense. Just thought I’d throw that out there in case it might be useful. 

[Old No7]

8 hours ago, hookie said:

Also, split keyboard using two piano patches on the LH (for bass notes) pretty much same as upper split, but one was +octave, and disabled the sustain pedal. Might sound weird, but it sounded better to me - kept the bass noted cleaner, easier to play cleaner when using some sustain on upper part...

 

I use that trick on my Roland RD-88 and it does keep the bass from getting muddy.

 

Old No7

[EscapeRocks]

11 hours ago, The Real MC said:

Jonathan admitted that he recorded DSB on his Yamaha CP70 going through a Harmonizer set to micro pitch change.  It's a nice effect.  When I last covered DSB, I layered Kurzweil piano with chorused piano from my Andromeda, got pretty close.

 

Interesting.   The info I got was from an in-depth interview with Jon, and engineer Kevin Elson as well as Mike Stone about the entire Escape Album production

 

When talking specifically about DSB here's what was said

 

Quote

Cain says he’s pretty sure that Schon used a Les Paul and a Strat through Marshall amps on the cut, while Cain played a Steinway and an ARP Omni: “A little cheesy keyboard I had from The Babys, which I played those little stabs with.” Elson says piano mics were a U47 on the low end and a 414 on the top. For Perry’s vocals, he recalls using a U47, although he says Perry’s main mic was a Neumann M49. “The 47 had a little more edge on his louder vocals,” Elson says. “It would take a bit more of the sound pressure he was delivering. The 49 had more of that airy, crisp, almost throat distortion sound.”

 

I always thought it was a CP70 as well.    Oh well

[synthizen2]

The chorused/slightly-detuned Piano sound comes up in my playlists from time to time. While none of my bands do "Don't Stop Believing" or any other Journey tune (yet), that sound gets used for the Beatles "Birthday", and the Doors "Love Her Madly" and "People Are Strange". Like the MODX, my MOX8 gets that sound by moving the mod wheel up on just about any stock Piano sound.

 

I can think of lots of other tunes that use this sound that I don't play yet, that I'd like to... ELP's "The Sheriff" comes to mind. (Although that one would be a little more than just "slightly" detuned!)

[Moonglow]

1 hour ago, EscapeRocks said:

Cain says he’s pretty sure that Schon used a Les Paul and a Strat through Marshall amps on the cut, while Cain played a Steinway and an ARP Omni: “A little cheesy keyboard I had from The Babys, which I played those little stabs with.” Elson says piano mics were a U47 on the low end and a 414 on the top. For Perry’s vocals, he recalls using a U47, although he says Perry’s main mic was a Neumann M49. “The 47 had a little more edge on his louder vocals,” Elson says. “It would take a bit more of the sound pressure he was delivering. The 49 had more of that airy, crisp, almost throat distortion sound.”

 

Converging this evidence with the first feature article of Jonathan in Keyboard magazine where he reports using a Steinway, my money is on it being a Steinway.

[EscapeRocks]

3 hours ago, Moonglow said:

 

Converging this evidence with the first feature article of Jonathan in Keyboard magazine where he reports using a Steinway, my money is on it being a Steinway.

Empirical data my friend

 

Does a good piano patch with a bit of chorus get the needed sound in a band setting?  Of course it does.

Being a gear freak, I often challenge myself to see if I can replicate, hence the research.   It's like a game I play, and it's just for my benefit.

 

[mate stubb]

Don't have the track handy to listen, but isn't the tubby badly inharmonic bass of a CP a dead giveaway? Should be easy to hear if one was used on the track.

[Bill H.]

2 hours ago, mate stubb said:

Don't have the track handy to listen, but isn't the tubby badly inharmonic bass of a CP a dead giveaway? Should be easy to hear if one was used on the track.

It's not really because the bass line is being doubled on bass guitar - which disguises it a bit. I just listened to the track with phones, and as a CP80 owner it sure sounds like a CP70/80 to me. The RH part has the same steely attack and fast decay, but it's being fattened with chorus to smooth it out. 

 

When the track starts I suspected something was going on with the bass line, but it's so well mixed that I kept scratching my head. Then in the chorus right after "Shadows searching in the night" there's that little one bar bass pop-up with the same sound. 

 

My take on it anyway. I'll defer to David and the Journey experts. For the record I've never in my life played "Don't Stop Believin" in a band  As a DJ I play the Mega Man and Panic City remix - which fattens this track up considerably while taking it up to a more contemporary tempo for dancing (123bpm). 

[rickzjamm]

I take the easy way out, the Korg Kronos already has a patch "Don't Stop Believ'n", not spot on but close enough.

[D. Gauss]

I wasn't there, but pretty sure he used an actual piano

[Mills Dude]

2 hours ago, D. Gauss said:

I wasn't there, but pretty sure he used an actual piano

Nord Lead