jwnicholson78 Posted August 20, 2022 Share Posted August 20, 2022 (edited) A short piece with piano and strings. Any thoughts on how to tame some of the piano transients? Some of them are very sharp, and when I listen on my phone I find it overloads the little speaker. I don't want to squash the dynamic range, but I find I can't add anymore than a dB or so of compression with hating the sound of it. Update - it took me a while to get back to this, since I was traveling last week. I think a combination of narrow eq's to target some of the piano resonances along with some active eq using the really cool (and free!) TDR Nova has helped a lot. Edited September 3, 2022 by jwnicholson78 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSband Posted August 20, 2022 Share Posted August 20, 2022 Sound good to me, very pretty song. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hidden Symmetry Posted August 21, 2022 Share Posted August 21, 2022 Enjoyed the composition. The mix sounded good in my cans, didn't seem sharp, sounded warm/ full. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bajan Blue Posted August 21, 2022 Share Posted August 21, 2022 enjoyed this and I also didn't notice the piano too much just occasionally perhaps - but if you worried about it did you try EQ - or there is a new Free Plug in that might help https://freevstplugins.net/wavegrove-vastaus/ I only downloaded this a while ago and tried it on a few things - on some it did seem to make a difference - its a bit like Oeksound Soothe but considerably cheaper? Nigel 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwnicholson78 Posted August 22, 2022 Author Share Posted August 22, 2022 On 8/20/2022 at 2:17 PM, KSband said: Sound good to me, very pretty song. Thanks, so much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwnicholson78 Posted August 22, 2022 Author Share Posted August 22, 2022 14 hours ago, Hidden Symmetry said: Enjoyed the composition. The mix sounded good in my cans, didn't seem sharp, sounded warm/ full. Thanks! Appreciate the feedback! Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwnicholson78 Posted August 22, 2022 Author Share Posted August 22, 2022 9 hours ago, Bajan Blue said: enjoyed this and I also didn't notice the piano too much just occasionally perhaps - but if you worried about it did you try EQ - or there is a new Free Plug in that might help https://freevstplugins.net/wavegrove-vastaus/ I only downloaded this a while ago and tried it on a few things - on some it did seem to make a difference - its a bit like Oeksound Soothe but considerably cheaper? Nigel Thanks! I did spend a fair amount of time farting around with EQ but didn't really come up with anything I liked better. Appreciate the suggestion. I'll give it a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
antler Posted August 22, 2022 Share Posted August 22, 2022 Very pretty, somehow makes me feel pensive. For the piano transients, maybe try a multiband compressor or dynamic EQ on target frequencies. Maybe a standard transient shaper might help too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry T. Posted August 22, 2022 Share Posted August 22, 2022 beautiful....to bring down any transient on my stuff i just use the CbB volume control on each individual track and manually adjust each violator down to an acceptable level ???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wookiee Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 Pleasant composition, not sure if they are format compression artifices but I am getting a few complaints on my A7x's. As suggest by Nigel try a little EQ, if you have access to one you might even find an active EQ might be better or even multiband compression. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeeringAmps Posted August 26, 2022 Share Posted August 26, 2022 No issues on the DT990's here, but bear in mind that at 70 my "top end" is pretty well hosed... t oh, and I enjoyed the piece! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chandler Posted August 27, 2022 Share Posted August 27, 2022 Sounds good to me. The piano did stick out a bit in parts. If you are recording using midi, sometimes just reducing the level of the midi a bit can help. Turning down the midi velocity, but turning up the volume can make things smoothers. Also using a different mic can help. If you can do either of those because you recorded a live piano try using a dynamic EQ to tame the frequencies between 2khz-4khz. Every time it gets to harsh the dynamic EQ will bring that level down. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freddy j Posted August 27, 2022 Share Posted August 27, 2022 A beautiful song! Admittedly my geriatric ears are somewhat challenged but the mix sounds good to me! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steve@baselines.com Posted August 27, 2022 Share Posted August 27, 2022 On 8/20/2022 at 10:49 AM, jwnicholson78 said: A short piece with piano and strings. Any thoughts on how to tame some of the piano transients? Some of them are very sharp, and when I listen on my phone I find it overloads the little speaker. I don't want to squash the dynamic range, but I find I can't add anymore than a dB or so of compression with hating the sound of it. Jeff Sounds good to me. I hear a couple of spots on the piano. If you have Neutron 4, I bet it would highlight what frequencies are problematic. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ron_Pko Posted August 27, 2022 Share Posted August 27, 2022 I also don't complain about the mix. I actually think it is pretty good. Composition is beautiful! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Joad Posted August 28, 2022 Share Posted August 28, 2022 Beautiful is the word. nice job? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dream Art Scientists Posted August 28, 2022 Share Posted August 28, 2022 Sounds really good to me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwnicholson78 Posted September 3, 2022 Author Share Posted September 3, 2022 Thanks everyone for the feedback and suggestions. The comments on active EQ were especially helpful. I think a combination of some surgical EQ to tame some of the specific piano resonances, along with additional active EQ really helped. Because of the suggestions, I ended up finding the really outstanding TDR Nova plugin which, as an added bonus, is free. In addition, much to my chagrin, after many hours futzing around, I discovered that I had inadvertently enabled the eq on the audio app that I use on my phone to listen to my tracks and that, too, was contributing to the piano resonances. Whoops! Wonder how much time I lost to that.... Hopefully folks think the new version is an improvement. Jeff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noynekker Posted September 3, 2022 Share Posted September 3, 2022 Great sounding piece Jeff ! I listened on my small iLoud speaker and it comes across as a great and balanced piano sound. Never understood trying to get a "good" sound on teeny iPhone speakers, as you mention in your original post . . . maybe not engineered for high transient material like a piano ? One thing I've always used to zero in on high transients is to turn on Cakewalk's Peak Marker (in the meter settings) . . . which seeks out and actually flags the rogue peaks . . . then you can go in and destroy them all as needed, and actually saves some time in finding them. Maybe this will help what you're hearing ? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markno999 Posted September 6, 2022 Share Posted September 6, 2022 Jeff, Really fine work. The mix sounds good to me. As others have mentioned, Soothe is a great solution for taming peaks. You could also darken up your reverb but I think this updated track sounds good as is. Regards 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now