Compressor settings for pianos No Pumping??

[Frippertronix]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to seriously tweaking compressors and one of the big challenges I'm having is compressing piano chords without pumping. Any suggestions on settings? I mainly use GUP-1, Crunchessor, and Saturated Driver at this point. I need a big, clear sound.

Thanks much!
Dave

[Lunch Money]

Interesting one. To be honest, I've never heard of anyone compressing a piano signal. That doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done, just that I've never heard of anybody doing it or wanting to do it.

Just going out on a limb here, but if you need a big clear sound, surely volume and not compression is what you should be looking into?

If you really want to 'compress', I would probably go with a limiter instead of a 'compressor'. Even though they do similar things, a 'master limiter' used as a track limiter will probably give you the transparency you need, while boosting the perceived output.

Greg

[bduffy]

Interesting one. To be honest, I've never heard of anyone compressing a piano signal. That doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done, just that I've never heard of anybody doing it or wanting to do it...

I would think people compress pianos lots! What if a player strikes it too hard?

[danyell]

Play with the release control to minimize pumping. I like playing with Dominion when I want big sounds. It's got a limiter built in too.

[Sicklecell666]

I need a big, clear sound.

Thanks much!
Dave

Sounds like you want reverb and/or delay more than a compressor..Compressing slightly might help in a dense mix maybe..

[Frippertronix]

Play with the release control to minimize pumping. I like playing with Dominion when I want big sounds. It's got a limiter built in too.

Which direction, fast or slow?

[Frippertronix]

I need a big, clear sound.

Thanks much!
Dave

Sounds like you want reverb and/or delay more than a compressor..Compressing slightly might help in a dense mix maybe..

I've used reverb (PSP's free PianoVerb is working well), but I'm looking to compress because I need the piano to play a very full range, prominent role (but still somehow stay in the background ). However, it's not solo so it can't have dynamics that cause it to fall back in an otherwise heavily compressed mix (what can I say, I probably listened to too much Boston when I was young).

Right now I'm using either of two Giga grand pianos (a Steinway D and a Kawai), lots of hard, heavy velocity settings, and lots of bass on the piano. Then I add only either double tracked vocal or a full string section for the lead melody, and drums (sounds weird but it works, assuming I can get good separation in the mix).

Come to think of it, there is a compressed version of my Grandioso piano included with the set, so I may start using that. I'm trying with my own compressors, though, because I really like the sound of them.

The piano is playing a very "orchestral" role, and I'm finding that with these hard velocities and heavy bass, the chords do not stand out very well without compression to make everything even and fairly forward sounding. This, like most of my mixes, is really pretty hard to achieve without the glories of sonic mud emerging, so I'm forced to struggle to make it work.

Too much reverb will make everything start to muddy together as well, and pumping compressors make the mix sound unstable.

I haven't gotten to the surgical EQ stage yet, but I'm sure laboring over that for a while will help some as well in these mixes.

[Frippertronix]

Interesting one. To be honest, I've never heard of anyone compressing a piano signal. That doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done, just that I've never heard of anybody doing it or wanting to do it...

I would think people compress pianos lots! What if a player strikes it too hard?

Compressing a piano starts to give it that big, muddy '60's sound (think Phil Spector). It's a very tricky sound to work with, but it can give sweet results if used just right.

[Frippertronix]

If you really want to 'compress', I would probably go with a limiter instead of a 'compressor'. Even though they do similar things, a 'master limiter' used as a track limiter will probably give you the transparency you need, while boosting the perceived output.

Greg

Good suggestion, and Pocket Limiter has actually been the best thing so far, but I want to try it with the different sound and feel of some of my compressors.

[useruseruser]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to seriously tweaking compressors and one of the big challenges I'm having is compressing piano chords without pumping. Any suggestions on settings? I mainly use GUP-1, Crunchessor, and Saturated Driver at this point. I need a big, clear sound.

Thanks much!
Dave

The question me came with your post is: What kind of piano?

Do you mean the "classical Grand Piano" or a POP piano or digital pianos?

The latter are normally compressed heaviely in some music genres (quite flat and loud compression scheme together with extreme EQ tweaking).

A classical piano on the other side may need a completely different compression technique (quite long release times) because mostly played enormous expressive. The lodness relation should not be compressed too much there.

Pop and Rock ballads are (in dependance of the arrangement) usually anywhere between ...

[Frippertronix]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to seriously tweaking compressors and one of the big challenges I'm having is compressing piano chords without pumping. Any suggestions on settings? I mainly use GUP-1, Crunchessor, and Saturated Driver at this point. I need a big, clear sound.

Thanks much!
Dave

The question me came with your post is: What kind of piano?

Do you mean the "classical Grand Piano" or a POP piano or digital pianos?

The latter are normally compressed heaviely in some music genres (quite flat and loud compression scheme together with extreme EQ tweaking).

A classical piano on the other side may need a completely different compression technique (quite long release times) because mostly played enormous expressive. The lodness relation should not be compressed too much there.

Pop and Rock ballads are (in dependance of the arrangement) usually anywhere between ...

It's pop but think of the piano in Dancing Queen, by ABBA or the way ELO used piano. Rachmaninoff meets pop radio.

[sangha]

I'm looking to compress because I need the piano to play a very full range, prominent role (but still somehow stay in the background ). However, it's not solo so it can't have dynamics that cause it to fall back in an otherwise heavily compressed mix (what can I say, I probably listened to too much Boston when I was young).

To me, "prominent" and "background" sound contradictory. I'm gonna guess and say that while you don't want the piano to be right in front of everything, you still want to hear it clearly throughout and you don't want it to be a tinkle. You want the full sound of the piano.

The problem here is that the piano takes a huge amount of space in a mix. One way to make a piano clear without it taking over is to EQ the low-end out of it, which is not what I think you want to do.

It's a problem getting an instument with such a wide freq range played at a substantial valume while still leaving room for the other instruments. Would it be possible to pan the piano somewhat far to one side, and shift some of the others to the other side?

Right now I'm using either of two Giga grand pianos (a Steinway D and a Kawai), lots of hard, heavy velocity settings, and lots of bass on the piano. Then I add only either double tracked vocal or a full string section for the lead melody, and drums (sounds weird but it works, assuming I can get good separation in the mix).

Have you considered MIDI compression? Instead of compressing the audio, you could have MIDI Compressor reduce the MIDI volume.

[Frippertronix]

I'm looking to compress because I need the piano to play a very full range, prominent role (but still somehow stay in the background ). However, it's not solo so it can't have dynamics that cause it to fall back in an otherwise heavily compressed mix (what can I say, I probably listened to too much Boston when I was young).

To me, "prominent" and "background" sound contradictory. I'm gonna guess and say that while you don't want the piano to be right in front of everything, you still want to hear it clearly throughout and you don't want it to be a tinkle. You want the full sound of the piano.

The problem here is that the piano takes a huge amount of space in a mix. One way to make a piano clear without it taking over is to EQ the low-end out of it, which is not what I think you want to do.

It's a problem getting an instument with such a wide freq range played at a substantial valume while still leaving room for the other instruments. Would it be possible to pan the piano somewhat far to one side, and shift some of the others to the other side?

Right now I'm using either of two Giga grand pianos (a Steinway D and a Kawai), lots of hard, heavy velocity settings, and lots of bass on the piano. Then I add only either double tracked vocal or a full string section for the lead melody, and drums (sounds weird but it works, assuming I can get good separation in the mix).

Have you considered MIDI compression? Instead of compressing the audio, you could have MIDI Compressor reduce the MIDI volume.

sangha, "contradiction" is my middle name...

Yes, it is a weird and difficult approach. I want a huge background of piano chords (much like the role of a full orchestra), but I obviously need the lead melody to actually stand clearly in front. Panning the piano off does work to some degree. It also just occured to me to try Soniformer on that one track in this case. Maybe some carefully crafted multiband comp would push just enough piano out of the way.

There again, though, I need to bypass the pumping problem.

[sangha]

There's a thread on M/S processing you might want to take a look at. Voxengo has a free M/S processor you can download. Maybe thinning out the middle, while leaving the sidebands full will do the trick, but I have no personal experience with M/S so I can't tell you.

edit: Axctually I meant thinning (cutting lows) on the sideband, since LF's are non-directional, and cutting highs in the middle to clear up the middle

[3*s]

pianos are frequently compressed in pop and dance tunes. I like pumping pianos in that kind of situation, but if I wanted a dynamically consistent piano sound, I'd consider a sonic maximizer. Yes, their primary purpose is to "make things louder," but they compress things in the process, and are transparent about it.

Some good ones are:

BuzzMaxi, W1, TLS Maximizer, and the Waves series.

If you must use a standard comp, try a very soft knee with either a 0ms attack, or a longer attack. Lower Ratios tend to be less noticable.