Solo Piano Record Mastering ???

[Inner Light]

Hey guys not sure if a question like this has been asked here or not, but I'm going to be mixing a solo piano album. basically blending the various mics we used to record a beautiful Steinway in an awesome room.

My client and I are wondering if an album of this type would really need to be mastered at all. I mean the budget is there. We were just thinking out loud. What would you say would be the selling point on getting it mastered.

thanks

[Bob Olhsson]

I've been known to put the finishing touches on a classical album mix in a mastering room using high-end monitoring.

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I've been known to put the finishing touches on a classical album mix in a mastering room using high-end monitoring.

I'm doing a solo piano mastering job right now for a "major" label. It's classical, the artist is extremely anal and he wants me to remove some fingernail clicks, for which Cedar retouch is the bees' knees. This artist is so in tune that minor differences in dither choice are important to him.

BK

[Inner Light]

wow, I'm humbled that both of you answerd my question.

It's not a classical album, more of a jazzy, comtemporary type thing. So processing wouldn't be a problem. We just want it to sound great and sill retain the natural dynamics.

Do you guys use compression when mastering classical piano, or classical in general. if so what do the clients normally think about it?

[Bob Olhsson]

I don't!

Back in the '50s and '60s parallel compression was used by some labels including DGG who we stole the idea from at Motown.

[lucey]

Originally Posted by Inner Light

Do you guys use compression when mastering classical piano, or classical in general. if so what do the clients normally think about it?

It's hard to say without hearing a thing but generally you dont need to ... if anything, a touch of limiting is more likely. A little eq is a 'probably'.

[Cellotron]

Without hearing the recording it really isn't possible to say what it needs - but personally I would most likely not apply any compression or limiting at all - instead for these types of things I prefer to automate fader moves if sections or phrases need to be evened out - i.e. extremely quiet passages I might up the fader a db or 2 or 3 (so that all parts can be heard in all the environments with high noise floors such as cars that people do a lot of their listening in) and then find a good transition point (usually right before the first attack of the following louder section) to bring the fader back down. Also - there might be a few peaks that go well above the rest of the program - in this case once again I'll automate fader moves on just those transients. It's much more time consuming than applying a digital peak limiter but if it is done right it ends up being much more transparent.

Beyond that I find that "mastering" these types of recordings can be much more about splicing in the best sections of various takes, possibly getting rid of anomalies such as finger noise or other distracting clicks, possibly applying additional reverberation, and maybe a small touch of eq.

Best regards,
Steve Berson