close ur eyes - real or virtual

[hally]

Hi

I would like to hear peoples opinion on wether or not they think the piano in this work in progreess album track is real or virtual and any pointers with the mix wud be much appreciated? The vocal will be re -recorded as it is only a guide...I will be uploading other tracks to get ur opinions

thanks
hally

[Sargaroth]

Sounds virtual to me, mainly because of the lack of dynamics in the playing.

[hally]

Thanks Sargaroth,

any other opinions and ant thoughts on the mix?

cheers
hally

[Wiz_Oz]

sounds real to me


cheers

Wiz

[hally]

Thanks for the input,

You are both right - what i have been doing recently to try and add more debth and body to my old beatup upright piano is I record the piano take in the tracking room. I close mic it and some room mics and a mic very close to the finger board for touchy feely sounds...

I then run this track through melodyne and extract the midi, i clean up the midi as inevitably there are some stray notes etc, I trigger the midi with the imperfect Samples Fazioli Ebony Concert Grand in Kontakt and mix and blend the real take with the virtual piano. This is still in the experimental stage but i'm quite happy with the results thus far...
Its interesting what was said about the dynamics as this is exactly what i am trying to bring out with this method, i obviously still have work to do...

here is the start of a tune where i think the dynamics are more pronounced

help with mic selection on my voice

let me know ur thoughts

hally

[john caldwell]

This is a very original work and I'm grateful to have heard it. Your piano sound is quite nice in the way you've done it, but I'll confess that the unusual treatments of the voices make me curious to hear an "upright only" piano mix. Is it your habit to place the lead voice eccentrically? Not that there is no president for that, but it doesn't give the listener quite the same toehold, and it restricts your use of space in placing the backgrounds, which are so creatively sung as you've done them here.

From an arrangement perspective, I'd have been tempted the have the chorus backgrounds sing in counterpoint, rather than always in synchrony, with the lead. You allude to the timing idea I'm referring to in the beautiful "See what you will find" passage at 1:42. I say it just because your tapestry is so engaging, but there is some competition between lead and BGV elements. Lastly, how about holding the ride until 0:39, and replacing it with a real cymbal recorded in a real space?

John Caldwell

[hally]

Hi John,
I just read ur post as I was eating my breakfast and about to leave for work. Work these days is trying to finish the building of my recording studio and it sometimes feels like it is never ending but ur words of encouragement help me to remember what its all about, thanks you.

I will definately try a mix with just the upright. My thinking with sending the main vocal out to the right is I suppose in an effort to add a little bit of interest to what is a pretty sparce mix and i love ur idea of the counter point vocal - I have to re record all the vocals as they were recorded spontanously with a 58 and are in my opinion lacking warmth, etc. so i will give the counterpoint idea a shot.

Can i get ur opinion on the following, I have several other verses written for this song which if added to the arrangeent will easily make it a 5 min tune, the more i listen to the song as is the more i like its lenght, short and sweet - do u have any thoughts on this - my vision was to develope the song orchestrally as each verse is sung...

thanks again
hally

[john caldwell]

Treating a piece this unique as a brief vignette is very appealing, but it's important to consider how it sits in the larger body of work. I don't doubt that given your skill, you could keep us interested for 5 minutes so long as your arrangement avoided being static.

Your SM58 vocal sound is deeply unconventional, of course, but I have no criticism of the tones. It is massively different from the track you shared elsewhere done on the 414, but both sounds certainly could have a place in the project.

Again I find this very exciting work and look forward to following this along with you, Hally.

John Caldwell