I've been a pianist for nearly 80 years ... and have been recording piano for over 60 years. It is one of the most difficult instruments to record. First of all, you have to start with a good instrument. The only thing that all pianos have in common is 88 keys. Beyond that, they vary all over the map. Many pianos in recording studios have had the hammers 'doped' so that they produce a steely bright sound. This considerably magnifies the problems of recording piano. First of all, you must decide what the piano sounds like. It sounds one way for the pianist ... who may be behind music that shadows part of the sound ... or are you a listener that is some several feet out in front of the piano. If you want the piano to sound like the latter listening case, then you must address how it is recorded. One of the things that most recording engineers are completely ignorant of is the dramatic effects of microphone placement on the instrument. Placing the microphone a few inches above the strings creates almost the same effect as turning the treble EQ all the way up. It unnaturally accentuates the percussive transients, and changes the tonal balance of the instrument. A piano is a combination of both percussive, attack sounds, and long tones of sustained music. Placing the microphone out from the piano even 4 to 6 feet gives a more natural balance between the percussive sounds, and the sustain tones created by the wooden portions of the instrument. This creates a more natural balance that is what the listener usually hears. Very few people listen to the piano with their ears 6 inches above the strings. I would suggest that recording engineers might do this test ... put your ears 6 inches away from the strings ... and see if you like the balance. It does not sound anything like what the instrument sounds to a listener, even one seated 8 feet away from the lid of the grand piano. Close microphones exaggerates the amount of transient peaks in the program material, and while conveying little real useful intelligence, it stresses amplifiers and loudspeakers with peak overload issues. I salute PS Audio for their commitment to fine audio reproduction, but in this case, I believe that good microphone placement technique will create far greater improvements than anything else.
This one is a biggie for me. I’m a professional pianist and have been playing live piano for over 10 years consistently (50 years overall) and an overwhelming majority of piano recordings - solo or in a group - sound anywhere from poor to moderate. I know it’s a very challenging instrument to capture “correctly” but when you play live you become accustomed to that kind of presentation so any recording is just not going to be the same. It’s almost as bad as finding the right piano to play that has the sound and touch you prefer, but of course whatever piano you play is what it is, good or bad. However, good recordings on good pianos in a good venue are very rare in my opinion. I guess I’m very particular about all of this but in the end, I understand the immense challenges of getting piano recordings “right”. I’ve had to learn to accept great performances recorded below average just like having to play on pianos that are below average in terms of their tuning, touch, and overall sound. But when all these elements are in sync…magic!
It's extremely hard to find the "right" way to record a piano. As a player you hear your instrument very different than the audience in some horizontal (and often times also vertical!) distance. So it depends on the sound you want to have for a certain style, mood, room and impression. Recording engineers and producers tend to have divergent opinions about mic selections, number of mics, mic placement and mixing all those sources. I wouldn't be able to judge if a piano recording sounds "right" for every listener. (Not to speak about the selection of the piano itself to begin with - Steinway HB, NY, Bechstein, Yamaha, Kawai - they all sound different and some may be not "right" for your music - regardless of the recording quality)
Hi just got hold of your channel and I have watched all your videos in one go. I have learned a huge amount, thank you. Chris from Mitcham Surrey, Great Britain.
I suggest one reason for disappointing piano reproduction is por mid-range performance from many loudspeakers. Extended treble and bass are important speaker parameters but the mid frequencies are where the ear is most sensetive. This is why the piano is one of the more difficult instruments to record and playback. Same with the human voice. Very few speakers can produce a stunningly lifelike human voice. Quality electrostatic speakers can come close and the vintage Quad 57 is still highly regarded for a mid-range few modern box speakers can match.
Deep knowledge. Some of the best loudspeakers drivers in the world are never made anymore. Unless a small producer takes the initiative (in a good factory).
Piano has been the bain of existence for recording engineers for over a hundred years. It is The Most Difficult instrument to accurately capture with either a horn (in acoustic cutting) or a microphone.
I was listening to an interview with Bill Schnee, who amongst many artist worked on Steely Dan's most well known albums. He talked about this exact thing, that is, how to record and mix piano. He mentioned that you can either go for a very natural sound, or try for a sound that's more aesthetically pleasing (and very unnatural). According to him, never the twain shall meet. So it does seem that how piano is recorded and mixed, at the discretion of the engineers, is one of the most determinant variables.
Don Grusin’s “out of Thin Air” was the first Octave recording I purchased, and for just the reason discussed here. “Now that’s a piano!” I thought. I really think that’s why I prefer Magnepan speakers, and why even otherwise excellent cone speakers sometimes disappoint. My audiophile club gathered to hear some great setups recently, and I returned to what I had decided was my favorite room. Then a piano came in on a particular passage, and it just sounded wrong - strident somehow. So kudos to Octave for working so hard to get it right.
Dear Paul, I criticised a lot the album THE BASS since I REALLY disliked it, but THE SOUNDSTAGE is, to my liking, VERY GOOD. But I would like to make a suggestion to make it even better, it would be very helpful if you published photos, a drawing or a description of how was the real soundstage during the recording, so everybody could "compare" to what their system is showing them. The mic positioning would also be very interesting. And not only for this particular album, but for all of Octave Records albuns. Thanks for you time and keep it up.
I have 3 set ups, all very good. Piano sounds the most true on the system that uses 1960's McIntosh tube gear connected to elecrrovoice patrician speakers. I know many of the horn haters will scoff at this, but the sound doesn't lie. And this is in a not ideal room for such large speakers. It picks up the lightest touch of the key to the hardest plunk, naturally. And it does it effortlessly.
Someone once noted that many composers and conductors don't have high-end stereo rigs. It's been suggested that they "hear" the music as it should be in their minds, and the gear is at least somewhat irrelevant. I've found myself lost in music coming from an AM radio...in a noisy car going 80 mph. Sometimes I find myself reading high-end audiophile publications, or watching RU-vid channels like this one, more than I listen to music. The late Dave Wilson of Wilson Audio once lamented that he found his own best speakers to be un-listenable for days after hearing a live concert. Let that sink in. Enjoy your hi-fi hobby, but for your ultimate happiness (and sanity), keep it in perspective. By the way: Thanks for all you do, Paul.
I recently traded in some speakers that did piano very well in my opinion. SVS Prime Tower Speakers driven with a KT88 tube amp. I listened to so much piano, because it sounded so real (never really liked piano music before). My replacement speakers Polk R700 sound overall much better for more genres of music, but now I find pianos to come across a little harsh at times. The SVS speakers were brighter in the mids and highs than the Polks, while the Polks are more detailed in the mids, but are filled in with more bass, and the treble seems more recessed. The SVS would just completely disappear and had a very good soundstage in a larger part of the room. Either way hours and hours of Piano. Satie ahhh Bliss. Notes from the mid-fi slums.
What is your sonic “concept” of a piano? Aside from the “plethora” of piano keyboards available to conveniently record, all acoustic pianos, whether upright, grands, less than full size, baby, etc all sound a bit different in a given “studio sound room” and will of course vary in perception by how they are recorded. On the occasion you “think” you hear a “true” sound, it’s probably due to the overall synergy of the variables involved that are lining up with your expectations.
In a concert the whole room becomes part of the sound. Many recording studios and many new concert venues are way too reflective.. The best recordings (classical) I've heard were done in older concert halls that were chosen for their acoustics.
Huge issue from musicians: their point of view is based on their proximity to the instrument. If you are the one banging on the piano, you get a much different balance than someone in the audience. This means frequency response, dynamics and articulation have NOTHING to do with the audience presentation. Microphones up close to the instrument are not where ears are typically placed. This means that honesty is based on vantage point and it also means that there is no universal truth!
Of course we have to remember that this is a video series of which one of its aims is give PS Audio; exposure. I assume the letters are real. It's not like Roseann Rosannadana from SNL, where every letter comes from a fictitous Richard Fador from Fort Wayne New Jersey. They know what they're doing at PS Audio and I have no doubt that Octave Records have good sound quality. Of all the audiophile lps I have, except for ones that were established artists to begin with, the only one I keep coming back to for repeated listening to the actual music is Clair Marlo.
I haven't yet heard THAT SOUNDSTAGE track, but I have in the past struggled a lot with piano recordings. Until I got new high-resolution speakers, so speakers are important if you like to listen to piano music. But, another factor I have discovered is the position of the microphones. Many pianos sounds like I'm sitting nearly IN the piano, and if I don't get that feeling because the virtuel distance seems natural, the keyboard seems to go from left to right speaker, even that the keyboard visually is placed in the depth! There are some natural sounding recordings out there, so we have to search. I wonder what thoughts the recording engineers do have.
As an amateur audio/video recorder, I found out many times that nothing will replace the live performance. But, very careful recording techniques from raw recording to finished product depends on the recording person.
Recording piano well is difficult. Most do it with 3 mics. Phasing can also be an issue. I prefer the 3 mic method on a grand with a ribbon mic far enough away to get those milliseconds of delay. Sometimes the ribbon is enough. Just use the other 3 tracks to reinforce it.
The reason that many audiophiles when listening to a recording find the sound of a piano, unrealistic, is because it wasn’t a piano that was actually being recorded. Often it is an electronic keyboard mimicking a piano. You can definitely differentiate between an actual piano and a keyboard, even on a recording.
Hi Paul, I have a question for you: I live in Europe and I have noticed that the videos and audio broadcast from the United States are a little less harsh and have more sound stage than the videos broadcast by Europeans. Is it because of the difference between 110V 60hz vs 220V 50hz or because of transatlantic submarine cable system or none (it’s in my head ;-).
Most of the Fiber Optic pipes crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Europe to America work this way. You are in Europe on the internet, your signal travels to America on these pipes then back to Europe to you. If your internet connection is local in Europe only, your internet connection stays in Europe, it doesn’t bounce to America then back to Europe. Meaning your local internet connection is the culprit that cannot likely be fixed by you. I cannot go through all the minute details on how all the intercontinental connection fiber optic pipes work. It’s too involved. You will have to do what I did many years ago. Many Weeks of research using a lot of patience. All that many weeks of research decades ago is still on the internet buried in servers around the World. The reason for my curiosity how the global internet worked is because I needed to learn “how” to use the internet and “how” it worked. Once I learned that, I was off and running all over the World starting in 1997. Since then I have been just about “everywhere” a lot of that internet from the past is now located on the “Dark Web” that is another story for another day.
The piano is by far the most difficult instrument to record because of the complexity of it's sound projection and how the room affects it. The trade-offs of using a recording studio... acoustically controlled/damped space which provides consistent sounds vs an acoustically beautiful hall with, potentially, many issues good or bad, not to mention a variety of microphone placement options. Often, it's difficult and very time consuming to experiment with the best microphone placement, especially when the piano is an accompaniment to other musicians. A lot of engineers (myself included) would probably choose the ease and convenience of the studio space but the thrill of the chase in a nice hall is always appealing because when it pays off... WOW! Paul is dead on as well about the instrument....they can vary so much. Another argument for a studio recording rather than a hall, where a dedicated piano is usually available. Most live performances I've recorded use rental instruments and you never knew which piano was going to show up until rehearsal or day of the concert. Then there's the piano technician.... another variable to influence the sound on the recording.... Yeah, definitely the most complex instrument to get to sound right...
Interesting, I found the same with pianos. Just can't get the presence of listening to a live piano. Other instruments I can. It will be interesting to listen to the Octave recording the listener was talking about.
There is what I expect is a rare mistake by Octave on track 7 on the Audiophile's Guide The Loudspeaker. Track 7 is Tom Amend playing Solo PIano and it does not sound good because left and right channels are out of phase. I edited the track in Adobe Audition, inverting the phase of one channel - this fixes the track and the piano does sound glorious when the phase is corrected. So, I am sorry Paul, Octave do have one recording out there with a bad sounding piano.
Hi Paul. I just got back into sound engineering after a break of 20 years. I now have developed tinnitus which has worsened from the last few gigs. Do you suffer from it and do any of the people here who comment here have it and how do ya all deal with it?! Many thanks in advance and greatings from Belfast 🇮🇪
Yes nothing beats a doosey, Steinway, fazi in the room but that’s with all instruments lots of money on hifi can only get you so far but to play the instrument itself is something money can not buy.
Have a Steinway for 20 years and my dynaudio C5s always and still reproduce perfect piano sounds.. it is what I based my purchase on..for speakers. TheC5s are perfect NOT… they have low output below 50 hz…
Paul confirming that you dont need his uber priced gear. So much of the fidelity comes from the recording itself. Mid tier gear is plenty fine for the job. Ive got 3 rigs to prove it;]
Agree that "You have to start with a good recording" if you want to hear something that's acoustically convincing as (let's say) a piano. This same premise applies to what Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn has been saying for many decades regarding the front end when putting together a system. You start at the beginning and feed the best signal you can to your downstream components. It's surprising to me that Paul still goes along with the conventional and poorly informed notion that you start with the speakers.
I'm on the same page as Rick, at least in general - - even beloved Diana Krall recordings, which do sound completely lovely, almost always have her more or less "panned" from one side to the other (left/right channels), when she solos, and this is a bit of an exaggeration, at times it can almost sort of sound like two different players with the cords (primarily her left hand) coming mostly from one side and the solo notes from her right hand (which are generally higher in register) coming from the other (the use of 2 mikes covering the layout of the strings) - - but for me personally, my beef with acoustic pianos is the problem of "relative tuning" - drives me up a wall, not just because there is that flavor of being somewhat out of tune, but it's multiple "relatively tuned" strings being played all at the same time - - for me personally, it seems easier to take a guitar player bending strings a bit out of key during a solo than the mass of sound coming from a real piano that never seems precisely tuned - but don't get me wrong, I certainly enjoy Diana's (for example, don't mean to single out Diana) playing and without question her producer has that "lovely" sound down to a science - but hey, if I'm being particularly picky, well - - -
A good recording can make a pretty bad system sound good. A good system can make a bad recording sound listenable in that the system isn't doubling the distortion by adding it's own distortion into the mix. mix. I once heard a Sheffield Labs Direct Disc lp played on a cheap turntable with a $30 phono cartridge. It sounded great. Surprise! Sheffield Labs is back in business manufacturing something different.
If your vocalist centered in the middle doesn't sound like his voice is coming from the ceiling your system isn't as open or airy as it could be (on good recordings). Voices and instrument at the extreme sides might not quite make it to the ceiling on some recordings. I have recordings featuring piano that if blindfolded, you would swear there is a real grand piano in the room. The apparent size would convince you along with other aspects. Tubes might add a bit of pleasant distortion along with their warmth, but they also add BIG. Instruments sound so big, with a good tube amp. Reel to reel tape is also good at portraying BIG... BIG sounding instruments. Want to hear that it's possible to hear sounds behind you when you're only using two front speakers. Tbey say the track Hotline Bling by Drake will do it.
Surely the best way of recording piano is with binaural microphones, the way we naturally hear them. 9 times out of ten, they are recorded with 2 or more microphones, close to the sound board, to pick up each string. I believe Octave Records records binaurally, the same way Chesky Records does, so yeah, the piano is going to sound realistic to our ears.
I see lots of people blaming recordings, etc. But, how many actually own headphones that comply with target responses that are known to be neutral via the latest research (there are only a relatively small number on the market that do, actually)? How many people actually put emphasis on getting speakers that have good FR and directivity characteristics? How many people know that even the best speaker wont sound good if there have been no room corrections or EQ in the bass region to correct for the various room modes? Not many. Most people just plop the speakers down using a tape measure and masking tape and call it a day, which is usually almost always wrong. As someone who used to have to take piano and music theory classes in school, I can say that the main reason its so hard to "reproduce" for some people is due to the broad spectral content it has. Even the low notes will have harmonics extending up quite a way in terms of frequency. If any part of the response is off, that part of the spectrum will be colored by the system, and the piano wont sound the way it should. Get speakers with good response characteristics and straighten out the response of your room at least you will have a chance of recordings sounding the way they should.
Pianos cover 7 octaves. That is about 4 octaves more than any other instrument. They are technically categorized as a percussion instrument, which means they are also among the most dynamic instruments in the orchestra. Now consider that other instruments play one note at a time, or two if the musician is talented. The pianist can play 6 to 10 notes at once!
It can be much more than 10 notes - don't forget the sustain pedal that can hold every previously played note for a long time. Taking to the extreme it could be 88 notes or some less because the higher notes have less sustain.
@@drdelewded As a guitar player I surely know - but we're talking about pianos here. And usually you don't have the frequency range of a piano on a guitar (without the help of effect pedals).
I think most of the blame can rest on the person placing the mics. Using enough of the right mics and knowing where to place them is key. Having the budget and time to dial this in is another issue. I have B&W 802Ds and I think they do a fantastic job reproducing a well recorded piano.
The primary reason pianos don’t sound like pianos in recordings is post EQ and compression to ensure the piano is heard above or “through" a mix. The problem with that is it starts to sound artificial. Elton John's piano sounds exactly like a piano in older recordings. Later recordings it starts to sound like Supertramp and late 70’s 1980’s pop which more closely resembles a harpsichord due to doping the hammers (layering plexiglass over felt) and post processing. Terrible.
And not to mention many software plug-ins that make the piano sound sounds so fake. It’s like they do not properly sample each Keynote of the piano or just Record the middle C and then let the user play the rest which does not sound the same. Sounds like a cheap toy piano with tonal characteristics and qualities that are so bad.
That is where all you people screwed up. You should have bought Paul’s Synergy system.The entire system from the wall plug to the Speakers and Octave record recordings. 👍😎🤗
It's a pretty basic fact that no matter how good your system, no matter how much you spend, the sound is never going to be any better than your source recordings. A good recording won't necessarily make a bad system sound good. But a bad recording can make even the best system sound like crap.
@@Fastvoice Read what I wrote ... _"never going to be any better than your _*_source recordings_*_ "_ That is... if the SQ from your source (vinyl, CD, file, etc.) is crap, you're not going to fix it in your livingroom.
@@Fastvoice No worries ... we all get it wrong sometimes. And yes, I'm quite aware of the stuff they can do in mixing and mastering those recordings .... and there's a lot of it like compression and autotune I really wish we could disinvent.
@@Douglas_Blake_579 There is a concert pianist I have watched on RU-vid. Her hands and fingers are so fast on the keyboard, the camera shutter speed cannot keep up. Her fingers are a blur in the video in those concerts. You probably know who I am talking about. She is famous.
Everybody ! ATC speakers " because of it's founder" Billy Woodman produce speakers that show piano in a beautiful, emotional and very realistic way.Bless you ! 💛💛💛
Piano always sounds harsh and artificial on digital medium to my ears. Manipulating the audio signals using computers and digital processors for effects that will sell the product is questionable. Listen to piano music on vinyl records and tapes with no digital processing in the signal path instead. Enjoy
Pianos are a tuffy to get right. Unfortunately, nearly all instruments in all recordings do not sound right -- voices, too. The incompetent personnel in the recording studios (Octave excluded -- I have not auditioned their recordings) seem to be on a mission to augment the natural beauty of every instrument and every voice. They suck the energy out of drums. They increase the gain on guitars and synthesizers in the mid-range (where we hear the best) to make our ears ring, and they compress and equalize anything and everything. Voice after voice is doubled or has reverb. Have you ever heard live drums? Not with amplification at a concert. Just live drums, from their skins to your ears, From the metal of the symbols to your ears. Then listen to some songs, and hear how those drums are lifeless, and the person singing is seemingly twice as loud as the drums. So you might want to turn up the volume, to try and get some slam out of the drums. But then the voices break your ear drums. What on Earth are the studio personnel listening to that makes them think that they created a good mix? Their mixes are atrocities. I am not suggesting that no one take an artistic license to produce the right expressive emotions that the artists want to convey. But those incompetent studio engineers take a sledgehammer to the music. You don't feel like you are in the studio with the band. You feel like you have an equalizer blaring 6 instruments from the same space, at the wrong gain levels, with the intent to hurt your ear drums. They move sounds around, and change their shape with equalizers. That bass guitar might sound like a bass guitar, if you never heard one in person, or never heard one recorded properly and left alone. But the incompetent studio personnel seem to have never heard an instrument that they think that they can make it sound better (and they make it sound worse -- much worse). If they have a box in the studio, they narcissistically send the signal through that box, and the next box, and the next box. They congest the sound. They clutter the sound. They make the recording sound like a recording. With such incompetent personnel in the studios, the piano cannot escape the sonic vandalism.
Perhaps this person is listening through Bose speakers. Why bother listening to your music system at all. Always remember that this is reproduced music you're listening to. If Octave recordings are the only label that can reproduce instruments properly, this would certainly be a sad world for music lovers.
