Harsh frequencies in Emotional Piano

[ambinate]

i recently picked up tonehammer's emotional piano while it was on sale before they split into two companies, and i really dig the character of it. i'm having some difficulties properly eq'ing it, though, so i'm looking for a little advice. the main issue is that there seem to be a lot of clashing frequencies that ring out when notes are sustained and played together. i've tried eq'ing them out with a narrow band, but it seems like whenever i isolate one problem area and listen again, i hear a bunch more. the other effect is that having so many of these bands eq'd out leaves me with a tone that's lacking some clarity, but it also lacks some clarity in the first place because of the clashing harmonics that clutter things up.

maybe this will make more sense with a sample:

http://tindeck.com/listen/dqib

no eq has been applied to this (either on the channel or the kontakt instrument) and there's no reverb or anything else on it.

obviously i'm not expecting there to be no overtones or upper harmonics at all, but this just seems like a bit much? right? i feel like i don't notice this when i'm listening to other sampled pianos, both on professionally mastered tracks and just on stuff i hear on these forums, soundcloud, etc. or are my ears crazy

[Yoozer]

You've updated to v 2.0 that was published recently?

Can't listen to it atm but tried disabling the convolution reverbs?

[ambinate]

totally forgot to download version 2, thanks for the heads up! i switched over and i think there's definitely improvement, although it's not totally gone. convolution reverbs aren't enabled either, though i appreciate the advice.

[dannthr]

Unfortunately I am not able to hear your demo right now, but I have heard quite a few emotional piano demos and feel like it's very much an imperfect piano but would contend that to a certain degree that was the point--I feel like it's VERY harmonically rich which adds to the thick emotional feel from each note and it's what lends itself nicely for those sparse Thomas Newman style moments.

I feel it has it's uses, but that it's not for everything.

[ambinate]

Unfortunately I am not able to hear your demo right now, but I have heard quite a few emotional piano demos and feel like it's very much an imperfect piano but would contend that to a certain degree that was the point--I feel like it's VERY harmonically rich which adds to the thick emotional feel from each note and it's what lends itself nicely for those sparse Thomas Newman style moments.

I feel it has it's uses, but that it's not for everything.

hmmm, had not considered this but it's a really good point...thanks for the input! i have to admit i'm a total sucker for that thomas newman piano sound so i was really drawn to this library when i heard it was on sale. i've had trouble getting that kind of character out of other sampled pianos but that may be my own fault for not learning the ins and outs of them more than anything else.

[dannthr]

A full range piano I am currently liking is the Galaxy Vintag D which is a Steinway D Grand Piano run through a really solid, vintage style signal chain. It has a warm mid-low range and a delicate mid-high range. It feels very flexible and paired with a great reverb could definitely tackle a Thomas Newman moment, at least I think so.

What really defines his style is a softly played piano brought way up front in the mix and drenched with verb--the challenge with that will always be mixing because there's a lot of harmonics at that dynamic and the verb will lend itself to mud. So some measure of mixing focus will be necessary to pull it off.