Original Message 1/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  09:46 AM   -   mixing piano...mono or stereo?

Dominic

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Mixing Piano&&&&&and whether to have it in mono or stereo? When I have it in stereo and hard pan the desk pots left and right - it sounds bigger but obviously I lose central definition. When I have it in mono it takes up the centre nicely but sounds a bit weak. How do you guys mix a piano in with panned guitars, stereo pads, etc? Is there a trick like having the main signal in mono then sending a separate stereo signal to another 2 faders compressed or something along those lines to get the centre defined but still create a sense of space across the stereo spectrum?

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Message 2/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  10:58 AM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

milan

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all of the above i guess, depending on whats needed. if its a rhythmic track going through the whole song, then i'd probably pan it like maybe 10 & 2 o'clock, in order to get some stereo effect yet keep it focused. you could then add a wide reverb low in the mix if u want to make it sound more interesting.

like everything else, it depends on the song and its place in it really. i could also see it being panned hard L-R but sitting low in the mix for example.

oh and whats this "When I have it in mono it takes up the centre nicely but sounds a bit weak"? did you record it with mics or is it a midi thing? if it was recorded, you possibly have some phasing issues which make it lose low freq's. maybe you could look at the audio file and see if thats the case. or maybe a tad of low end eq is all you need?

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Message 3/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  01:35 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

k

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yeah cos usualy a 'stereo' piano is some of the top and some of the bottom of the keyboard merging with either side, you can have your piano in mono , eq out a little mid to make room for guitars so they dont both overload the mid freq's and then some ambient verb can spread the piano at the edges, compression to is important fr the piano make it sit right but have the required attack etc

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I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!

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Message 4/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  02:21 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

Dominic

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Cool - cheers gents. So we're saying keep the piano in mono. Some articles on the web say that I could have it stereo like when the player is sitting at the instrument - so Left hand side (bass keys) on the left and the higher keys of teh piano scale on the right. Mines a midi evp88 piano.

Been listening to The Game album at lunchtime and most of the piano tracks seen to be mono panned dead centre.

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Message 5/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  02:33 PM     Edit: 22-Sep-05  |  02:38 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

beds

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if it's just some guy singing at a piano or some classical solo piano then pan the bastard wide as you like.

in a fuller mix, then bring it in a bit, if not the whole way. then add some stereo verb or subtle delay. if you're going for a live sounding mix like a band thing and your piano is some stereo patch or recorded stereo, mono the piano, watch out for phase and pan it where you like.

i sometimes have the piano doubling the bassline, then i'll have two piano parts, the bass one all mono and not much verb, if at all, definately eq the bottom out, then the other part, say a high tinkly bit with lots of verb, pan it so it's more center and narrower, depending on how far apart the top and bottom notes in the part are.


evp88? make it mono and send it through an amp sim with vibrato, autopan, phaser and a delay.

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Message 6/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  03:01 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

Dominic

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Thanks Beds. So you're saying to send it to a bus - mono that bus and keep it dead centre but still coming out of 2 soundcard channels or send it to a mono bus and hard pan it within Logic so the signal only comes out of one soundcard channel? I can do stereo verbs cos i have hardware lexicons. Gotta do all the other fx in Logic though. Oh apart from O/D - got a quality pedal after Milan posted a tip about a year ago and love bringing the pedal output down the desk and eqing to taste.

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Message 7/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  03:35 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

monkeybasket2001

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some tips from the bobby owsinski mixing book....

simulate a room verb for a piano use delay- 211ms and 222ms on either side....

this guy (and his interviewed mixers) says they use panned delays- ie dry coming 10oclock, delayed version coming out at two o'clock- the delay creating a sense of space- can work well...

another tip is to mono check- use the mono sum so you can hear your mix in mono- turn the pan knob until you hear the element dissapear or jump out- its worked for me on high hats- might give you an idea of where to put the dry line....mirror it on the other side with a short delay...

greg

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Message 8/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  04:32 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

Dominic

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Oh I like that tip. Thanks Greg. Gonna try dem all tonight yeah and see wot one is milly yeah. Den I is gonna speech you lot friday and we can all shizzle my nizzle.................


Seriously though - thanks everyone.

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Message 9/15                 Date: 22-Sep-05  @  04:44 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

beds

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i'm not going anywhere near your nizzle.

and i dunno about outboard and patching etc i do it all in the computer innit.

but basically in logic i'd stick a phaser, autopan and amp simulator insert on the evp (free one from voxengo) then a send to a dub delay like logic tape, maybe a autopan on that as well (if your gonna use both make them musically interesting). only coz i like my rhodes like that mind you.

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Message 10/15                 Date: 23-Sep-05  @  05:21 AM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

Pongoid

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Panned hard right and left. Are you mixing in headphones or something? Course you're gonna have some interaction in the center, what are you on about? Mono piano? Don't be daft. It's a total waste of the beautiful tonality that instrument offers to bung it mono. The stereo behaviour's one of the reasons it sounds nice in the first place.

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Message 11/15                 Date: 23-Sep-05  @  09:54 AM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

Dominic

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Even if I pan it to 9 and 3 o'clock it still dominates my mixes too much. I'll keep chipping away though. I know that hard panning can make the instrument lose up to 3 db but stereo painos still swamp my mixes. I still like the sound of having the piano bottom register in mono and the higher register in stereo with a stereo spreader.......sounds a bit Royksopp which is cool. Thanks again.

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Message 12/15                 Date: 23-Sep-05  @  01:02 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

monkeybasket2001

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maybe its an eq issue then- maybe try not mirror your pan but using offset settings like 11 oclock and half past 2.....

the short delay thing should work- just work on getting the mono version sitting well on it side and then bring up the fader of the delayed version until you can 'feel' the spread- you dont nesseraily have to have anything jumping out from the delayed side just the feeling that the piano stretches that far

greg

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Message 13/15                 Date: 23-Sep-05  @  02:01 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

k

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thats a standard technique and works on tons of things, you just have to be very careful about summed mono mixes, but dry one side and delayed version to the other works good on hats, toms (big tom breaks in rock tracks), guitars, percussion stuff like congas etc etc, but the mono issue.... if you listen to the mono track in my profile called FLYING DUB, further into the track the song breaks down and there is actualy a little hand drum bongo sort of pattern playing fast, but due it being panned like that it almost has dissapeared in mono

___________________________________

I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!

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Message 14/15                 Date: 23-Sep-05  @  04:20 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

psylichon

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you'd be surprised how high you can highpass a piano and still have it sound full in a mix. try up around 300-350 with a resonant highpass filter. A higher q will give you a nice boost at those crucial mids if you find the right cutoff frequency.

Also, beware of sampled pianos collapsed to mono... most that I've heard are sampled quite a bit out of phase so they sound super wide in the storeroom but pretty crappy in mono. Often it's the onboard reverb that's phasey, so make sure you kill that first, then make the piano mono, then put on your own verb. Maybe just take one side of it?

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Message 15/15                 Date: 23-Sep-05  @  11:31 PM   -   RE: mixing piano...mono or stereo?

k

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true, and that goes for many sounds but people tend to leave the eq flat adding to top/bottom or mid clutter

___________________________________

I had an idea for a script once. It's basically Jaws except when the guys in the boat are going after Jaws, they look around and there's an even bigger Jaws. The guys have to team up with Jaws to get Bigger Jaws.... I call it... Big Jaws!!!

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