You have given me a big smile. Back in my recording studio days, I contributed to that "crunchy" sound that displeases you so much. I would call it the Early '80's L.A. Pop Sound. It was achieved by juicing/soaking over the top, usually a C7 ( when they were brighter out of the box ) with a 4 or 5 to 1 ratio of sanding sealer and acetone . Not much finesse. You had the technique down if you ran out of 5 oz of the solution when you got to note 88. The mic set up most used was 2 AKG 414's. The engineers did not want to add any EQ, they would rather attenuate than boost. This was not my creation. It was taught to me by the Grand Poobah of LA studio techs Keith Albright. In the case of David Foster (as a sideman/producer Jay Graydon, Garden Rake Studio) many times that sound was produced by the C7 played very hard, a Fender Rhodes with the hammer tips shifted to the next hardness up, custom preamp by Eddy Reynolds ( sometimes tuning stretched to piano, sometimes w/Boss Chorus phase shifter) layered on top (pre MIDI). This became the sound everyone in "smooth jazz" wanted. (Al Jareau, Patty Austin, James Ingram, George Benson, Larry Carlton, etc.) I had 2 studios that bought new Boesendorfer Imperials and demanded the same treatment ( what a waste). I would wear earplugs to tune them. The recordings done with these pianos sold 100's of millions of records. With producer Jay Graydon alone, within 3 years they took home 2 Grammies ( Song of the Year, Best Engineered recording) & 12 top 5 Grammy nominations. This doesn't even include recordings produced by Quincy Jones (27 Grammy's. 79 nominations) & Arif Mardin (11 Grammy's). My point is that when people watch IDOL, buy a recording or tickets, music becomes a comodity/product (like McDonald's or Starbucks). It ain't art. The producers that are this successful know their Kraft and their consumer. For ME to be prosperous I delivered what THEY wanted. FYI, I was trained and mentored (still) under the watchful eye of Edward Court ( Steinway C&A, Steinway Concert Grand Dept). He has contributed to dozens of Classical Grammy Awards & nominations including 6 Grammy recordings from SUNY Purchase alone (2 of the best Steinway D's on the planet).......he has more hate for that sound than you can muster! My answer to him has been.... if classical music didn't philanthropic donations it would have gone the way of the Hula Hoop a longtime ago :)~ I also had many scoring stage accounts and performance venues that would have fired me immediately if I made their pianos sound that "crunchy". IMO , pianos in a recording or performance situation cannot be like a Van Johnson/June Allison movie where 2 people are hot for each other...but don't have any genitalia. Michael Riffle Piano Technician Frazier Hall Room 93B University of Northern Colorado Greeley, CO 80639 michael.riffle at unco.edu office (970) 351-1132 cell (970) 584-TUNE (8863) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/pianotech_ptg.org/attachments/20090331/b10eb35b/attachment.html>
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