Dean,
I'd like to "amplify" David's response here. I have voiced many pianos in my career. I think the voicing on David's recordings are among the best I've heard. Great target to aim for.
Great sounding piano, great recordings David!
Al
From: David Andersen
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 12:22 PM
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Subject: Re: [pianotech] idol voicing
Hi Dean----some questions:
---what speakers are you hearing it through?
---is it just through the the TV, or is there an external amp and system involved?
Speaking in a highly simplified manner, the sound you hear is NOT the sound that's coming out of the piano. The signal you hear has been digitally compressed several times along its signal path before it gets to your ears; has lost both real low and real high frequencies; has had upper midrange frequencies boosted, sometimes in sonically ugly ways.
That said, a majority of pianos used in a "pop" situation sound way too bright, clangy, and metallic for my taste---it's like, why not use a digital keyboard if you want that sound? But that's just the way it is: every person grew up with a different "ideal" piano sound; if your tonal memory of great piano sound was formed by Bruce Hornsby and David Foster-produced records, that snarling, lo-fi GH1B sound is just perfect. Every head is a tonal planet: different gravity, different atmosphere.
Listen to the pianos on the recordings on my website. We try to capture the brilliance and percussive aspect of the instrument AS WELL AS the golden and throaty aspect. Those recording are, as a whole, pretty good representations of how the pianos actually sound----IF you are listening on decent speakers.....
Hope this helps.....
David A.
On Mar 30, 2009, at 8:45 AM, Dean May wrote:
Voicing has always been a difficult subject for me and I think many other technicians. Uppermost is the question, exactly what kind of tone are we trying to achieve? For those of us who have not had the benefit of working alongside a master concert prep technician we are left with exploring what is pleasing to us and our customers, who most often are happy to leave well enough alone. So when Dale Erwin, David Anderson, Ric Brenke, et al, use words on this list to describe a wonderful tonal palate of some hammer’s sound, I’m sorta left wondering what that sound really is as I am not there experiencing it.
Having said all that as way of introduction, I found myself watching American Idol last week. This is a show I have studiously avoided watching as I vigorously disagree with the premise that a true artist’s career can only be launched by winning the fickle public’s voting lottery. This year they seem to have some good candidates as finalists, and several of them are making use of a 9 foot Yamaha grand. Since I suspect many of you have watched the show, I’d be pleased if you would chime in on what you thought of this piano’s sound.
Myself, I do not care much for it. I find it too percussive and shallow, sounding more like a GH-1B than what it seems like a 9 footer should sound. I don’t know if it is a hammer issue, a microphone issue, or a mixing issue. It might be instructive for us less experience voicers out here if some of you more experienced ones could tell us your opinions of this piano. Perhaps, if you are aware of other high profile pianos on TV shows, you could comment on those as well.
Dean
Dean May cell 812.239.3359
PianoRebuilders.com 812.235.5272
Terre Haute IN 47802
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