Making MIDI Piano Sound REALISTIC!
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- Äas pĆidĂĄn 10. 12. 2020
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In this video, I'm covering how to get realistic sounding MIDI pianos. The key to getting realistic sounding piano comes down to using sustain pedal and getting velocities set to be dynamic. Without those two elements, you'll be stuck with crappy sounding MIDI pianos, no matter good the sample libraries are.
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Lacie External Drive (storing sample libraries): imp.i114863.net/Xg2Bo
Logic Pro X: (use the app store)
Komplete Audio 6 (audio interface): imp.i114863.net/jNJbe
Presonus Eris E5 (monitors -- you'll need to buy a pair): imp.i114863.net/kyJ6z
Komplete Kontrol S88 (the BEST MIDI keyboard the link is the newer generation): imp.i114863.net/mLode
Lauten LS-208 Mic: imp.i114863.net/MPReJ
Avantone Pro CV-12 Mic: imp.i114863.net/d25dM
Shure SM58: imp.i114863.net/2oVmz
Audio Technica ATH-M40X (headphones - I have 2 pairs): imp.i114863.net/BNRL1
Novation LaunchPad X (also compatible with Logic Pro X): imp.i114863.net/0gRaM
Sample Libraries I HIGHLY Recommend:
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Native Instruments Komplete Ultimate (this is the BEST bundle you can buy): imp.i114863.net/OkyDz
Arcade: output.com/products/arcade
Signal: imp.i114863.net/Qa2DA
EastWest (Hollywood Orchestra): imp.i114863.net/PemxY
Spitfire LABS (free): labs.spitfireaudio.com/ - ZĂĄbava
A little tip from pianist fella here: when you need to depress/release the sustain pedal for a chord change, depress it a little bit after the chord change and *not* before the chord change. Why's that is because: 1. That's how pianist have been thought to use the sustain pedal; 2. So the first chord wouldn't abruptly stop, that makes it sound clunky (and basically a bad way to use the sustain pedal as a pianist). It needs to flow to the next chord before it can stop, just a tiny bit, I'm saying like maybe an 1/8th-1/16th of a fraction of a beat.
You forget another important thing. It sound fake when all notes are perfectly quantized. So you must randomize quantization so the notes wont play all exactly at the same time.
Absolutely turn quantise off with piano. Any attempt to salvage a quantised piano is just putting lipstick on a pig. 2nd suggestion would be to never ever strap stereo reverb across a piano and call it a sound, Aux send and pan it out of the middle. If you still want to soften attack, add a smallish room to piano channel and set the the wet dry pretty dry, if you can hear the room verb, it's too loud, it should be felt not heard. This very basic video nails the sustain pedal technique for those not playing the pedal in, but really the most important thing is to be able to play it in and leave the piano roll as unadulterated as possible. Piano is tough to get right and even the best can always be better in regards to midi. âïžđ¶đ¶
Thanks for the tip
Uhhh not true. Totally depends on the genre and style you're going for. I perfectly quantize all the time.
This is the thing a lot of people get wrong - timing is not what makes something sound fake... articulation, velocity, and other performances aspects do.
This is why a drum production that is perfectly aligned to the grid (AKA, quantized) still sounds awesome as long as the original performance was awesome.
Now - if you are composing more classical, Neo-Classical, LoFi, etc. then yes you are correct - that more "unedited" sound is good. But saying "you MUST randomize..." is very strong language.
@@NathanJamesLarsen Think about it like this. It is physically impossible for a piano player to play multiple keys perfectly and precisely on the beat. Random quantization would definitely help âhumanizeâ a MIDI piano track, regardless of the genre of music. So I wouldnât go to say that this comment is ânot trueâ. Just my hot take đ€·ââïž
@Nathan James Larsen @Fanta Banta It really depends on what you are wanting. I wouldn't say that its not true all the time but it definitely is okay to quantize perfectly. When there is only piano and not a lot of other sound I usually won't quantize perfectly because you can tell (most people when they play the piano press either their middle finger or thumb first.) but as soon as drums or other insruments come in I like things to be quantized more perfectly.
Peter Mckinnon's cousin who is a music producer!
Are you for real because I believe it either way
đ but seriously though...are you related to peter mckinnon?
Waaa
100% what I was thinking. I just found this channel just now. lol. 100% Reminded me of PM. lol.
bruh...i literally believe u even tho i feel u kiddingđ©đ
Iâve been home recording since the early 70âs, ping-ponging two open reel decks, and this channel has been the most helpful of ALL the dozens and dozens I have viewed. Iâm now and enthusiastic subscriber!
How old are you?
Yo yo yo! Check out our 14-Day Music Producer course where I cover production start to finish: 14daymusicproducer.com
It just verifying my email only. And showing successfully purchased. There is no link for your video course. What happened......
@@sivbal5275 Just sent you an email with a link to the course! Sorry it wasn't smooth - working to get it fixed right now.
czcams.com/video/0XRL6S7qrx8/video.html
Is the link not active anymore for the free session breakdown???
One other thing that makes your piano sound realistic is that they're not perfectly on the grid! When you play vs. drawing the notes in, no player plays the chords perfectly on the beat every time, which gives it a beautiful human imperfection. A way you can do this if you don't play though is by going to functions>midi transform>humanize, select thru for all the options besides "position" and voila, your notes are slightly off grid! This can be used for velocities and note length as well :) Great video Nathan!
Do you leave at the standard setting?
@@aw7223 Can mess around wih them a bit to find the humanized texture you like
I only just switched to Logic and was SO HAPPY to find my electric piano registers ALL of my pedals and also does real time notation where I could adjust notes if I have a finger fumble which is more often than I like to admit. I legit sobbed of happiness from these two small details and I appreciate the sustain pedal was your first tip!
You have... a lot of energy in this video
Haha I thought I was quite mellow đđ honestly just having fun with it tho
ikr
Having a soundfont, like the result that you have got, is one of my biggest dream.
This is by far the most straightforward and extremely helpful tutorial! THank you...
I needed this!! I recorded sections of piano accomp. like 4 times to get correct volume. And then sustained it with reverb and echo. Ah! See! The simple things! So helpful! Also the energy in this video...đ„ł
Love it! đđ
The Sustain pedal tip is indeed an amazing one! I got an E-piano and was playing chords and melodies often with the sustain always on and was wondering why it sounded so muffled all the time, and when you said "the sustain should end before the other chord starts" that made so much sense. For both playing an actual live instrument or for programming MIDI. Thanks Nathan!
Love it, and like your presentation style. To the point but you got personality and are likeable. Look forward to seeing your other videos
thanx friend. this is the video i have searching for. and delivered it in such a simple and down to earth style of yours.
thanx again.
Love the tips I pick up here. Keep up the great vids.
I find reductive/subtractive EQ helps so much too, especially high cut, and some select mid-high frequencies pulled down can also feel more real and warm, I generally think midi pianos sound too artificially bright
Omg thanks so much! Now my piano plug-in sounds a lot better
Thanks Nathan! Velocity, oh yes! Just started doing Midi keys not so long ago and this was totaly missing. I had the reverb and the sustain, but not the velocity. So I re-worked my favorite midi track and now it's a totaly different track, with warmth and body. I guess I should have figured that out myself. I mean I don't play the guitar any different. Like... Duh. Na really, thanks.. great job putting that out there!
Truly, Mick
Definetely helped. I'll put it to practice right now. Thank you!
Fast, simple, effective, true. Already knew those tricks, applicable to any DAW, thumb up.
Great tutorials bro! Lots of tips and tricks to get from your vids. Helps a lot ;)! Keep it coming bro!
Thanks m8 I didn't know these features... this saves me a hella lot of time trying to record it myself lol
Wow .. that stuff about the 'sustain pedal' I didn't have a clue about .. glad I found this.
Nathan...you are awesome! Was recording a cover with the âyamahaâ piano đ when this video dropped. Was intuitively doing some of the things shown in the video. Amazing.
Love it! Thanks so much for checking it out!
It's so simple and helped me a lot, thanks!!
simple, easy to follow and undetstand, great vid Nathan :)
Hi Nathan, Every time i watch you i get so inspired go make new beats. KEEP UP WITH WHAT YOURE DOINGđ
Love it!! đđđđđđđ
i love this mans energy
Thank you for making a super helpful video!
Wow, very impressing. Thank you for sharing!
Very valuable video....!!!!....Thank you Nathan !!!!!
Great class, man! Thanks a bunch! I just subscribed.
Thank you for sharing. Good advice!
You're great. Thanks!
Another excellent video. Never knew about the sustain feature.
Thanks for the tips!
Love this video!
Dude is a good teacher. Subscribed!
Just found your channel. Been using GB and Logic forever, but am finally taking it more serious. Instant sub man.
Yooo! thanks a bunch! Happy to have ya
Only thing I am a bit critical of here is stopping the pedal on the beat, when I play these types of progressions I usually drop the pedal the 16th before the beat and use the pedal on the beat
You should actually try depressing the pedal right after the beat/chord change, that's how I've been taught and use over the years of playing piano.
Thank You đ
Thanks a lot for your tips!
0:39 default sound
2:19 sustain sound
3:49 sustain sound 2dots
5:39 velocity
8:27 reverb
thanks!
Love it .
Thanks for the video man.
thank you â€ïž video was helpful â€ïž
Thanks - I am a complete noob using LMMS and the piano notes and chords go: thunk! I know it must be sustain I need - back to finding it then. Great tips and demonstration.
Thank You, very helpfull !!
this is amazing
Just recommended this video to a friend to help with pianos. One thing I'm missing in this is quantisation. Not just appropriate swing but that in a realistic performance, not all notes hit at the same time - this is particularly obvious when the overall velocity is low in a real performance. Just bumping each note in a chord across by a few ticks will smear the transients a bit and create a more realistic sound.
I was thinking the same thing :)
very useful! Thanks!! :)
Great tutorialđ
THANK YOU SO MUCH â€ïž
I wish you continued success in the field of music and youtube
Super and Tanks !! : )
I wish you continued success in the field of music and youtube thank you
Okay now i love you
Thank you
Nice, basic fundamentals. Good tutorial
Thank you!
thank you very much
Peter McKinnon of music industry
This tutorial helped me so much. It turned my terrible sounding midi-piano accompaniment in the song I am working on into something quite nice and much closer to an actual piano sound. In a weird way I think it also helped my actual piano playing because as I was editing the velocity of all the midi notes it brought home just how important varied dynamics are. So thank you for an excellent video!
Thanks Nate for the tutorial..sustain, velocity and reverb ...too make cheap midi piano sound decent
I don't have any native instruments, so have to rely on logic stock pianos, but man, what a fantastic piece of tuition! I can't believe how you made it sound so friggin great! So thanks
Nathan for another exceptional video, seems I have quite a bit of work ahead of me now, re looking at all my piano tracks I've done, but it will be well worth it.
Plenty of good options out there you can look into - Spitfire LABS has their soft piano which sounds great. And yeah this is the tedious side of production but well worth it!
Nathan Larsen yea, I have that, really like LABs, absolute life savers, thanks Nathan, great to know that you recommend something I have, I may just be doing something right?đđđđđ
Hard method for those without a piano: get a lot of public midis of jazz or classical songs. Open them in a DAW where you can clearly see the overall change in velocity. Study about 1000+ of those and you have a general idea where the stressed beat is and how to slightly tweak velocities for chords so it sounds more human.
And no. Don't use this method because it will kill your last brain cells.
Great stuff. Iâve been playing piano a ton in the last couple years. The digital piano sound on my keyboard is not great, so I have been running through an audio interface to the Mac in Garage Band. That helps, but it was still artificial sounding. Recently moved up to MainStage. A little better. Moving to Logic seems like a good place to start. This video will certainly help get closer. Curious if there are any settings within the piano sound itself, beyond sustain and velocity, which are more performance based. I would love to see what you do inside the factory sound settings. Thanks!!!
Dope tutorial. Thanks man. Any recommendation as to which stock plug-in reverb works best and which settings to tweak? Threw me in for a loop when you pulled out the EastWest Reverb lol
Thanks for sustain. Couldnt figure it out how it works.. đđ»
Hey thank you for this
Absolutely! đđ
Nice!
I recently bought Modartt's Pianoteq. Very good sounding pianos.
How much, PRICE?
Thank you for this...
Sure thing!
Hey people, I always wanted guitar in my beats, and I always tried to do it midi, piano was not a problem since I am a pianist but my guitars always sounded fake no matter the plugins or how much I tried with the midi. I got a guitar and learned it and I realized the richness of the guitar cannot ever be fully captured using stock plugins, same goes for the piano, it's a good idea to learn it ;)
I were about to recommend Hammersmith Free from Sonicculture as it a amazing sample library for Kontakt 6 player, but sadly itâs not available anymore
One protip regarding sustain: not ALL piano VSTs are simply "on" or "off" with the sustain. Certain ones out there support "half-pedaling", which is a feature on real acoustic pianos where the pedal can be very lightly applied to create a milder sustain effect. These are commonly paired with analog or continuous damper pedals so the feature can be used while playing live. If you aren't sure if your particular VST has this feature, dive into the settings and see if there's anything about half-pedal. If it supports half-pedal, then EVERY sustain value will be read, and a different sustain effect will be applied at every possible value above 0. Some piano VSTs also have half-pedaling on a different MIDI CC all together, but can usually be configured to use the default Sustain MIDI CC.
Additionally, some really fancy piano VSTs even support re-pedaling, which is another feature of real acoustic pianos: re-pedaling allows a note to be sustained at any velocity, letting you "carry" it at that existing volume into the next phrase. For example, let's say you play an A at maximum velocity, hold the key, and it decays to half the amplitude half a second later. With no re-pedal support, sustaining at that exact moment will not work. The note will just not sustain. If your VST supports re-pedaling, you can pedal at that moment and the note will begin to sustain at that particular velocity. Very very handy feature. In the context of penciling in notes and using MIDI automation, you would give that particular note at that particular step a re-pedal instruction in addition to a default sustain one, and it will actually carry it over to the next phrase instead of leaving it high and dry.
I have a keyboard with no touch sensitivity, can i use a software/plugin to bring it out
@@Bruno-xx2km No.
@@spartan456 thanks.
I figured pretty early on that I can program any keyboard sound...but not the piano. At the end of the day the best way for me was learning the part and record it, even one hand at the time. And then you can fix little issues in your piano roll. Nothing else ever worked for me.
Just a suggestion, it might also help to duplicate the track, and pan one all the way to the left and the other all the way to the right, because if you were to record an acoustic piano, you would use at least two mics, and they would be panned left and right.
Today i googled how to make piano more realistic because I used a piano sample and it sounds so good. When i use my NI Pianos (all you mentioned but my go to is Alicia Keys) just does not sound as good. I think I am just one sustain automation away đđŸđđŸđđŸđđŸ
You need to do one for Fender Rhodes plugin fans too. Yah?
There is also a humanize option for velocity :)
You are great! Thank you! I am watching your videos and help me a lot. I am new in Logic and I have problems to load EW QL pianos in Logic. I do not know why is doing this. Do you have any idea? Thank you in advance for everything
!
Greetings from Athens Greece!
Could you make a video on how to make midi guitar melodies sound good?
NEW NATHAN LARSEN VIDEO?!? LETTTSSS GOOOO!!!
YA Boiiiiiiii!!!
I have been trying traction waveform. Do you know of a way to do that in that program
U so underrated đâ€ïž
Facts
Thank you! We are growing and I'll keep working hard to grow it more! This is just the start!
I would like to add The Grandeur to the list of excellent NI pianos :D
You are right. Human velocity always!!! different.
Hi Nathan. I am trying editing existing piano, guitar and flute music. My goal is to make this music softER and smoothER, in order to help listeners to fall asleep. Could you please suggest a kind of "universal" plug-ins which would make the above-mentioned instruments sound softer and smoother? I am using Logic Pro X.
Cheers
Great video again Nathan! On the velocities for the chords, do you recommend having all notes in the same chord play be the same velocity or have a minor tweak between each voicing, like 70/72/73?
Top note is usually gonna be a bit louder than the bottom two but it also depends on if you want to "pull out" other notes in the chord so they are louder. Example being if you have a Sus chord you might want the sus4 to be a bit louder to bring it out more
@@NathanJamesLarsen thanks for the reply! Iâll experiment with it in my next session đȘđ»
Heck that bar jumps up at me too and makes it hard to get zero. Think I must change the tool bar to side of screen :-)
Haha!! This is why I just play the piano in LOL đ just kidding
Good â€â€â€â€â€â€â€â€
I wish I could see this video sooner.
What's the actual software you use to record your midi piano playing? thx!
since you have presonus eris monitors, do you recommend the Eris E3.5 for home studio and small room?
+ your content is veryyy useful and fun to watchđ·đ·
I haven't tried them but I've really enjoyed the E5's so I'd bet the 3.5s are also good!
So Nathan, how much coffee would you like?
Nathan: Yes.
Bahaha this is hilarious. I do believe I had a shot of espresso before this LOL
Hey man love the videos how do you capture your screen with sound ?
As in what software do you use
Hey I just watched your video and I was thinking will it easy for me to learn how to play piano on a daw or I will need an actual piano?
tysm. my piano sounds so much better now.
That's awesome! So happy to hear that!
@@NathanJamesLarsen as someone who knows vst far before actually learning music.
I believe you can make the chords softer with a slight humanization. maybe about 10 ms of imperfections is good.
It depends on the style and taste tho.
sad it is only for mac only. i have been looking for a good and easy midi software. it does at least look realy easy in this video