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Topic: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand (Read 13934 times) previous topic - next topic

Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

I just wanted to share something with others here: I wrote a piano piece and it sounded OK, but not the way it would sound if I were sitting at a grand piano and actually playing it myself.

So, I played with the settings and the result was a NWC/midi file that sounds pretty darn close to the real thing. Here is what I did:

First of all I changed the default pan value for both staves (by pressing F2 and clicking on Midi, then changing the values at the Stereo Pan field from their default values of 64 to 74 for the right hand and 42 for the left.

That was much better but still lacking, so I decided to add some harmonics to both channels and make them sound further to the left (for the left hand) and right (for the right) hand. I named the new staves Right Harmonic and Left Harmonic. I went to the very start of the right hand staff and pressed shift-end to select the whole staff. I copied it to the clipboard, then pasted the whole thing to the Right Harmonic staff. Similarly, I copied the left hand and pasted it to the Left Harmonic staff. Now, that in itself would do nothing. But I then selected the Right Harmonic staff, pressed F2 and changed its staff properties to Part Volume 96 (so it is less loud than the main right hand), Stereo Pan 108 (so it extends the spatial feel of the right hand) and Transposition 12 (so it plays an octave higher, as is appropriate for piano harmonics). Then I clicked on Instrument and chose Acoustic Grand Piano (same as the right hand).

With the Left Harmonic staff I set these values: Part Volume 96 (less loud), Stereo Pan 12 (further left), Transposition -12 (yes, minus 12, so it plays one octave lower), and, of course, I chose Acoustic Grand Piano.

Finally, I added a little MPC at the beginning of either Harmonic staff. For the right one, I did a Pitch Bend and set it to -2, so it is just barely off and does not sound too computery. For the left one, I did a Chorus Depth and set it to 74.

Finally, I went to the Page Setup and hid the two Harmonic staves.

Now the whole thing sounds much better than just the default Grand Piano setting. If you want to hear the difference, here is the plain default version and here is the one with the harmonics. The difference is especially noticeable if you listen with the headphones!

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #1 –
Interesting, bit I felt that the enhanced version sounded as though the left hand was being played an octave lower.

It's a basic rule of harmonics that a fundamental cannot excite harmonics or resonances at a lower frequency than itself. The ear has adapted itself to assume that the lowest harmonic it can hear is actually the origin of the sound, so your putting a lower octave in the sound spectrum makes the ear guess that that is the original.

Along the same lines, there is a choral trick to make the audience believe that your choir contains multiple Russian basso profundos, and that is to get those who can sing below the stave to do so (augmented possibly, but don't tell anyone, by a discreet tone on the organ), but to put all the other basses on the octave above.

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #2 –
However, a higher string can excite a lower string, probably by exciting an harmonic of the lower string. Since the lower string is vibrating, its fundamental is also present.
Carl Bangs
Fenwick Parva Press
Registered user since 1995

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #3 –
For the sake of completeness (and certainly not to contradict Peter's or Carl's observations), there is a psycho-acoustic phenomenon known as "phantom bass", in which the ear apparently "fills in" a missing bass note below a perfect fifth.

Check out this experiment for a demonstration. (Seems that some people hear the phantom bass, others don't.)

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #4 –
I guess memories change over time. I was eight when I first started to learn the piano. We had a true grand piano in our living room (as my mother was an opera star). I liked to lift its top board (or whatever it is called in English, not my mother tongue, so apologies if I am using a wrong word). The way I remember it, it did produce lower harmonics, but only in the left hand, perhaps because of the angle at which the board was secured.

Then again, I liked to press the pedal when not supposed to because that made many of the strings sound even if not stricken by the little hammers.

But I am 53 now, so it has been a long time, so perhaps I do not remember it all correctly. But the piece sounds better the way I did it, and that is all that counts. One of the advantages of midi is that we can achieve effects that are not possible in the real world.

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #5 –
Nice web page, Fred.

I have often wondered if sing "phantom Bass." No joke. I am a baritone who sings Bass in a choir (poorly). But I sound in tune, and it seems to me that I hit those low notes when banked with the remainder of the choir. Yet when I record my own voice solo, I can't seem to get near the lowest notes with any strength. Makes me wonder if I'm really singing a fifth above (which would be a a strong part of my vocal range).

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #6 –
Yeah, nice web page, Fred.
I'm wondering, though, why does the example with the A panned totally left and the E panned totally right sound so much louder than the centered example(s)?  Shouldn't they be the same volume, regardless of pan?

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #7 –
Uh, Fred, if I am reading your site right, you are suggesting the brain does no mixing if the two ears hear a slightly different frequencies? Actually... A certain Robert Monroe did similar experiments and found out that you can induce altered states of consciousness if you feed the two ears with frequencies that differ by what the brain frequency is during those states (such as 6 Hz). He even patented his result under the name hemisync. He has died since, but the institute he started continues his work. You may find that interesting.

By the way, question, Fred, how do you produce a specific frequency in midi (preferably with NWC), if it is not a pure note? For example, 440 Hz is easy, as it is A4. But 446 is A4 + 23 cents (according to the AnalogX Frequency Converter). Is it possible to produce this tone with midi? Perhaps using the bend function? But how far would I bend to add 23 cents?

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #8 –
Yes, Adam, I'm quite familiar with "brainwave synchronization", which is the more generic term for Monroe's "hemisync". (Actually, I'm surprised he was able to get a patent, probably the patent was for a particular device rather than the concept itself.)

I even posted an experimental brainwave sync piece on the NWC newsgroup some time ago (it was on the old server so isn't available anymore), and got a bit of flak for it because one person did not follow the explicit instructions to use headphones.

At any rate, the whole brainwave sync thing *does* suggest subconscious mixing, as you point out. But it's not a physical or direct neurological function, as near as I can determine. This is grist for the third installment of the Psychoacoustics Experiments, when I one day get that proverbial Round Tuit.

As to the pitch bend question -- converting from cents to pitch-bend units is easy. There are 100 cents in a semitone, and there are 4096 pitch-bend units in a semitone. Thus, there are 40.96 pitch-bend units per cent. ;-)

For direct frequency conversions, I either use a calculator, or if I've got a bunch of them to do I use my Harmonic Analyser in a slightly atypical usage. (Note: doesn't work with NT-based versions of Windows, e.g. W2k, XP.)

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #9 –
Thanks, Fred. :) I have Windows XP, so apparently cannot use your Harmonic Analyser, but a calculator will do just fine.

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #10 –
Re Reply 2: Carl, you are quite right that a higher string can excite a lower string, but that string only oscillates with frequencies that were present in the higher string, certainly not with its fundamental.

How could it? Looking at a string an octave above , the first peak excites the lower string. The second peak turns the lower string round (so to speak) thus exciting the higher tone, whereas the fundamental would require the string to keep going so that it oscillated at half the speed of the upper string. So the lower fundamental is automatically damped by the upper fundamental.

Try an experiment on the piano. Hold a low note ddown. Then strike and release one of the high octaves of that note. You will hear the frequency of the struck note reverberating on the lower note, but no lower "harmonics".

Now strike an octave lower down. You'll hear that tone added to the open string. etc, etc. But you'll never hear the open strings own fundamental until you strike a note lower than it. It's quite instructive to hit non-octave notes as well and see where the resonances happen.

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #11 –
this is also very noticable on "The Searchlight Rag". i always did thingk that the grand piano needed tweaking a bit. rather annoying this isn't a user tip.

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #12 –
Well, I was actually going to submit it as a user tip but forgot how to do it. I submitted one many years ago (https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=2280), but no longer remember how and could not find any information on submitting them on the web site. So, that is why I posted it here instead.

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #13 –
I'm wondering, though, why does the example with the A panned totally left and the E panned totally right sound so much louder than the centered example(s)? Shouldn't they be the same volume, regardless of pan?

Re: Making the Grand Piano really sound grand

Reply #14 –
Carrie, that's an interesting observation.

At the risk of taking this too far off topic.... To me, the mono version sounds marginally louder. I went back and checked, just to be sure I didn't make an error in recording, and sure enough, both the stereo and mono versions have the same total energy. (In fact, if you have your sound card connected to a stereo amp with a stereo/mono switch, you can hear that the two files sound exactly the same with the switch in the mono position.)

So perhaps we have here yet another psychoacoustic phenomenon to explore further.