Removing reverb from "live" room

[pmarc]

Solo on an upright piano in 20 ' x 20 ' room with cathedral ceiling. Pretty live, lots of reverb - lousy.

How does Mixcraft remove it? ALSO: can Mixcraft soften up the piano - it's a bit too "bright" for me.

(does the trial version 7.7 64-bit build 316 (25 days left free) remove it or what version will I need? Thanx.

[Acoustica Greg]

Hi,

Mixcraft doesn't have any special function that would automatically remove reverb from a recording. There are several third-party plugins that attempt to do this. Here's one: DeVerberate.

For your piano, choose one of Mixcraft's EQ effects and adjust accordingly.

Greg

[pmarc]

Thanx Greg. So I'd record using my Zoom H5 recorder, then feed the file into Mixcraft and use its EQ effects, combined with using the DeVerberate Ap?

[aj113]

You can do many things with digital recording, but one thing you definitely cannot do with any degree of success is remove room reverb from a recording. Not only is it virtually impossible to remove room reverb, but as you have already found, it almost always sounds crap, so save yourself hours of pointless twiddling and buckets of tears, record dry.

Admittedly that's a tall order when it comes to an immovable object like a piano. I would either record it in MIDI, or build a tunnel around both piano and player, and cocoon them in duvets. That may sound extreme, but it's nowhere near as extreme as your head is going to feel after hours of futility trying to remove the reverb digitally.

[Tiasdad]

Mic placement and type would be crucial here. Other than that, call it ambience and embrace it

[AHornsby]

I agree with Gary (Tiasdad). Here's a good article about mic'ing an upright piano -- from the back side -- among other things. -h

http://www.recordingmag.com/resources/r ... l/200.html

[aj113]

The mics are irrelevant. It's like discussing what type of polish to use for a gigantic oversized turd. Forget it, get rid of the room reverb first.

[Tiasdad]

But surely, using a condenser will pick up far too much room noise. I personally would go for a more directional option to better pick up the sounds I want from an angle I want

[aj113]

But surely, using a condenser will pick up far too much room noise. I personally would go for a more directional option to better pick up the sounds I want from an angle I want

Regrettably, mics have no idea what you want, they pick up every noise that is made. Including room reverb.

[elaw]

But as much as people like to think otherwise, mics *do* obey the laws of physics. Specifically the law that says the closer you are to a source of sound, the louder it will seem.

So get the mic as close as possible to the piano... maybe even inside it. It might alter the "desired sound to reverb" ratio enough to make it palatable.

[Mark Bliss]

I am no expert on recording piano, but I am pretty certain that while the use of highly directional mics, close micing or micing inside a closed piano might reduce the "space" of the room somewhat, I would expect it to probably induce a pretty poor result for multiple other reasons.
Though I'd be somewhat more willing to try something like that than a cheap mic and trying to remove the natural reverb with software.
Bad plan.

Capture the best sound you can up front, and don't try to fix it later, no matter the promised virtual dehumidifier wizardry. Its a guaranteed headache with minimal payoff IMO.

If you want drier piano, record in a drier space. Period.

This is why small studios often have a funky little upright shoved in a small room that is "semi treated" So you can bang on it with a couple of mics situated to capture the things character. You want a grand in a grand room, record a grand in a grand room.

[AHornsby]

We'd all have to agree that there would be no 'getting rid of room reverb' easily. Even if it were possible, there would be no getting rid of reverb within the piano itself. -h