mid/late-60's Ramsey Lewis piano sound?

[Cute James]

Hello folks,

One of the bands I play with has voted to cover the Ramsey Lewis version of 'The In Crowd' at our next gig.

[youtube][/youtube]

I would like to ask if anyone has any suggestions for getting that 'vintage' piano sound from a Nord.
Am I correct in thinking that Lewis is playing an upright in that tune? If so, is that the best place to begin my search?

Many thanks in advance!

Cheers,
James
x

[Cute James]

No takers?

[Rusty Mike]

I had to go directly to YouTube to listen to a version of the song, as I could not access it through your link.

To me, the sound is very typical of jazz recordings from the 40's through the 60's. You can hear there is not a lot of overtone in the piano sound, but the woodiness of the soundboard is quite prominent. There is also a distinctly ringing sustain. A lot of Oscar Petersen recordings from that time had a similar sound quality. I play in a jazz big band, and also wanted to capture this sound quality to better fit the arrangements and feel of the band.

The grand pianos in the Nord Piano Library have great attack and overtone. None of them, however, capture the characteristic I described above, so they are not really suited to duplicating this sound. The upside is that the upright piano samples are rich with these qualities, and almost all but the Baumgardt samples will work. For me personally, the BlueSwede is the most appropriate, but you should experiment to suit your ears.

The second part of this is effectively using the EQ. As I said before, the sound is not very bright, so keep your treble down, experimenting based on your amplification, room etc. Same thing with the bass. To me, the mid sweep is most important part. You can take one of the following approaches:

1. Set the frequency somewhere between 250 - 400 Hz and attenuate. There is some muddiness in this area reducing it clears up the sound lot. OR
2. Adjust the frequency between 6k - 8k and emphasize. This will help enhance that woody soundboard.

It will take some fiddling based on what you hear, and you won't need to turn the values to the extremes. Once you found the EQ sweet spot, write your values down in addition to just storing them.

Lastly, you will need to select the proper reverb. I use either Soft Stage or Soft Hall, but just enough to give a little "space" to the sound. You can also compress the sound a little bit, as the dynamics in those old jazz recordings were not all that great either. Compression also helps if you're playing live anyway. Once again, not a whole lot.

These are guidelines to start - you'll need to experiment a bit to find what sounds best to you. I hope this provides some helpful information.

Mike

[Cute James]

Hello Mike,

Wow, many thanks for your detailed reply!

I absolutely agree that the uprights possess this vintage 'woody' character far more than the grands.
Up until now, I haven't played a great deal with the EQ, but will definitely pursue this option in the future.
I typically practise at home using headphones which have quite a neutral sound, however when practising at the studio with my fellow bandmates, usually use a Roland KC-500. Despite being a keyboard amp, the Roland applies an additional 'nasally' character to the tone, so I often have to adjust my previously prepared presets in order to compensate.

Interesting that you suggest Soft Strage/Soft Hall too - as a course of habbiy I stick with Room almost exclusively, but will definitely give the other types a try.

Thanks again for your detailed reply!

Cheers,
James
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[Rusty Mike]

James,

You are quite welcome. As with most keyboard amps, the Rolands emphasize the wrong frequencies for acoustic piano. I call it "hump" in the sound. Please post with your results.

Mike

[Cute James]

Yes, you're spot on about the Roland amp...it's not so great.

I'll have to try the other uprights when I have some time at the weekend.

Cheers,
James
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[Rusty Mike]

Thank you for your answer Mike, I like the choices you made to get the sound and your overall approach.

[Rusty Mike]

I've applied similar techniques to the Rhodes samples as well. I'm a big fan of the Rhodes sound, and like the Nord samples. With the right EQ, there is a lot of versatility. I've been able to develop something akin to the Neo-Rhodes sound that is so popular now, an older jazz sound (think Ramsey Lewis' Sun Goddess) and a DynoMyPiano recreation that Al Jarreau made famous in the 80's.

The downside is that I did not capture my settings, and the Nord Sound Manager doesn't allow me to see the parameter values. I'm really hoping a future version will allow us to see our program settings. I would otherwise be very happy to share them. I play an Electro 3, so I don't know if my patches could be dropped directly into the NP. I can possibly try to reverse-eingineer them if people are interested, but can probably only get approximate values.

Mike

[Cute James]

Mike, I would be very interested in seeing/hearing your Rhodes settings.

I also own an NE3 (I thought that piano-related threads would garner great attention in the NP forum...), so trying your settings should produce exactly the same sound.

Actually, that's a good point - I wonder if using essentially the same settings on the Electro, Stage, and Piano would produce identical sounds?

Cheers,
James
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[AbuSimbel]

Even if you can't remember your settings... by simply pressing Shift + turning the knob you want to know the value of, it will show you the current value in the display.
Maybe this helps