Piano sustain pedal in recording Help!!

[Zownd]

I Have to mix a project for a client who recorded elsewhere.
The song starts with piano only and lead vocal.
I can hear the pedal giving a thud when released I can EQ it away but that surely doesn't help the piano sound.
anyone had this problem?? Any suggestions?

Also tried C4 on the deep lows but that isn't the way either.

Help .....please

[dBHEAD]

This is an interesting problem, and I've had similar problems occasionally in the past, though not exactly the same thing. If you have the Waves C1, you might try the rumble gate preset, automating the bypass so that it only comes on during the pedal problem --OR-- keep it on the track for the whole song but duplicate the track so that you can "dissolve" from the unaffected track to thr rumble-gated track during the moment of the problem. This latter approach might work better than simply automating the bypass on the C1.

The only other thing I can think of is automating the low frequency cut with the EQ such that the gain reduction in the low frequencies is restored over the course of a few seconds. This might make the tone change more gradual and thus less noticeable.

I'll be interested to hear what other suggestions people here have to offer.

[Zownd]

I found it thanks to you...or at least you inspired me.
I duplicated the piano track
Muted one of the tracks.
Placed an MC 2000 (2) on the audible track.
Solo'd the audible track and started pulling on the crossoverpoint on the MC 2000 until the thumb went away.
Now I copied the mc2000 to the other track.
On track 1 I pressed solo on the higher bit in the MC2000
On track 2 I pressed solo on the lower bit.
Now track 1 I left alone.
Track 2 : I deleted all the thumb sounds.
Now on track 2 there are a lot of holes which I filled with the note behind the hole by stretching it (so excluding that note so only stretching that one) beyond (before) it's original start point
I faked the attacks with fades (on the stretched files) looking at the track without the wholes.
I also found out you can be quite sloppy with this lower end.

It really sounds great now.
Hope anyone will able to use this trick

[Sean Halley]

That's actually the way I usually use Autotune now (thanks to my buddy Scott Wiley six years ago)

Definitely use the C1 as a sidechain compressor, and go back and forth between the two using the same idea...

S..

[Allan Speers]

for the next time:

Whenever I record piano, I always record the pedal sound seperately.

Later, if the pianist had a heavy foot, I invert the phase of this recorded thump, and lay it in by hand. It nulls-out the offending thump but leaves the piano completely unouched.

Ahhh, the simple things.

[Wolfgang Eller]

Sorry but I really don´t understand why you wanna get rid of this "sound"? It is a part of the Grand Piano.

I recorded a lot of famous piano players and some are humming while they are playing . Telling them to stop that is not a good idea - cause that´s their style.

And if somebody has a "big foot" than it´s natural.
Just leave it.

Cheers Wolfgang

[Zownd]

Offcourse wolfgang but not when the pedal is louder then the piano.
And I am talking about a piano and not a grandpiano (or wing?).
So the strings and the pedal are awfully close. Also the pianoplayer lets the pedal slip so it really bangs.

I know what you are all gonna say now : get a decent pianoplayer. That is not up to me though I don't record the stuff I only mix it.
thanks for your replies

[Bryan Cook]

Whenever I record piano, I always record the pedal sound seperately.

Later, if the pianist had a heavy foot, I invert the phase of this recorded thump, and lay it in by hand. It nulls-out the offending thump but leaves the piano completely unouched.

great idea! is it easy to lay it in so that it effectively cancels, or is there a lot of time consuming trial&error nudging?

[Allan Speers]

-Not something you'd do for fun. You can imagine how tedious it is. However, it's the only real solution, when the problem is really bad.

You can do the same thing with squeakes, etc, though the results are not as good. I once had a hairlone crack in my soundbaord, with a pianist who could not come back another day. the crack buzzed noticeably on one particular note at volume. I used a signal generator and a "contact speaker" to get the same buzz without the string vibrating, then used the above technique to kill (most) of it afterwards. It saved my butt, though It probably took me 3-4 hours to fix the track.

[Barnabas]

Is there possibly a pedal thud on the tape that is not during a song? If so, you might be able to invert that and use it to cancel out the thuds during the songs. That's assuming that all thuds sound alike.