How to make pristine piano noisy?

PeterWright wrote on 8/5/2003, 4:52 AM

I have a client who runs a dancing school.
I had to compose/play a new ending on to an oldish piano recording, which I've already cleaned up as best I can.

For the new ending, I used Logic Audio and a Sound Module, and it works musically, but the clearness of the ending shows up a bit after fading the old into the new.

Using either Vegas or Sound Forge, what are your tips for adding in noise etc to try and match up with the old recording - the original was recorded with a mobile domestic casette recorder with a built in mike!!! Sounds surprisingly good, but not that good ......

Three things (at least) I need to do:

- Add white, brown or whatever colour noise, to match tape noise

- Add some kind of room reverb to match the old recording.

- Restrict the frequencies in the new piano to make it more "blurred."

Anyway, any tips appreciated. thanks

Peter

Comments

mcgeedo wrote on 8/5/2003, 9:35 AM

That sounds like a real challenge. Is the file small enough to send to me?

PeterWright wrote on 8/5/2003, 8:36 PM

Thanks for the offer. I have rendered the last verse of the old recording and the new ending (two bars) as mp3s, and they add up to about 400 Kb.

I'd be happy to send - I'm at: ariad [at] iinet.net.au

thanks

peter

PipelineAudio wrote on 8/5/2003, 8:47 PM

this promises to be the most entertaining and creative thread ever to appear on the vegas forum! If theres any way, if you could stick a mp3 of the old recording with the old piano and then one of the new stuff I bet all sorts of shennanigans can happen here

JohanAlthoff wrote on 8/5/2003, 10:03 PM

Hmm... I usually get a lot of good distortion out of the Izotope Vinyl plugin, along with some EQ, compression and more EQ. Maybe some kind of verb would help muddle it up, too.

PeterWright wrote on 8/5/2003, 10:14 PM

Glad you're entertained, Pipe.

The mp3 was to save bandwidth, then whatever FX or settings were applied to the mp3 would be duplicated with the original PCM wav.

Anyway, I don't think it'll be necessary (thanks anyway mcgeedo) - I've been having a go in Cool Edit (I have SForge but I'm more familiar with CE) and come up with a pretty good match, by:

1. Applying a reverb using a preset called "last row" - makes the piano a little distant and echoey.

2. EQ - dragging down the trebles, boosting the lows a bit, to get rid of unwanted "brilliance".

3. Mixing in a second track of "brown noise" at a very low level

The result is that when they dance for their Junior Silver Medal, they won't lose points for having music that suddenly sounded different at the end!

mcgeedo wrote on 8/6/2003, 9:14 AM

Peter, what you describe is approximately what I would have done. I would use Sound Forge to snip a bit of noise from the "old," and copy it to a track to add to the "new." Then EQ the "new" until it sounded somewhat like the "old." Maybe add a bit of reverb if the "old" was recorded in a room that was live.

Anyway, I'm glad you've got it working for you. Post again if we can help.

Regards,
-Don