Digital piano - do you record bone dry, and add fx later?

[alexis]

Hi - I read recently an opinion that it's best to do just what the title of this post says - record (in this case from my Yamaha Motif) bone dry, and add the reverb, compression, chorus, etc., later. The idea was to not be limited by the effects built into the chosen patch.

That makes sense in a way to me, analagous to recording a vocal dry and enhancing later. But I've not heard of people doing that before with digital pianos, so I wonder if maybe it's not common to do that for some good reason or other?

Thanks for any thoughts

[Scramble]

Yes, it is common, especially with the reverb, although with the chorus etc. some people prefer to just go with the sound they liked there and then (to save endless faffing about with FX later).

[BJG145]

...yeah, same with anything; recording dry gives you more flexibility later, but recording with FX saves hassle and may also affect how you play.

[Exalted Wombat]

There's two sorts of effects, those that define the sound of the instrument and those that define its place in the mix. Assuming the piano part is being PLAYED, i.e. not constructed step-time in a sequencer, you'll get a better result by letting the musician hear the sound he'll be making.

For an extreme example, imagine asking a guitarist to play "Shaft" without the wah pedal, saying "we'll put that on later!"

[grab]

If you record the MIDI as well, then you have more options. The digital pianos I've had experience of, you can send the MIDI back to the piano to get out exactly what was played, which might let you do some patch tweakage. Or you can use a PC-based instrument. And you have the option of twiddling the notes themselves if necessary.

[damoore]

As well as reverb, chorus, etc, a big one is resonance. If you keep the MIDI, you can change this later too (if your VST or instrument supports that), but it has a big impact on the playing style, and especially on pedaling.

[CS70]

The more I record stuff, the more I find myself trying to capture the sound I want there and then. No experience with keyboards, but makes it so much easier to make the song sound like I have it in my head..

[alexis]

Thank you everybody for your helpful and thought-provoking answers!

I have adjusted programmable parameters on my Motif to create different sounds for live play, for organs and such. But for some reason when it came to the acoustic piano, for some reason it's never occurred to me to change "that" sound.

I'll keep an open ear for any changes that might be nice to make, based on your comments. I certainly won't feel forced to just because I can!

Thanks again -

[TheChorltonWheelie]

Hi - I read recently an opinion that it's best to do just what the title of this post says - record (in this case from my Yamaha Motif) bone dry, and add the reverb, compression, chorus, etc., later. The idea was to not be limited by the effects built into the chosen patch.

That's exactly how I do it these days, try this: record a patch, with effects, and without, then mix them both into your track. How often do you actually hear the reverb/chorus in the effected instrument, and how much more defined does the unaffected instrument sound.

I've noticed how little effects something needs in the mix, so I tackle the job from the perspective of only adding what I can hear, rather than just starting with the default effected patch and then trying to squeeze it into my track.

[Barry Garlow]

The more I record stuff, the more I find myself trying to capture the sound I want there and then. No experience with keyboards, but makes it so much easier to make the song sound like I have it in my head..

Same here. In fact when recording the keyboards (which here is a Korg SP-200) i run it out to fx, amp & speakers and mic up to taste.

It depends very much on what's to be achieved though. I mean we are usually looking for a very live sound where the music puts the listener "in the room" so to speak.

There's a million other sounds that might be better achieved DI and treatment or even down the bottom of the garden with the faeries

Depends what one is trying to achieve and probably moreover, what feels right.