I recorded a song at the beginning of the year that used the Noire Pure - Dark preset. When I had it mixed/mastered by a 3rd party, they boosted the mid-high frequencies because otherwise, the piano would be impossible to hear behind other instruments that are strong in the low-mid and mid-range frequencies.
I decided to remaster it on my own, replacing the Dark preset with the Pop Piano preset because it's a bit brighter and fuller. As happens with mixing/mastering, the mid-high and high-range frequencies are boosted both for the individual piano track, and the overall mix. That's when I started to notice an issue.
I was happy with the mix when all instruments are playing, but when I start at the beginning when it's just the piano, I started to hear a strange sound that reminded me of hearing MP3's from the dial-up internet days when they were super compressed, and we could hear strange artifacts in the upper frequency ranges. It appears to come from the mid-high frequency range of 1khz-5khz.
Since I discovered a clipping sound that was actually coming from the FX tab in the Noire interface (why is it there, and why is it on by default on Pop Piano???), I thought maybe it was another superfluous flaw from the settings.
I went back and turned off any effect that was on (EQ, compression, noise, stereo widening, pedal, mechanisms, resampling, etc.). I then applied my EQing in Cubase directly to the instrument track instead of the exported WAV I make for mixing, lowered the surrounding frequencies, and turned up the volume. I could clearly hear "whooshing" sounds as if the high end was up when the piano strings were sounding out, but slowly cutting the high-end frequencies as the strings got quieter, distorted and digital sounding.
I've not been able to figure out where it's coming from other than the raw samples. I can't figure out precisely which frequencies that "whooshing" sound is coming from, so I can't isolate and suppress the noise. If I try to decrease the volume to just that range, it counters whatever improvements I've made using EQ, and sounds muddy.
I realize this library is supposed to be dark and moody, but even the slightest boost to mid-high frequencies reveals this issue (much more apparent wearing ear buds for my phone than on my studio monitor speakers or headphones).
Has anyone else run into this issue? Were you able to resolve it? How? This is the best sounding piano library I've ever owned, and I'd hate to abandon it because of this issue.
