The Grandeur & phrase shaping

Question

Greetings,

I can't play piano but I'm truing to produce instrumental compositions with a piano as a main (melody) instrument. As I can't play I put notes in a piano roll. As expected it sounds as a mechanical piano. How to fix notes exect/perfect timing I already know - to apply Groove that shifts notes not randomly but in a musical way. Is there a way/tool that can help me in the same way with notes velocities?

Say I get a stem of vocal from the original track, grab somehow volume curve and apply it somehow to my piano midi  region. Something like Match EQ tools do to EQ curves.

Will be appreciate for any push in the right direction.

Thanks in advance.

Uwe303 · Answer

A common thing is that the left hand plays some bass notes/chords/arps and the right  hand does the (more) busy stuff on top but I guess you already know that. Maybe you try to look for a style, then you maybe get some more information about left and right hand plays, cause it really differs with music style.

Anatoliy · Answer

Thanks. I already mastered those. )

But it's the melody in the right hand that gives away non humane performance the most. And he nothing tells about it as others do not. My left hand mostly play arpeggios so I shape "mountains" accordingly to chord progression. It works and doesn't take much time. Another thing with the right hand that contains melody as well as fills and just "mountain shapes" don't work. (

I guess there is no quick fix for that but I had to ask. )

Uwe303 · Answer

Hello,

it depends on your DAW, some have build in features that can help a lot like cubase midi input transformer, with that you can control velocity with a knob or modwheel, I would not automate the volume curve of a piano with the voice track volume curve, as said above use velocity cause that sounds different and using velocity is the correct way, on top it's better to also have dynamics going with the songs text and feel not just the volume, even if that goes mostly (but totally) parallel. Also a piano player does not presses all keys at the same time sometimes more sometimes less. Then a piano has pedals for controlling sustain, use that too.

https://www.audiosupport.co.uk/how-to-get-a-realistic-midi-piano-sound-in-your-daw/#:~:text=The%20second%20piece%20of%20the,now%20had%20a%20'groove'.

https://youtu.be/0qpapuGpDR4?is=HBYT4zIICYOrbiIq

There is lots of information out there, so have fun trying it all out