A faint ringing noise in Acoustic Pianos

[dimitra]

Hello all.
Last week I was playing some piano programs using headphones, instead of my regular amp connection. The headphones are reasonably good ones, Senheisser mid-range over-the-ear phones. So with these on, I noticied that in most of the acoustic piano patches, there is a faint bit of ringing noise after the main note dies down. This is most prominent in the middle E, to A range. I became aware of it while playing around in A-minor scale, and on quarter notes that you hold down for the full beat. The programs where I heard this faint ringing are

• A000 M50 Grand Piano Keyboard
  A001 M3 Mono Piano & Damper
  A021 Stereo Grand 2-Way SW1
  A022 Stereo Concert Piano
  A025 New Harmonic Grand Piano

PLUS, some custom programs in Bank-E (mostly from Korgman).

Now this ringing sound is not something that most people would hear in a performance, so it's not a major annoyance. But I was wondering why this happens? Is this some intentional sound-decay artifact added to the M50 samples? I dont hear the same faint ringing for Electric Pianos, Synth sounds or Strings, whcih seems to indicate that this is specific to Acoustic Piano samples.

[billbaker]

Possibly an artifact of the original sample.

Piano will sound loud with the initial attack then die out gradually until there is just a much less prominent ring of the string. Also the upper end of a real piano has no dampers so playing a loud mid-range note will also excite the upper end of the piano - an artifact that is audible and becomes more pronounced as the the sound of the lower note fades.

Do the pianos that you listed have the "damper/body" effect routed in? That FX can contribute to the high ringing in the name of "realism". If it is present you could turn that off or edit it out completely.


BB

[dimitra]

Thanks for the reply Bill...

Do the pianos that you listed have the "damper/body" effect routed in? That FX can contribute to the high ringing in the name of "realism".

Well, yes and no! Most of these pianos listed here, do have the piano damper/body effect, but the custom program in bank E did not have that, but I still hear that faint ringing. I think it's most likely a "realism" artifact in the sample itself, like you mention. Maybe I'm being a bit finicky here! It's just that once I heard it, now I cannot un-hear it


To give you an idea, here is one song I recorded

https://soundcloud.com/dipankar-1/firef ... ght#t=0:54

Between 00:55 and 00:58 you can hear this faint ringing I was mentioning.