I know most basic triad chords on the piano, or for the main major and minor chords at least, but have never really been a piano player beyond the back and forth rhythm between bass and treble hand (think start of John Lennon's Imagine).

Anyway, I have some demo tracks to make and need a piano backing for them. Anyone got tips on a good way to fake a realistic sounding piano player? I was thinking maybe something like Addictive Keys or EZkeys and stealing the MIDI and transposing the notes to the chords I want using a MIDI FX tool to transpose.

Anyone got any good suggestions?

 

Try using Melodyne in studio One 3 Professional on any piano audio file you like. Make changes in Melodyne to your liking and export to midi. Play back with a piano vst you fancy (Hammersmith Pro is rather versitile) and make changes until you are happy. You could then transpose it automagically from within Stuido One. Add effects. Reverb suggestion: Altiverb.

 

Last edited: Apr 29, 2017

write down the melody that you have in mind ad hand it to a piano player

 

Here... 2 hands, 10 fingers. The most notes a pro can play consistently from chord to chord is 12 notes. Thumbs can play 2 notes..... For the majority of people 10 is the max at one time. With that said, depending on the song and what role the piano plays and how many instruments. Typically pop stuff has the root of the chord played by the left hand in octaves. While the right hand plays a 3-4 note chord. Add some syncopation between the 2 hands.... that's pretty basic but that's how the majority of pop tunes these days go

 

get any piano and strike its keys , now this piano might not have strings or other stuff , remember strings have their own how do they call it - elasticity , nowadays its USB controlled with a circuit , look for a weighted key's keyboard controller and good musicmaking & composing !!!!!

 

Wow, then we complain about how garbage music is today...no offense.

 

Ask your piano teacher. If you don't have one, getting lessons might solve your problem.

 

go to your local music college and make a posting on the bulletin board to hire someone for the gig. pay them a little fee and credit them. you will get a piano performance you would never be able to accomplish yourself, they will get some studio experience and a little payola which is always a good thing for a college student plus, it adds to their track record. it's a win-win.
or hire an online session musician:
https://www.fiverr.com/categories/music-audio/session-musicians
https://www.airgigs.com/categories/online-piano-keys-synth

 

I think i know what you struggeling with and i believe you wanna have the FEEL of a real piano player? If one way you have come up with yourself regarding EzKeys, one other is to disable the quantisize and cut up the chords you play and dont forget to alter the velocity. Try move notes around, like you hear them in your head. I actually doing that with decent results from time to time even if i prefer recording in layers (midi on midi). First recording the chords then play around with adding notes by hand. There are a few ways i guess to come close depending on what gear and editing you can do you your DAW.

Amazing that people get almost rude when someone asks, like get yourself a piano teacher.. stunned..

 

Actually, if the OP loves that piano sound, the teacher is the best suggestion.

- Probably every player (guitar, piano, sax...etc.) found himself in a situation where he would like to have another instrument to play the progression in the background, so he could work on that solo or something similar...

IMO there are 3 solutions:

1. Learn to play that instrument Yourself (the best and most rewarding solution... a genuine artistic approach)
2. Write down the score and hand it to someone that knows how to play (collaborations or some sort of agreement... the fastest and best economic solution)
3. Use MIDI or loops if You are a "substandard" player (DIY solution that can help in some cases, and with some genres... the worst solution that actually tries to circumvent the problem; a temporary patch)

 

I just meant that i think that everyone already knows that learning to PLAY is the best thing. But im just going to myself and as a Guitarist/Bass player i sometimes need to find a desent solution on the fly. In that situation i may need a "quick fix" even if it will not be 100%. I mean before im learnt to play the instrument in question here the idea of the song i have are probarly dead already. Most people are aware of that nothing beats the real thing when it comes to playing. Specially if you into writing songs where feel and skill comes in play. So in my mind there is a diffrence asking a stupid question like "what the best piano sound" than a solution or tips on how others solve similair problems to reach a goal.

But thats just me.. and of course all that dont use Cubase dont have a clue ;)

 

Try to avoid unrealistic playing? =P

Nah, really, just try to have an idea of what melody / progression / arp / whatev.. u have before u start. U can even treat (depending on how bad ur playing is) ur DAW just as a test bed for timing inputs from ur keyboard, and then use piano roll adjustments. Use chord tools (Harmony Improvisator etcs) if u wanna shortcut. As the internet usually says: git gud. Practice makes everything easier. Practice w/ metronome even moar so. Just comping alone is prty easy already, tho?

 

1/ copy the midi part, paste and transpose, humanize or whatever you want with a quality kontakt piano library (there's tons of it)
but unless the midi you copy is realisticly played already, midi is not magic

2/ if you have the minimum skills with your fingers, learn and practice only the part you want, and practice this part until you feel at ease enough to add some feeling in the way you play

3/ find a good keyboard player who can do this for you

4/ there's pre-recorded melodic samples, but not sure you will find the one that fits your tune.

it's always great to learn how to play at least one instrument, but don't trust anyone who says you'll get this with a few hours from here to there.
whatever the instrument, w/o writing knowledge, it's 2 years to learn the basics, and 10 years to become a great player, with a daily / several times weekly practice.

you'll shorten the time to achieve this by spending more time playing daily.
but don't be discouraged, it's a lot of fun and great to be able to play what you hear in your mind

my advice: ask yourself where you want to be in 5 or 10 years musicaly speaking, pick the instruments you're likely to use the most and that you feel attracted to, and spend some time playing it for fun if you're not disciplined enough to practice it the usual way.
tons of musicians are self-taught

 

If it okay to say so , here is a collection of videos

(located in the gentleman's channel) you can watch them and see how the hands move and sound off, then use that information in the way you use your plugins ( ideas and inspiration) also here is name of plugin I enjoy its called neo piano mini http://www.supremepiano.com/product/piano1.html then add you favorite delay or reverb on the instrument ( at around -17 to -19db compared to regular signal peaks at -5db or so) that will give it three dimensional sound.

 

Amazing that people get almost rude when someone asks, like get yourself a piano teacher.. stunned..[/QUOTE]

There's nothing rude about what I said and no need to be stunned. How can it be offensive to suggest that anybody learns to play an instrument? The OP highlighted a fact about the state of technology whereby untrained musicians think that the software can make you a virtuoso on any instrument. There are no short cuts to achieving proficient, convincing piano parts if they are a feature of a piece of music. I've been playing piano for 40 years and I get a friend to play complex arrangements when it's vitally important for the piano to be utterly realistic. My playing is sloppy and unimaginative due to lack of practice, which I admit is because I rely on my DAW to fix everything. But sadly, it can't.

 

The only way it's going to sound realisic has been pointed out by many already but I can understand your haste to lay down the piece of music in your mind and the threshold of your playing abilitiy keeping you from reaching that. Maybe lay it down chord by chord recording the midi will bring you at least a step closer to making it sound authentic. You can always edit what you played afterwards if it was really off beat or anything. Prefab midi progressions tend to deliver the opposite of what you have in mind. Intention in the chords, one tone being louder or less loud makes all the difference in how it contributes in making it real so if you don't have the skills of playing all the chords and details right in one go, chop them up and record them bit by bit. It beats any prefab midi file by a mile.

 

First, get some good piano libraries. Ones that have simulated release pedals(if you don't have an actual pedal) and mechanical noises like key down and release noises, and string noises. Second, Strum your chords, especially if you're doing neo soul or rnb. Also it would help drastically to have some notes in your melody off a few milliseconds to give it a humanized feel. Lastly, alter the velocity of each note, a real pianist does this naturally, as it's virtually impossible to play a piece with every note the same volume.

It's really not hard, if you understand music theory and can work your way around a piano roll. I play the keys fairly well and still spend time editing velocity, strumming and timing after I've played a 8 or 16 bar piece.

 

Midiots....
I can play half decent, but using all the tools at our disposal I can make something real and convincing. I usually play the chords I want and track them into EZKeys. There I can transpose and create inversions and get something close. Then drag my midi out of ezkeys and tweak it (the hell out of it for the different song parts) manually.

Once for a hiphop track I took an easily recognizable Aretha Franklin track and used melodyne to rip the midi from the piano performance. Then I cleaned it up and put it in ezkeys. Next I transposed it and flipped all the chords to inversions so the bass notes were closer to the bass line I had in my head.
The final result was something that was completely different and new but sounded really familiar and hooked the listener past the first 30 seconds.

 

Last edited: Apr 30, 2017

Midiots II............
Find similar piano part on youtube, use audio to MIDI in Ableton (or similar) and edit?

 

I wouldn't try to program a piano part unless you are just thinking about doing something simple like playing staccato octaves to reinforce the melody. Even simple chords will sound unnatural if you program them into your DAW as you won't have all the subtle (and not so subtle) velocity variations between the different voices that come naturally to most pianists. If you want to create a more pronounced part such as a intro/ending, solo, or memorable background instrumental then it will stick out even more, and will probably detract from the overall mix rather than add to it. Especially if you do cliche things like copying and pasting from EZkeys or sample packs.

If you are looking for more theory (as in how to write piano parts) as opposed to strictly technique then there are various resources available that can help you. The various Hal Leonard books on different styles of music may help, most of the ideas presented in them are simple to play and apply to your music even for non-pianists. If you really want to dig deep into the subject and are willing to invest a substantial amount of time into the subject the I would recommend <b>The Pop Piano Book</b> by Mark Harrison.