How to get rich frequencies tail after piano as in Peder Helland "Always" or OCB Relax compositions

Cubase
1

I analysed with ChatGPT and this is what it said:

Recreate the strong upper ringing/resonant tail behind Peder B. Helland’s “Always” or OCB RELAX “Madison” song with piano solo.

This is NOT the quiet background pad/bed. Important spectral regions previously identified around simultaneously at : 443 / 661 / 882 / 992 / 1119 Hz

The ~882 Hz region contains multiple closely spaced components rather than one simple harmonic…

Current conclusion: the target is associated with the decaying piano tail for the 1 or 2 full measure in a slow tempo, not simply another sustained pad/instrument. At the beginning of the reference (Always), the solo piano starts and then stops while rich aliquots continue resonating through the rest of the measure. A separate sustained tone/bordun also sits behind the main solo piano. The setup should identify how this tonal bed relates to the piano-triggered tail, how many layers it contains, and what each layer contributes to the deep, wide resonant texture. So in short : I need explanation on how to map the full-spectrum, multi-layer decay field - it is not simply a tail from sympathetic piano resonance. Already tried that. Any ideas?

2

I can’t answer your question.
However…

I’m thinking you mean “analysed”.
“analized” means something really very different.

3

Yeah…Analized has a very different meaning :slight_smile: (Though AI will definitely do that to us all eventually)

I think what you are on about from a quick listen to a YT track of his is a big ambient reverb..

4

Big reverb does not cover all these frequencies. Chat GPT - A big ambient reverb can preserve and smear frequencies already present in the piano, but it does not normally create several strong, distinct resonant frequency clusters simultaneously like the ones we found in Peder’s tail.

So:

Big reverb = size, depth, long decay.
Peder’s ring = big reverb + additional resonant/harmonic structure.

The forum answer explains the large tail, but not the unusual ringing spectrum we’re trying to reproduce. Note: If it was easy thing to do " It is just a reverb" I wouldn’t ask it on the forum. So please, only educated answers… Don’t guess because you will not guess right :))) I am working on it for months and I am a professional.

5

Fixed :slight_smile:

6

Why not just go to the source and ask this Peder guy?

7

I listened to some of that “Always” track on YouTube… the GPT analysis seems kind of useless.

Besides the obvious stuff (pads, reverb, delay and saturation), there’s some heavy EQ boosting in the midrange and some dissonance/pitch instability that seems to be coming from some kind of artificial wow and flutter. If you listen around 3:11 at 1.5x, it’s easier to hear.

If I were trying to reproduce it, I’d first figure out what EQ adjustments it takes to remove the resonance from the original track. Then I’d apply the inverse to a regular piano, and slap on the other effects.

8

Hi @pupidarko,

just an idea, while not having the slightest idea how the original effect had been achieved.
While listening to the piece - and IMO it’s beautiful - those tail frequency portions sound a bit like a “fluffy cloud of reverb tails” that each carefully blend into each other, very smoothly, possibly some algorithmic reverb.

In order to reconstruct (or at least approximate) something like the effect you’ve analyzed, you could try and use a customized, stacked reverb system on the stereo channel, by using a reverb plugin which allows a bit more tail editing and EQ-ing than a simple reverb would allow, but without audibly smudging the tail frequencies you mentioned.

For this, you could either use REVerence (in Cubase) or even the free Wave Arts’ Convology XT, or - if you have access to it - by using something like the Quantec emulation by Relab Development (QuantX / Q82), which has a dual engine for explicit depth editing.

Since you describe five distinct frequency band regions, you can make youself a five-part FX chain (or FX SEND cascade) by EQing the tail portions separately, each area perhaps with a not too wide bell curve.

Perhaps like this: Stereo Channel → FX1 → FX2 → FX3 → FX 4 → FX5.
Then put the same reverb plugin plus a delay plugin into two inserts of each FX channel.
Set the mix percentage in each plugin to 100%, then EQ, per channel, then adapt the levels.
Delay is just an additional option, perhaps then it might even become too much of a stacked FX, perhaps it might still work.

Last step would mean to get even a bit more creative either by just slightly delaying everything, relative to each other, to your taste through the stock delay plugin in Cubase, or even through a good tape delay plugin (Softube Tape Echoes or SSL Native X-Echo). With this, you could pull all previously EQ-ed frequency tail portions minimally apart on the time axis, so one could distinguish them, just without noticing.

All this could actually work - yet it heavily depends on the timing.
But it might be worth trying.

Cheers,
Markus

9

This is something you can get using Valhalla Supermassive. There’s a small hint of shimmer on it, but that could be just the upper harmonics of the piano blooming in the reverb.

This is just Valhalla Supermassive on the preset “CygnusX1” with some tweaks.

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10

Ahahaha Good one :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: . This is Soothing Relaxation with millions of listeners. Peder earns $2 million a month… Yeah, why I not send him an email and ask his secret of making his sound so I can earn some money as well. I wonder how much is paying professionals to mix his music. Seriously?

11

Great, I have it. Usually I use Valhalla Vintage, it is worth of trying :slight_smile:

12

Thank you very much for taking time to answer. The frequencies that Chat GPT analyzed are from the dissonance in pad chords that make the sound juicy.

I never played SUS in a background chord ( thank you classical education ). So I gave Chat GPT to analyze and it came back with those frequencies.

It is very simple. Dissonance makes rich foundation. Solo piano makes it warm and airy. The last thing is to get these “high bells” in reverb.

So I was stuck trying to get the “right” reverb from a piano solo.

Have a great night!

13

Another alternative to that would be some reverb that does some enhancement of frequencies like Eventide’s Temperance.

14

Thank you very much for your time in answering my question. I will work on it! :slightly_smiling_face:

15

I am looking into - very interesting! Thank you for advise. Maybe I will start with lite :slight_smile:

16

Hey @pupidarko,

good points, and for a moment I was indeed thinking of a “lost” (or long-term reverberating chord, but couldn’t get out more of my short time of listening. But now, as you mention this, there might actually be a “method”, which might still require some good amount of time control. What comes to my mind: there are two great plugins by Karanyi Sounds (I’m not affiliated with that company): “Cloud Max 2” and “Cloud Max 3”, both of which can be employed to generate and stack different layered portions of channel reverbs, or at least let such a part of a mix appear this way. And they can be fine-tuned very well.

Also, good find, and glad to hear about you being a pianist!
If that Fsus/G chord was indeed intended as a 2nd instrument by Mr. Peder Helland or a colleague of his, and as such was intended as an added layer without any dominance, but ever so slightly in the background, perhaps it was just a copy of something that had been leveled down to a much higher degree than usual, so that the source became inaudible. Yet its now mostly isolated reverb tail still sits in the Stereo Master and might just’ve been leveled “to taste”, to blend with those decaying piano notes.

As you most probably know, you can do this “source disappearing” thing in Cubase by varying the OUT routing of any instrument’s FX SEND channel reverb, while almost completely silencing its source channel (some soft synth pad or soft organ, or soft e-piano, or soft string layer). And this is really a rather simple way of adding a great atmospheric effect.

Another possibility would be to simply use a really long and thus “slow” reverb tail on a piano channel’s FX SEND reverb channel, then level it to almost inaudible. So that this can psycho-acoustically add up to a layer stack of more than two or three previously played notes - or even their (enhanced) harmonics - into a situational “chord layer” - which actually never had been recorded “as” a chord.

Cheers,
Markus

17

You’d be surprised what you might be able to get if you just asked instead of speculating what may or may not happen. Often times, people are willing to help and enjoy sharing knowledge. But dismissing a good faith suggestion with snark is one way to make fewer friends and eliminate goodwill.

18

Sorry no pun intended. But I asked this question before ( payed online sound engeneers from Feverr ) with no avail. And bunch of advises were sort of - You just play with knobs and eventually you will get there. I sent a message to Peder before not about a sounds but I think what piano he has or something. He didn’t bother to answer. Professionals don’t answer amateurs the real secrets that are result of hard work and time invested. He is an institution now. So I apologize again, I thought you are just answering with no help - like just buy a better reverb. Have a good night!

19

Thanks for clarifying! I didn’t know you had already gone down that path, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. I made the suggestion in good faith because I’ve had better experiences with this approach than you did, even making friendships and ending up in collaborative projects. Either way, I hope you get your problem solved!

20

That’s not always true.