Hello friends can you help me eliminate some ugly distortion from this plug in. It is like the sound of a torn speaker. I could not eliminate it from my main project, so in hope of isolating the problem I created a new test project, and added only two tracks: a MIDI drums track and a MIDI piano track, using MDA Piano plugin. The problem persists here too.
Master levels are going not going above zero. Noise is always in right channel and persists if I change headphones. Problem can be ameliorated by rolling the velocity down to roughly 120 or lower, or transposing the recorded notes to keys/notes lower than A4 but these aren’t practical solutions.
I’m running Ardour 5.12 (Ubuntu Studio 20.04). The version info I can find in the plugjn UI - it just says MDA Piano by David Robillard.
I had a similar thing […], which was resolved when removing doubled notes
it was specifically with MDA Piano, but happened to a smaller amount also with other instruments
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It is not unheard of that some synths can clip (or produce levels above 0dBFS) when played poly-phonically. If the synth is pre-fader (default) then just pull the fader down.
If the problem is as you describe, would it be evident in e.g. my master channel’s meter? Mike’s problem sounds very much like mine, but I just want to be sure I’m not doing something else wrong. I’m reproducing the problem now by looping the problematic A minor chord. The piano track level is set at -30, the master level is set at -15. Not shown in my screenshot, but I just reset the little gadget that captures the current max level and right now (again, with the problem looping) the max going no higher than -30.
As for the meter levels: Note that the master-bus uses a K-20 meter (see https://manual.ardour.org/meters/) – that indicates loudness (as perceived by humans). This is useful when mixing/mastering.
While the channel-meters show digital-peak (to avoid clipping inputs).
Robin, I guess clipping was your best guess as a theory for my problem. What I can say only is that my problem of ugly distortion is evident in the scenario described in my previous message.
Anyway – given Mike’s comment above I feel it likely that this plugin is the source of my problem. Can anyone recommend an alternative acoustic piano plug in?
Thank you @Michael_Willis - so far I am quite impressed with sfizz & Maestro Concert Grand: very good sound, and not terribly complicated to download install & use.
I’m glad that you like the Maestro Concert Grand, it’s been a favorite of mine for years.
Another good one to try is Slender Salamander Grand Piano. There are a number of variations of this one available for download in different places, I’ve settled on Slender Salamander as the one I use.
