Speaking of raindrops...

The last few weeks, while my regular bread and butter work has been slow, I've been helping a friend bring some junkish pianos back to life at the old Schiller Piano Factory in Oregon, IL. (I have got to write the next installment!!! Someone please put my feet to the fire!) Here is "April Showers," by B.G. De Sylva and Louis Silvers, published in 1921, played on a 1925 Conover 5' Grand, tuned as close to EBVT III as I could get it, today.

"April Showers" (De Sylva/Silvers)

--Andy

Hey - that's not bad sounding for an 88 year old 5' Conover grand. Must be the EBVT III and the pianist !!!

Just curious - why is the old piano factory just sitting there with a bunch of junk pianos??? Are there any plans in place to do something with the instruments once they are fixed up a bit????? Very intriguing.

And yes - you have a knack for playing those wonderful old songs !!

Interesting mid-rangy sound. If you add a little hiss and crackle to this, it would sound awesome!

You'd think he was 20 years older!

April Showers on Vintage Vinyl

Haha. I guess Cubase has a preset for this? Perfect!

It's called the "Grungelizer." Honest!

It has a dial for "Crackle" at 33, 45 or 78 rpm (I used 78, obviously!); "Noise," which is hiss; "Distort," which is kind of fizzy buzz, "EQ" which dials from clear to phone-speaker sounding; "AC" that can be set at either 50 or 60 Hz for that lovely hum; and something called "Timeline" that is some kind of "color" function that goes from 1900 to today. I also used a plug-in called "Da Tube" set at warm tube distortion at medium drive, plus I narrowed the piano focus to just this side of mono using the stereo enhancer, and pushed a small EQ hump at 1734 Hz to enhance that lovely mid-rangy sound and make it something reminiscent of "tin." Thought you'd want to know.