How'd they get the unique piano sound in the Beatles' "Let It Be" ?

[rasputin1963]

When you start learning some recording/production tricks, suddenly your old familiar recordings sound different.

 

How'd they get the unusual sound for the piano in The Beatles' "Let It Be" ? At various moments, it sounds bell-like, then muted, extremely compressed for a flat sound, then suddenly warm (where it needs to be).

 

It's obviously an expensive piano... (Wasn't it a 9' concert Bösendorfer, IIRC?). That piano can put out a wallop of hugely fat sound, yet somehow here they've got it sounding very muted, with a very controlled sound... no "ring" or fatness at all.

 

Wonder how they did it?

 

[video=youtube;ybb6HPDENnE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybb6HPDENnE

 

[WRGKMC]

Its just the effects of layered compressors at work along with motorized faders on the mixer.

 

I had some imported disks from the orient of those sessions. I believe they came from the stolen tapes and were bootlegged all over the place. The recordings had little or no extra mastering done. You'd hear the band talking between takes, stops and starts. You'd hear them without all the extra effects, mastering, additional instruments and production added to the final releases. The thing I noted was how plain they sounded. no hyped compression. They sounded like any band working through songs recording. Their sense of humor was there. They were constantly making jokes between takes. They must have had allot of fun working together.

 

When you compare those recordings to the commercial releases you immediately realize just how much compression is pasted over those recordings. They were obviously high quality optical hardware compressors with carefully times attacks and releases that gave the band that powerful impact. Its amazing how much the music changes with their use. You can also hear the parts being gained up in the mix too. Many of the riffs are trimmed up faded up in the final production, likely using motorized faders.

 

I heard the whole Let it Be session was an engineers mixing nightmare given all the bits and pieces of unfinished takes they had to sort through. I can easily see that being the case. I think they put 4 or 5 versions of I me My on that one disk. You could hear various changes but all of them were pretty good.

[Phil O'Keefe]

It's obviously an expensive piano... (Wasn't it a 9' concert Bösendorfer, IIRC?). T

 

 

It was a Blüthner.

 

 

[onelife]

A lot of it was the piano itself. I remember hearing somewhere (perhaps the "Anthology" video) they quickly discovered that particular piano in the Apple Studio recorded very well.

 

I agree with WRGKMC that compression contributed considerably to the overall sound of the Beatles' stuff. I hear lots of compression and reverb on the piano in the OP.