Add Sharpness to Your Piano Chord Progression

In House music, the piano is an essential element. It's the key ingredient in a wide range of dance floor hits. When it comes to House music, the piano riff (or progression) is a two-, three---, or four-chord sequence played rhythmically and percussively, typically in the piano's middle register. When produced correctly, a great piano song can become an anthem. In this tutorial, we will show you how to add sharpness to your piano chord progression and blend it into the overall mix.

As usual, we have prepared a short sequence in our SoundBridge: DAW with most elements - including the piano chord progression. Let's listen to it.

In this example, the piano is pushed too far into the background, and that is something we want to change. We'll duplicate the piano chord progression's MIDI channel to achieve this and place it underneath the original. Also, we will move the copied version by an octave.

The duplicated one has shorter notes than the original piano chord progression. This is done because we want to process the copied version differently, especially with the main emphasis on the attack of the notes rather than the sustain and release. Let's now compare the original piano chord progression to the duplicated version with a shorter note length.

Now...

We will proceed with processing the duplicate version. The first step is to add a transient shaper effect to the channel's effect rack. We will slightly increase the transient shaper's attack parameter but decrease the sustain parameter. Now, we'll use the reverb effect to add more color to the sound. Let's check how this sounds.

Finally, let's hear how our piano chord progression layers sound solo and with the other elements of the whole mix.

So, this is how to add sharpness to your piano chord progression and blend it into the overall mix.

If you liked this article on processing pianos, here are some more on this subject:

• Make Your Piano Chords Sound Powerful
• Pianos in House Music
• Make Your Piano Stand Out in the Mix
• The Piano – Keyboard Instruments