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Listening note

Piano may be quiet, but it is not optional detail.

The reference excerpt needs additional audition gain for piano because the part sits quietly in the arrangement. That helps listening, but it also rules out treating this example as a level-matched quality comparison.

Piano shares space with the whole arrangement

A piano note begins with a short percussive attack and can sustain across a broad range. Those features may overlap with drums, bass, guitar, voice, and reverberation. A separator must decide which shared sound belongs with the piano, even when the mix does not contain a perfectly clean boundary.

The training label changes the task

Common four-stem research sets group vocals, drums, and bass separately while placing remaining instruments together as other. A dedicated piano output asks a more specific question than that four-stem task. Results from one grouping should not be presented as evidence for another.

Audibility is not a score

The reference excerpt on Labs raises the piano level so quiet details are easier to hear. That is useful for study, but the gain change prevents a fair level-based comparison. A model evaluation must disclose such adjustments and keep the untouched output available.