Marc Daniel Nelson pulls out a trick inspired by the grand piano sound on Elton John's Songs from the West Coast: parallel compression with the Waves TG12345.
A hard-working compressor on piano can kill its natural beauty, adding pump and distortion. Running a compressed duplicate in parallel avoids that, letting you push the sound forward without clamping down the original.
The TG12345 is a colored, diode-style compressor paired with EQ. Marc runs it in comp mode for a punchier attack, with a slow, pumpy release (4) that still lets transients breathe.
He flips the effect in and out to show exactly what it adds, and demonstrates how pushing it harder colors the tone in a grittier, edgier direction.