Recording piano?

[parlormusic]

I've had most success with the ubiquitous Oktava MC-012's not so much as an XY, but more like an AB. I put them about 2-3 feet above the open top, pointing down at the hammers and strings, angled a little bit in maybe, and spaced about 3 feet apart. Something like that. Run them through a nice tube pre and possibly add a mono or stereo room mic, and whalla!

Roy

That's how I've been successful recording upright piano, only I used some Neumann KM54's over the piano. I also used a ribbon mic in the room, but a decent condensor in omni would work nicely too. Be sure to move the piano aout from the wall a couple of feet so that the sound from the back can radiate out. You could try the mics the other way around to see if that sounds better - put a condensor over the piano and have a stereo pair in the room. Both ways have worked well for me.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

My best results have always been micing the back of the piano with an AKG D19 or EV666. If the piano is going to be a featured instrument I put a room mic out front but ususally 1 mic on the back is my default set-up.

[Professor]

Lots of good suggestions here, but it seemed one key that might be missing would be to back away from the piano.
Obviously that will depend on the style of music and the quality of the sound the room contributes to what you capture, but it's still something to consider. I'm guessing you're recording rock/pop music or maybe jazz, and not classical, folk or other purely acoustic styles, but I could be wrong. Either way, there are certainly places where recording the piano from the perspective of sticking your head into the strings works, but recording from the perspective of standing a couple feet away and allowing the instrument to come together within the room works really nicely too. And what's best is at that point, it doesn't much matter if the piano is an upright or a smaller baby-grand.
Recording off the back of the instrument is like recording under a grand and it works exceedingly well, and already sounds a little more distant because any harshness from the attack as the hammers hit the strings is mitigated, and you are simply capturing the resonance of the sound board. Oh yeah, here's a good place to remind everyone that a piano produces sound more like a guitar does in that it is the resonance of the body (piano sound board) that amplifies & projects the sound from the strings, and it is not similar to a harp which is primarily just vibrating strings.

For the guy with the earthworks & AKG mics, what I would do for a close pop sound would be to maybe place the earthworks omni close in above the instrument with the lid open and then place the cardioid AKG behind the instrument and a little further away. That would give a mono, close-vs-far balance. Even though I don't like mono piano, that seems a reasonable approach. Or I might try to create a stereo pair from the mics by placing them both in the back of the piano with the omni up towards the high-end and slightly closer in, and the cardioid towards the low end and maybe a little further away. Then I'd balance the preamps so the levels are consistent (one mic probably needs more gain than the other) and I would pan them a little in the mix, though probably not hard-panned, just enough to spread the sound and open it up a little. The reasoning here is that the cardioid will tend towards omni at lower frequencies and the omni will tend towards cardioid at higher frequencies, and the slight distance difference would account for some of the direct-vs-reflected sound since omnis sound further away than cardioids by nature by a factor of about 1:1.7 (an omni at 10-inches sounds like a cardioid at 17-inches, as long as the walls aren't too close).

But indeed let us know what you choose and how it turns out.

-Jeremy

[JohnDavisNYC]

Jeremy, that ratio of omni to cardioid thing is pretty rad... I dropped out of music school, but sometimes some of the science you drop on this board makes me want to go back to school. obviously every mic is different, but that is pretty rad info...

we just got a 5'8" 1927 Baldwin at the bunker, and i can't wait to get some of my jazz pianist friends in to rock it... will definately keep that in mind.

yeah.

john

[joel hamilton]

Whenever I record a grand or baby grand, I seem to wind up with a stereo pair of some sort depending on the style/player/room/project, and always have a LDC under the piano. [purists will now hate me] I almost always use an expander into a limiter, to varying degrees, on only that microphone. Like a C12 under the piano, with a pair of shoeps CMC's over the strings, "full stick" so I can get the mics right in where I want them.

For an upright, I use a stereo pair hard L-R on the back, with the LDC in the middle, with the same expander/limiter trick applied to varying degrees to ONLY that mic. I love the sound of that mic the most. The stereo pair is mostly because I feel bad for loving that mono expander/limiter mic...

[smalldrums]

Great info again guys. You all rule. I tried a spaced pair (A-B) with the Rode nt5 as overheads and it didn't sound bad, but once I got them in the mix they were a little hollow sounding. Once i get to tracking I will let you guys know what works out good!

[GarryJ]

For an upright, I use a stereo pair hard L-R on the back, with the LDC in the middle, with the same expander/limiter trick applied to varying degrees to ONLY that mic. I love the sound of that mic the most. The stereo pair is mostly because I feel bad for loving that mono expander/limiter mic...

Came across this thread looking for nice ideas on recording piano. I'm intrigued by the expander (upward, I'm assuming?)/limiter idea and the thinking behind it, care to elaborate?

[firesine]

Lots of good advice here, especially moving the piano away from the wall. The difference after pushing a semi-crappy upright a few feet away from the wall really blew me away.
This session just happened recently and I tried a few things, settling on three mics behind the piano. Could have been the piano, room or whatever, but the XY (Mojaves) over the open top just wasn't doing it for me.
I really liked a Mojave MA100, with the omni cap, on the upper register and a Soundelux ELUX 251, also omni, on the lower. This piano has a big beam going horizontally across the center of the soundboard, and I ended up with the Mojave above the board and the Soundelux below the board both no more than 6 inches out.
I also really liked a bluebird directly in the center above the board so I recorded it too just in case it ends up mono.
The bluebird had a cool unassuming, lo-fi quality, which really complimented the decent at best piano. The stereo mics surprised me, with a full, really special midrange thing from the Soundelux and clear open top from the Mojave. The recording sounds better than the piano in the room to my ears.

I think it was it Geoff Emerick who said he never micd a piano the same way twice.

[ultratoast]

This might help.
Although it's mostly about recording a grand piano, many of the techniques still follow.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may99/a ... cpiano.htm

get your hands on the original magazine (may99) if you can - there's more in it. There's also audio examples of the different techniques on the site too.

[Nick Sevilla]

Try placing a stereo pair of mics above the player's head, about 6" - 12".

Point the mics at the piano. You'll get more of the dynamics of the playing this way, plus the piano player tinkling the keys as well, which for some music, can be cool.

Cheers

[joninc]

For an upright, I use a stereo pair hard L-R on the back, with the LDC in the middle, with the same expander/limiter trick applied to varying degrees to ONLY that mic. I love the sound of that mic the most. The stereo pair is mostly because I feel bad for loving that mono expander/limiter mic...

Came across this thread looking for nice ideas on recording piano. I'm intrigued by the expander (upward, I'm assuming?)/limiter idea and the thinking behind it, care to elaborate?

PAGING JOEL - i'd like to hear more about this too!

[joel hamilton]

For an upright, I use a stereo pair hard L-R on the back, with the LDC in the middle, with the same expander/limiter trick applied to varying degrees to ONLY that mic. I love the sound of that mic the most. The stereo pair is mostly because I feel bad for loving that mono expander/limiter mic...

Came across this thread looking for nice ideas on recording piano. I'm intrigued by the expander (upward, I'm assuming?)/limiter idea and the thinking behind it, care to elaborate?

PAGING JOEL - i'd like to hear more about this too!

lol...
I use an expander on one of the mics usually, or something like a transient designer. I use that to have control, during the mix, over the amount of point on the hammer strike that I am hearing.
The expander works quite well, as does the transient designer.
It is really just a way of getting th sound to come forward or go "inside" the mix a bit without having to EQ anything at all. Just shaping the envelope to make it sit with the tempo/track/key/intent a bit more.
Also, that is sometimes in parallel rather than on the single mic, as I had referenced in this thread ages ago.

[grockvt]

I've tried a few things - mostly opening the top and looking down inside...

1) Beyer M88 on top strings, LDC (SP B1) on low strings...you put these just inside the top...

2) Blue baby bottle on low strings, Fathead ribbon on high strings...you gotta keep moving these around till it sounds right...again they are just barely inside...

3) ATM 450A pair - sold these but they worked great - same idea...spaced pair inside

4) a pair of studio projects SDC (C4?) with omni capsules...the omnis sounded real cool deep inside the piano...easier to place than cardioids I'd say...a friend loaned me these to try a while back...

5) M/S just outside and above the piano...blue baby bottle as Mid, Fathead figure 8 ribbon as side...this is a little odd as the face of the blue is facing straight down into the piano and the fathead is facing left and right...

actually - I just tried out the new sonar 8 "channel tools" plug in that has a MS decoder in it... uploaded some samples with M 3db hot, MS at the same level, and S 3 db hot...

PS - these samples are in the key of C, you may have to change your clock to 48k to hear them right as i was messing with my clock set-up yesterday...

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=7d3b ... 9697abb29d




most uprights are against a wall and micing from behind is not always a viable option...the plate mics are something I definitely want to try...

[b3groover]

A very timely topic, since I have a session this coming Saturday with a really good blues/jazz pianist who is coming in to add some spice to a project we're working on.

I have a 1920's Grinnell Bros. upright in my living room that sounds fantastic. I think I'm going to pull it away from the wall a try an omni behind it. Mono is okay, considering everything else going on in the tracks.

[Brett Siler]

I have only mic'd up a piano a handful of times and the last time was for a hardcore band ironically enough. It was a baby grand and I can't remember if I used 1 or 2 LCDs but I just remember geting the mic(s) real close to the stings and getting a good balance of the low and high registers. Then I took an omni and had the piano player play while I listened through headphone and walked around the room and placed it where it sounded good in the room and with the other mics. The results was a very beautiful paino!