stm Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 Hi, I was just wondering what people's different views were with miking pianos. I have a number of events coming up where I will have to mike a grand piano. Do people prefer pick-up or miked. My experience in miked… Please share advice… Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mervaka Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 stereo pair over the hammers hits my spot.. depends on the sound you want though, and how many mics you want to commit to it. you have so many variables with a grand piano. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ross Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 I have had great success with (don’t laugh) a D112 over the bass notes and a large diaphragm condenser slightly higher but more over the high notes. Pan them quite hard and blend to taste. Other than that I quite like room mics assuming the room you are recording in sounds good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 My experience is that most of the well known, published set ups work - but there are some great alternatives. Wha I have discovered though, is that a really successful one on one model (not brand) may be dreadful on another. Did a pop/classic show with a German pianist who I perhaps should have heard of, and Yamaha strolled in with a C series for him to play. I stroll up with cables and he says he will be playing with the lid shut! The look on my face made him smile. He asked if we had any slim condensers - how about a 451?, I said. He went down on his knees, dropped the cable through one of the struts just in front of where the pedal rods went through, brought it back up, attached the mic and taped the leads together allowing the mic to hang about a foot under the sound board. Guess what? Sounded simply great - hardly any eq needed at all to make it cut through the others in the pop numbers, but sounded really natural in the Schubert bits! Tried it a few weeks later with a Yamaha baby grand, and it was simply dreadful! I reckon it's always worth a try - I get about a 50% success rate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
p.k.roberts Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 Other than that I quite like room mics assuming the room you are recording in sounds good I assumed from your original post that you were talking about PA - but are you actually asking for advice about recording? I would chose a different technique for each application. Style of music would also play a part in choice of mic positions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Some Bloke Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 What we hear, as audience listening to an unmiked piano, is a sound created not just by the hammer hitting the string, but by the resonance of the frame, case and lid together. Just miking the strings loses all of that. Thus, when I mic a piano I tend to point the mics up at the lid rather than down at the strings. Looks wierd but sounds great! Very warm and natural. On similar lines, especially if the piano is mixing in with other instruments, a PZM inside the piano but attached to the wood of the case itself can give a most usable sound and it's easy to make the piano look completely un-miked with nothing spoiling the lovely lines of a grand piano on display (take the cable out of the back). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ross Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 I also remember hearing a story once about a band with a grand piano in it. Anyway this guy went to watch them and the piano sound was amazing really clear and well defined and just right for the style of music. At the end of the show he goes and asks the sound engineer what mics he was using etc turns out it was a keyboard hidden in the frame and the rest of the piano was just for show! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gherriott Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 I was recently doing a recording on a steinway, and having never miked a grand before I had to do a lot of playing around. I found the best sound was by having two condensor mikes about 4 feet away, one pointing towards the bass and the other towards the treble. Then pan them until you get a realistic sound. Even then I still found it hard to play and feel like I was getting a realistic sound, because when I removed the headphones the sound was so much better. The reason I didn't have the mikes within 1 foot of the hamer was that whenever I used the sustain pedal it picked up the hammer movement quite a bit. Anyway just thought I would share my experience, I am actually quite interested in what people have to suggest for this, as I will be recording some more in the future, and would be nice not to have to spend almost a whole day playing with mike positions!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Dave Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 One of my favourite methods is 2 C414's on small round bases. They even give good results when the lid is shut. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jim b Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 One of my favourite methods is 2 C414's on small round bases. They even give good results when the lid is shut. Plus one for the two 414s trick worked good on the twenty or so different pianos I had on my last tour (locally rented pianos). Now, about the tuning..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Lewis Posted October 7, 2007 Share Posted October 7, 2007 We had a fun evening at the IoA's Reproduced Sound conference a few years back, trying out different piano micing techniques. The musician was a concert pianist, there were some boutique loudspeakers and mics, and a number of well fed and watered engineers, acoustic consultants and audio specialists. One of the more interesting approaches was a pair of high quality condensers placed as close as possible to the open lid, in order to form a boundary type mic. It sounded pretty impressive, and benefited from the boundary gain Worth a try if you have time to experiment! Simon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Furryface Posted October 9, 2007 Share Posted October 9, 2007 Have always had pretty good results using two SM-91s or 91As. One on the low register and one on the high register. Done that with Big Band, Orchestras and similar, both indoors and out. Hope that helps Furry Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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