Practical speaker for grand piano

[jmdh]

Hi all,

An upcoming production involves an actor miming on a grand piano to a prerecorded track (which will probably be recorded from a decent digital piano, so nice and clean). Two options: hide a spot effect speaker near the piano, pointing towards the audience. Not sure how easy it will be to hide given the space. Second option: hide speaker(s) inside the piano with the lid shut. The clearance of just under 6" means that my control 1(s) should *just* fit on their side; but any ideas about whether that will sound at all realistic?

 

All advice/experience welcome.

 

Cheers,

Dominic.

[the kid]

I have seen (heard) both in use, and bother work pretty well, depends on the space size and wings. I would hazard that control 1 in a grand might be a bit mute though, IIR when I had someone come with a false piano it was a thin skin on a frame and a reasonable sized speaker hidden in it.

 

Remember if you are keeping it AS a piano if you put in a speaker you might well end up with strings vibrating.

[jmdh]

I have seen (heard) both in use, and bother work pretty well, depends on the space size and wings. I would hazard that control 1 in a grand might be a bit mute though, IIR when I had someone come with a false piano it was a thin skin on a frame and a reasonable sized speaker hidden in it.

 

Remember if you are keeping it AS a piano if you put in a speaker you might well end up with strings vibrating.

 

There is no wing space, and no set to speak of (it's in a church). So any speaker outside the piano would have to be disguised somehow. It's definitely not a piano for modification. Good point about the strings and the level. I guess I'll have to see how they sound - should have enough time to experiment.

 

I guess another question is whether there are other speakers which might work well in the context - ie compact but loud enough.

 

Thanks!

[gibbothegreat]

I have seen (heard) both in use, and bother work pretty well, depends on the space size and wings. I would hazard that control 1 in a grand might be a bit mute though, IIR when I had someone come with a false piano it was a thin skin on a frame and a reasonable sized speaker hidden in it.

 

Remember if you are keeping it AS a piano if you put in a speaker you might well end up with strings vibrating.

 

There is no wing space, and no set to speak of (it's in a church). So any speaker outside the piano would have to be disguised somehow. It's definitely not a piano for modification. Good point about the strings and the level. I guess I'll have to see how they sound - should have enough time to experiment.

I've done it before by using ratchet straps to fasten a small speaker in between the structural beams underneath the piano

 

I guess another question is whether there are other speakers which might work well in the context - ie compact but loud enough.

 

Thanks!

 

In terms of bang for size, it's hard to beat the Meyer MM4.

 

Very similar in size to the Control 1, but simply in another world when it comes to both quality and power is the EM Acoustics EMS-51

[MarkPAman]

I've not tried it, but I'd be very surprised if a speaker inside a piano could produce realistic volume without making strings vibrate in a bad way. But it may be possible to mute the strings with a blanket or something - depends if the piano's owner is happy to let you do that.

 

A small column speaker strapped to a leg may be another way forward. I've got some from Thomann that I think, are just shorter than a piano leg, and are matt black.

 

All this added to the fact that IMO there's not yet been a speaker made that really sounds like a piano if you're near it.

[ImagineerTom]

Surely if an audience is close enough to be able to tell whether the sound is specifically coming "from" the piano or through the general PA then they're also close enough to notice that the performer "playing" isn't actually pressing any keys and thus shatter the illusion completely anyway. Aside from the technical / sound issues others have mentioned I'd wager this will actually do more to draw attention to the fact that it's not live playing than simply putting it through a normal PA setup and not drawing attention to the situation at all....

[ojc123]

When I had to do this for a school production we ended up building a powered 12" speaker into the set behind the fake piano.

 

Did it look like a piano? Enough to, 'disfigure, or to present, the person of piano,' to misquote the Bard*.

 

Did it sound like a piano? Not to anyone listening with a good ear. However, it gave the impression in the context and it gave a bit more sense of coming from the fake piano rather than from the PA.

 

It's theatre after all and the audience can suspend disbelief.

 

 

 

*Midsummer Night's Dream [iII, 1]

 

Quince

 

Ay; or else one must come in with a bush of thorns

and a lanthorn, and say he comes to disfigure, or to

present, the person of Moonshine. Then, there is

another thing: we must have a wall in the great

chamber; for Pyramus and Thisby says the story, did

talk through the chink of a wall.

[jmdh]

Surely if an audience is close enough to be able to tell whether the sound is specifically coming "from" the piano or through the general PA then they're also close enough to notice that the performer "playing" isn't actually pressing any keys and thus shatter the illusion completely anyway. Aside from the technical / sound issues others have mentioned I'd wager this will actually do more to draw attention to the fact that it's not live playing than simply putting it through a normal PA setup and not drawing attention to the situation at all....

 

I should have said - the piano will be angled so the actor's hands, and keyboard, will not be visible to the audience. So we're hoping to be convincing!

[Jivemaster]

Alternative option, the talent learns to play the piece on the piano.

[audiomik]

Alternative option, the talent learns to play the piece on the piano.

 

Dominic

assuming that you will also have a Piano-stool for the 'player' to sit on, use a suitably sized 'Speaker Cabinet and your problem is then solved.

 

Did this in a similar situation, worked quite well

 

Mik

[Dave m]

Agree about the piano stool

[mojo filters]

Even a loudspeaker like a Control 1, that's built mostly from plastic and other elastic/inert materials (in terms of bracing, dampning etc) which stop some internal vibrations from escaping (compared with a more typical wooden box) - the bass-reflex port design will still very easily excite the soundboard of any regular piano, assuming the strings are tensioned in line with some kind tuning - regardless of how out of date that is!

 

If any speaker is placed either inside a functioning piano, or mechanically attached to an outer body part - any kind of amplitude applied to the loudspeaker will excite all manner of resonances starting with the soundboard across the whole resonant body, creating an unpleasant and potentially unholy racket - as a result of sympathetic vibrations and other interaction with the instrument.

 

In the situation you describe, I would attempt to maximize the mechanical decoupling between the instrument and loudspeaker.

 

If a single Control 1 is sufficiently loud to localize the piano on stage in the greater scheme of your sound design objective - a quick and easy solution is to take the loudspeaker you are playing the piano recording through, decouple it from the stage by wrapping in bubble-wrap (or similar), then place under the piano/stool/whatever that's facing the audience - whilst draping over appropriate acoustically transparent camouflage that matches the stage and hides the cabinet and cabling.

[Owain]

There is no wing space, and no set to speak of (it's in a church). So any speaker outside the piano would have to be disguised somehow.

The American tele-evangelists seem to use a lot of pot plants for hiding gubbinses behind.

 

 

If you have an altar table with a cloth over, it might go under that.

 

 

 

 

 

[jmdh]

Thanks for the huge number of helpful responses - I am quite humbled.

 

Out of the various suggestions, I think I like the idea of incorporating it into a piano stool best so will have a play with ways to do that. Tying it to the underside of the piano looked like another good option but as people have noted the resonances could become annoying.

[Malcolm Gordon]

I have used a Canford Die-Cast Speaker (similar in size to a Control 1) on the floor of the set behind the piano, in the base of a "doctored" upright piano from which we have removed the strings and frame (to save weight) and under a current grand piano on a ledge under the soundboard with suitable padding to avoid direct contact. All have produced a plausible sound.

 

Assuming that the piano is not too archaic and the felts have gone, there should be virtually no sympathetic response from the strings, which are damped apart from the topmost register, unless the "pianist" gets carried away and depresses the sustain pedal.

 

I can't quite see why resonances from the soundboard should be a problem, as that is what the soundboard is designed for. It can enhance the sound.

 

More important for the deception is for the "pianist" to match his/her movements to the music being played. This takes a lot of practice if the player has no keyboard skills at all. Nothing is more obvious than energetic playing in the treble area when bass notes are coming out. Even if the keyboard can't be seen, it can be quite inhibiting for a realistic performance if the player is worried about accidentally touching the keyboard and playing a wrong note. We don't have this problem with our doctored upright which is effectively a dummy keyboard and has been used in full view, but a way to avoid this with the grand could be to place a thin padded plank over the keyboard so that the keys can't be struck.