I might ramble a bit here so apologies in advance, but I hope it's useful.
Note: You should have isolating headphones (and someone to smack keys) to help with positioning, and also to check quality of sound with sample recordings without the piano being played.
The first thing I would recommend is being aware of your acoustics:
• is it solo piano, or are there other instruments?
– if other instruments, you'll probably want close mics, unless classical. If classical, ambient mics, with spot mic(s) on piano
– If solo, you'll want to beware of, and work with the room acoustics. Most rooms sound bad if not designed for studio or stage, and even then often still bad.
– Even if only close mic'ing, how the piano speaks to the room will affect what the mics hear.
• imagine a triangle between the mic, the piano, and each reflective surface in the room
– try positioning the piano and mics in locations that would make those various reflections return at different times (different distances) so that there's fewer reflections arriving at the mics at the same time. Preview the sound, and experiment. In some cases, the opposite of this might actually be most effective.
• as for mic position:
– definitely consider that in the mixing process, you'll want to have each mic panned hard left/right, so that their signal doesn't interfere with each other. BUT preview what position you come up with in mono to see if there's much interference (phasing) between the mic signals, when the recording inevitably gets mixed down to mono on some bluetooth speaker etc.
– You can try a "spaced pair" with the mics far from each other, on either side of the piano (experiment for position and capsule angle)
––– I've recorded spaced with mics a couple feet out out from and just higher than the piano, positioned at the width of either side of the piano, case open.
– Another one would be the ORTF technique which captures a realistic/balanced sound, and if wearing headphones becomes 3D.
– rear of piano can work too
– if only 2 mics though, don't attempt a rear/front combination
• Try to get it to sound as balanced an natural as possible, and leave as little as possible to the mixdown/post-production.
– record samples of each set up and label them, so that you can refer back to what you did. Often a previous setup will sound better
– take a break to let your ears rest, and if possible listen back to the samples on multiple or at least another set of full-range speakers in another room. That might reveal something that the headphones didn't.
Hope that helps!
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Robin Whitehouse
Santa Cruz CA
robin@santacruzpiano.com------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-03-2020 16:50
From: Jim Ialeggio
Subject: mic placement for recording and upright
Any recording folks out there have suggestions for a 2 mic placement setup on an upright?
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Jim Ialeggio
grandpianosolutions.com
Shirley, MA
978 425-9026
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