Mic-ing The Piano

RECORDING THE PIANO

TYPES OF PIANO

Upright Piano

- Common type
- Less desirable for live performances
- Affordable, compact and has a warm sound
- The strings are vertical and they hammer horizontally which is why they take slightly longer to reach back to its resting position.

Grand Piano 

- Produce finer tones and has the most responsive key action
- Dampers that lie on top of the strings

Digital Piano

- Portable
- They don't have an acoustic feel
- Has a veriety of sounds to choose from
- Computer interactive abilities

RECORDING THE PIANO

PIANO MICS

Dynamic Mic

- Handle levels well
- Tight,  Low and Mid-range punch
- Ex. Shure Sm57

Condenser Mic

- Hi-fi sound
- A good room mic
- Ex. Neumann U87, Akg 414 large diaphragm

Ribbon Mic

- Warm round sound
- Ex. Coles 4038 ribbon

PIANO MICROPHONE PLACEMENT (UPRIGHT)

Two Microphone (Top lid on)

- Uses two small diaphragm condensers
- Easy, piano is kept stationary, does not capture any unwanted noise
- Not natural sounding
- It is placed 2 feet apart and 1 feet above the hammers 

Two Microphone (Remove Top Panel) / Spaced Pair

-  Set up with 2 cardioid small diaphragm microphone 35 inch away from each other
- More natural piano sound
- Watch for nail and key/percussive sound

One Microphone (Remove Top Panel)

- One large diaphragm mic with the settings of cardioid
- For omni directional move the mic slightly back to capture the overall sound

- One large diaphragm mic with the settings of figure 8
- Place it across the piano

Two Microphone (Top and bottom panel removed)

- Only mic the bottom panel with two condensers
- More bassy for large diaphragms, to get a more brighter sound use a small diaphragm
- Less hammer sound, natural and powerful sounding
- Watch out for bench and pedal sound, may sound muddy to some people

Four Microphone (Top and bottom panel removed) + room mic

- Similar to the 3rd technique
- Add two omni directional; microphone (8 feet apart) for the room
- Very "wet" sounding
- Sounds busy and muddy when there's a lot of pedal being used

*Not suitable if the room isn't spacious enough

Four Microphone (Top and bottom panel removed) + room mic

- Similar to the 4th technique but the omni and cardioid are switched with the large diaphragm being the room mic
- Very live sounding
- Balanced and natural sound
- Very "wet" sounding

*Not suitable if the room isn't spacious enough

PIANO MICROPHONE PLACEMENT (Grand/baby grand)

*If you need it to be brighter move it closer and towards the hammers and for darker and fuller sounding move it away from the strings and further backwards from hammers
*Isolation can be improve by lowering the lid
*When using two mics use the 3-1 rule by keeping the mics at least 3 times further away from the sound source
*Be careful not to get to close to the strings to ensure the strings are not overemphasise

Outside the piano

- A cardioid large diaphragm microphone
- Walking around while the player plays to get the sweet spot
- Placing the mic just outside the piano
- Placing the mic close to the piano to keep it form getting overly roomy

XY

- Two condenser mics small / large diaphragm (cardioid)
- Place it where the high and low strings meet/cross
- Place in a 90 degree angle
- wide stereo image
- Theres a hole in the middle so some engineers will add a third microphone in between to get a more balanced sound

XY Outside the piano

- For a more natural piano sounds
- Move around the piano for the sweet spot
- 3 feet from the piano 5 feet off the ground

*Watch out for phasing issues
*If it is unbalance spread it out a little more

Spaced Pair 

- Two cardioid mics small / large diaphragm (about a foot off the strings)
- One mic will cover the high register while the other on the low register
- Place the lower frequency mic slightly further back because the strings are longer

- Set it to omni to get a airy sound, more frame and strings sustain
- used in classical recordings
- Bring the mics back
- wide L and R

*Watch out for phasing issues
*In the mix, mix the low notes on the left and high notes on the high

Blumlein

- Requires a bi directional microphone (Figure 8)
- The top mic will focus on the low end and the bottom mic will focus on the high end
- It has a more natural sound

ORTF

- Two cardioid/omni mics small / large diaphragm facing the lower end and the other on the higher end

Uphole

- SM57 in the sound hole to make it sound like a hall

Omni + XY 
- One pair in the piano is set to omni and the one outside of the piano is set to cardioid
- Slowly bring up the room mic in the mix for a good blend

Four mic technique

- Abbey road studio recording style 

- Condenser on the spaced pair, one mono condenser in the sound hole , and one room mic to capture the overall sound

Great microphones to try

- Shure SM57 / any small diaphram mic (bright and suitable for rock n roll

- Miktek c5 (includes a cardioid and omni capsule) small diaphragm
- Neumann u87 (used to record the piano from Adele's someone like you)
- Coles 4038 Ribbon (Big, dark sound / ballad)
- PM40
- SCX35A large diaphragm condensers
- Sontonics Delta

REMOVING A SQUEEKY PEDAL

In the mix

- Use a waves plug-in called X noise but the downside to this is that it cuts off some of the frequency of the piano
- Using a channel EQ worked better to eliminate the pedal sound
- If the pianist has a heavy foot, record the thump and invert the phase to null it out.

EXPERIMENT

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ? 

We would want to know how to get a full clear sounding piano with a great balance of sound from the bottom and top end. 

GENERAL PLAN

Before micking the piano

1. Determine what genre is the pianist playing
2. Walk around and listen to the best sounding part to mic
3. Check for squeaky chair or pedal if there is sound dampen during or after in the mix (gate)
4. When setting up the mics check the settings of the mics, distance and where its picking up

Which technique

We will be using the Spaced pair, Blumlein and the XY method.

Which Mics

We are using the C414 mics because they have a faster frequency response and off axis response. They are multi pattern.

MICROPHONES USAGE AND PLACEMENT

Spaced Pair

1. We will use a pair of AKG C414 XLII 
2. One mic will face the bottom end and the other will face the top end of the piano
3. The mic will be set to cardioid
4. Pan them hard left and right 

Blumlein

1. We will use a pair of AKG C414 XLII
2. The mic will be set to bi directional 

XY

1. We will use a pair of AKG C45
2. The mic will be set to cardioid

WHAT WE FOUND OUT 

We made some changes during the experiment, we used a condenser mic to capture the overall of the piano (1 mic set-up), spaced pair method (2 mic set-up) with a sm57 added in later (3 mics set-up). 

One microphone set-up (Condenser)

Two microphone set-up (Spaced Pair)

Three microphone set-up (Spaced Pair + SM57)

OVERALL

Personally I really liked the spaced pair plus the sm57 (three mic set-up) because with the spaced pair it's clear and paired with the sm57 makes the whole recording fuller and bigger sounding.