Hey Fellow Gearslutz!
One can never have enough mics eh??
So in true Gearslutz fashion I decided to put SIX mics on the piano to compare between them. The session was a "New Age" solo piano recording and I used ribbons exclusively for the close piano mics. Pretty fun. I thought you guys might like to do a little ribbon mic comparison / listening....
The comparison is just that - a comparison. It's not meant to be a full on shootout, or a critical double blind listening test. I was getting paid and had work to do! You know.....like a real life session. Take that into consideration as you listen. For fairness and your convenience, I've gain matched the main files within .1dB of each other with the room mics down 12dB as they will be in the mix.
For this session, I compaired 3 pairs of ribbons. One pair are old time classics that most of you know. One pair are what many are finding to be a new classic. And one pair are for all intents and purposes an unknown mic. (At least in comparison to the other two.)
For fair comparison purposes, Mic 1 is always the same mic on all the clips, Mic 2 always the same, etc. I'm not trying to trick anyone here....
I find when listening, I often find I like one mic for certain sections of music and another for other sections - but the bottom line is you have to choose one (or in this case, a pair). In the studio, the decision was unanimous for those in the CRM, with (thankfully) the artist choosing the same mic that my assistant and I liked as well. Ribbons were chosen because the artist loves a warm organic sound, and I've had success in the past with ribbons on piano for this type of application. If you're listening on computer, you're going to miss the huge bottom some of these files have.
Mics 1 & 2 were iniside the piano in a unique placement that I prefer with fig8 mics, and Mics 3 were right outside the piano in a more "classical / orchestral" type placement. Please keep that in mind when listening to the 3rd set of Mics, as they were further back from the strings. They were chosen and added almost as an afterthought, as there was no room inside the piano since it was beginning to look like a press conference in there.
Also, there is a fourth pair of mics that are room mics (TLM170's) that can be added in with the close mics if you're lining up the files and listening in your DAW. If you're not in your DAW, you can use them as a reference to hear what the room sounds like. They were placed about 10-12 feet up and about 30-40 feet away from the piano and 30-40 feet apart with the piano being the apex of the triangle.
There is no EQ, no Compression or Limiting, no Verb. No nothing! All I did was adjust the gain via Audiosuite Gain, to match the gain for a fair comparison. The final product will have a little verb added to the main mics in addition to adding in the room mics. A little compression / limiting as well, but very minimal, and a little HPF EQ automated in at various places to remove some of the extreme low end pedal noise resonance that occationally gets in. If you're in your DAW and lining up the room mics with the main mics, what you hear is pretty much how the final mix will end up sounding. Later, there may be full bandwidth 24/44.1 WAV files up on the internet to download if any of your are interested in real critical listening, but for now..... it's mp3's. :-( They are rendered at 320kbit/s via PT's MP3 option.
After everyone is done listening and deciding which they like, I'll post some pics so you can see the kind of unique mic placement. And of course reveal the mics themselves.
Here's the important and fun GS technical stuff:
Artist: Jeff Bjorck - a "New Age" style solo pianist recording arrangements of Hymns.
Piano : Yamaha C7
Studio : Citrus Studio A (So Cal)
Console : Neve VR72
Mic Pre's:
Mic 1 - D&R Vision Mic Pre
Mic 2 - D&R Vision Mic Pre
Mic 3 - Apogee Mini Me (suggested by the studio manager)
Mic 4 (room) - Martech MSS-10
Conversion : Apogee AD16X clocked to Apogee Big Ben
DAW : PTHD3
Bit Depth / Sample Rate : 24/44.1
So Have Fun! This should prove interesting.......
(Clips 2, 3 & 4 to follow on successive posts due to the GS attachment limitations...)
Cheers,
Bill
Mindseye
http://www.mindseyeprod.com