My New Favorite Piano Mic'ing

smoothmoniker · 25th August 2006

So, just finished up a session at El Dorado Recording here in Burbank, and I have an official new favorite piano mic'ing.

They have a beautiful reconditioned 1920's Steinway Grand in the piano room. Chris Steffen, the engineer, pulled out a pair of mics that I had never even heard of before, set them up in a pretty traditional stereo split over the soundboard, I played a few minutes, then went in to listen in the control room.

I was blow away. The depth and clarity of the sound was amazing, just intense. So, anyway, here was the signal path:

a pair of Sanken CU-41 mics (the ones I had never heard of)
into Neve 1073s
into a Fairchild 670 stereo compressor

So, all it takes to sound amazing is to put $40,000 worth of gear between a $50,000 piano and Pro Tools! I've cracked the code!

orange · 25th August 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

So, all it takes to sound amazing is to put $40,000 worth of gear between a $50,000 piano and Pro Tools! I've cracked the code!

u b k · 26th August 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by smoothmoniker

So, all it takes to sound amazing is to put $40,000 worth of gear between a $50,000 piano and Pro Tools! I've cracked the code!

okay, but how did you mic the thing up?

gregoire
del
ubk
.

smoothmoniker · 27th August 2006

both mics were placed over the strings, about 2 feet apart, each directed toward the middle of the strings they were mic'ing. The high mic was set to about 2 octaves above middle C, the lower mic set to about an octave below middle C.

Pretty standard setup, it was the Sankens that blew me away.

OKden · 27th August 2006

Welcome to the CU-41 camp! While there are many many ways to mic a piano, they're hard to beat.

25th August 2006	#1
smoothmoniker Gear addict Joined: Apr 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 440 Thread Starter	My New Favorite Piano Mic'ing So, just finished up a session at El Dorado Recording here in Burbank, and I have an official new favorite piano mic'ing. They have a beautiful reconditioned 1920's Steinway Grand in the piano room. Chris Steffen, the engineer, pulled out a pair of mics that I had never even heard of before, set them up in a pretty traditional stereo split over the soundboard, I played a few minutes, then went in to listen in the control room. I was blow away. The depth and clarity of the sound was amazing, just intense. So, anyway, here was the signal path: a pair of Sanken CU-41 mics (the ones I had never heard of) into Neve 1073s into a Fairchild 670 stereo compressor So, all it takes to sound amazing is to put $40,000 worth of gear between a $50,000 piano and Pro Tools! I've cracked the code! __________________ metricusers.com - the Metric Halo Users Forum

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27th August 2006	#4
smoothmoniker Gear addict Joined: Apr 2003 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 440 Thread Starter	both mics were placed over the strings, about 2 feet apart, each directed toward the middle of the strings they were mic'ing. The high mic was set to about 2 octaves above middle C, the lower mic set to about an octave below middle C. Pretty standard setup, it was the Sankens that blew me away.

27th August 2006	#5
OKden Gear addict Joined: Aug 2002 Location: Nashville Posts: 311	Welcome to the CU-41 camp! While there are many many ways to mic a piano, they're hard to beat.