miking a upright piano?

[tarbari]

Upright pianos can be a pain to record because of all the standing waves inside the piano.

I've had good experiences by opening the lid and front panel. Then micing low and high register from around where the musicians head will be. Kind of like a NOS pair but with the mics a bit further apart.

[matucha]

Well the mics you have will affect the clarity. Most of these achieve percieved clarity by boosting hiend, but in fact they are quite undefined in the mids (and lows too). So if your monitoring is good, don't expect 100% satisfactory results. On the other hand you can get something passable and that's probably what you aim for.

Do you mind the sound of the mechanical noises piano makes, or you want cleaner sound? You better like the mechanical noises with uprights . Take down all the panels you can to let it breathe let someone play the piano and listen at various places/angles. When mics are placed perpendicular to the strings, you'll get most of the fundament and as you move them upwards and angling them down, there is going to be more and more harmonics. Find your balance, it is quite important, esp with the microphones you have, they won't take EQ so well.

You can try some ORTF/NOS or modifications, but I mostly end up with AB spaced acording to the used range. It is easy to check what you're getting by playing scale from bottom to top of the range used for the particular song. Is the imaging the way you want it to be? Are all the notes in the focus? With AB there is allways some key closer to the mics and there are keys a bit out of the focus...


If you can, borrow some AKG C414 (eb or buls preferably), they are not expensive and for some reason they like pianos .

[jdsowa]

Recording a piano in a bad untreated carpeted living room type situation is just not going to sound good, regardless of the mics you use and where you use em.

[matucha]

Yep, it should at least sound good at the place you mic it.

[donpakka]

Try putting a mic behind the piano on the soundboard. I've done this before and it gives you a nice warm, and more importantly even sound. I've even done this on a Steinway B and D grand in a live situation.

[disinfor]

Try putting a mic behind the piano on the soundboard. I've done this before and it gives you a nice warm, and more importantly even sound. I've even done this on a Steinway B and D grand in a live situation.

This. Almost every time I record an upright, the mic goes on the soundboard in the back, about 3-6 inches away. Also as Matucha said, if you can get your hands on a 414, that's a solid way to go.

I've also done the spaced pair over the open top. Sounds nice as well. Honestly, all pianos are different, so if you don't like what you hear, move the mics.

[Jazz Noise]

Try using a condensor as a Boundry Microphone against the soundboard if you don't want any room sound - outside of any influence the room will obviously be having on the soundboard itself.

[computerfreak]

Thanks for all the tips! :-)

It sounds like the best thing to do is play with it a lot when I get there. Ive heard a lot of people talk about miking the sound board, I thought that would give it a muddy sound but I think ill try it out.

I wish I could borrow some 414s, unfortunately I'm only 17 and havnt made very many recording friends to share equipment with yet...

What do you guys think about the small room vs the medium sized one. I did a clap test while I was there for a few minutes and the small one seemed a lot less reverby but it could be that there just less distance for it to bounce back creating the reverb sound, versus the larger room.

I told the pianist to practice using the pedals soft and smooth to hopefully lessen the noise, I just hope she does :-)

[RiF]

I remember a pretty useful article on soundonsound.com covering this exact topic. Just google for "sos piano miking" and the first few hits will lead you there.