Mic stands for classical piano recording

[joelpatterson]

Very nice work, David, to my taste there's a tad too much... what do you call it... a slight bit too much of the room echo, it lends a 'hollow' feel, it's holding me at arms length from the performer and his efforts to persuade me. "Hollow' isn't the word, though, 'holographic' is maybe closer to it. You know how sometimes shafts of sunlight will come down through the clouds? That's what it sounds like to me, almost, like the notes he's playing are suspended in the air. I'm more swept away when the notes are coming like ocean waves breaking on the shore, enveloping me, like I'm surfing on the music. A surfboard made out of a piano.... yeah, that's it....

[NorseHorse]

Re: the Lodestar Recording

It's good quality. But I feel like there is just a tad too much hall. I think the most important thing is to figure out what the sound is that the PIANIST actually wants. That why I prefer to record piano with around six mics (two in, two a few feet away, two out in the hall), so I can work with the pianist afterward to get THEIR sound.

It is their recording after all.

PS. I would like to state that it is a total coincidence that Joel and I chose to both use the word "tad". I hadn't even read his post (it was on the second page). Maybe we're twins.

[sonare]

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

Definitely the former, humble apologies Rich. I understood the mics to be on the back side of the piano peering through the crack. Re-reading and with the aid or your diagram, its much clearer.

An acceptable approach to be sure.

Apology accepted!

Rich

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by NorseHorse

It is their recording after all.

In a way, but that's like almost a trivial detail, really.

PS. I would like to state that it is a total coincidence that Joel and I chose to both use the word "tad". I hadn't even read his post (it was on the second page). Maybe we're twins.

Say... don't I remember you from that alternate universe?

[sonare]

Here's a piano snip to critique--

Rich

[David Spearritt]

Ah Rich, that's a nice recording too. Was this live?

Thanks for the other comments too guys. I take on board your comments about the hall, its valid criticism. But my feeling is that when the hall is this good, you should use it. But I could be a whisker closer.

I respectfully disagree about giving the artist what "they" want. They have hired me to make this decision for them and are very happy with that, in fact its one of the main reasons why they need me, rather than just rent my mics.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by sonare

Here's a piano snip to critique--

Rich

I'm listening to it now... sounds really full-featured and present. Some of the quicker trills get a little lost, it's like the texture turns a little mushy, like I can't quite see the notes sounding in real time, like the sounds are getting clogged on the way to my ears? And I wonder where the heft of the lower bass notes is going, I can 'hear' the player leaning into them, but I don't 'feel' them. Great player, sounds like the audience is hanging on every word.

[sonare]

Yes, this is a live concert. Some of the missing low end is simply that the room (which is not that great in reality) doesn't support a sense of real weight on the bottom. And the reverb setting is a bit of a "one size sort of fits all"-- for me the trills in Schubert are more the gesture than in Bach or Mozart, where you really want to clearly hear each note. This is always a problem when the program is not confined to one musical period.

For the technically curious:

MAIN- SF12 8 ft away and 8 ft up ROOM Schoeps Mk2S 1m 15ft away about 13 ft up-- both in the same plane (see previous diagram)

Now the fun starts-- mains delayed 13ms, and only the room mics have Altiverb added, which is Esterhazy st-st close in (6m ?) and the positioning (the window with the speakers) is pulled about 2/3 towards the rear. I don't recall EQ but I THINK the reverb has a little LF rolled off and the SF12 has a 2dB shelf starting at about 3k.

I know you are thinking "well, THAT'S where the low end went" but no, that's where the reverb woofiness went. I love the SF12 for piano but in most rooms it is a little shy on the top, with the Schoeps providing the missing transient response.

This was a Hamburg Steinway, and if the room were up to the level of the instrument your jaw would be on the floor!

Rich

[David Rick]

This is turning into a great "play and tell" thread. Here's my offering: a live recording made with a single pair of (non-TL) DPA 4006's spaced at about 21". I don't have the exact distance to the piano, but my notes say the stand was in row 4 of the audience and the piano 79" behind the edge of the stage. The stand height was set so that the mics could "see" the hammers.

In post, the stereo width was tweaked to about 110%, and there was a bit of linear-phase EQ done, mostly to dig out a little more bass than the room wanted to give me.

David L. Rick
Seventh String Recording

[joelpatterson]

Great and groovy low end, anything below middle C sounds clear, clean, and compelling. The upper range has a misty, gauzy 'sameness' to all of the notes, arms length, somehow? There's a whole 'haunted house' feel, isn't there? Like I'm listening from way up on the rickety circular stairs? I do love the thick, growling low end, it helps me think I may get out of here alive.

Don't shoot me, I'm only the piano recording critic!

[Musiclab]

Latch lake stands are very nice and give you lots of placement options especially with Xbooms

[sonare]

The Latch Lake stuff looks nice for studio, but nothing I saw on their website is tall enough nor has a tripod base-- both requirements for location work.

The "X-tra Boom" looks enticing-- I wish I had one for the main pair in Houston.

Rich

[fifthcircle]

Actually Rich- you'd be amazed at how stable the Latch Lake stuff is. Doesn't look like it should be, but between the low center of gravity and the incredibly heavy base, it is a tank of a stand.

Just wouldn't want to have to carry it into a venue.

--Ben

[d_fu]

Ok, another one...
If the piano sounds kinda strange, that's because it's a Fortepiano / Hammerklavier. And it's slightly tilted left because there's a soprano about to start singing...
2 Neumann KM 131 (1 m AB), 2 JW-modded AKG C460& CK62DF for extra ambience, 2 MKH 80 closeup. Some Samplitude IR reverb.


D.

[joelpatterson]

Ooooh, neat... chime-like! Feels like about half way through we zoom in way close and hear the percussion of the player's fingers hitting the keys, or something? Some kind of perfectly in time softly slapping something?

Very open and atmospheric and feathery and blossoming.

[andy_simpson]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

Actually Rich- you'd be amazed at how stable the Latch Lake stuff is. Doesn't look like it should be, but between the low center of gravity and the incredibly heavy base, it is a tank of a stand.

Just wouldn't want to have to carry it into a venue.

--Ben

I'll have to look into the Latch Lake line.

I recently built a heavy duty mic stand from scaffold-grade steel piping to hold a parallel pair of (quite heavy) mics + BG1 + Mytek converter 5m above the audience for a chamber recording.

It had to be stable & trust-worthy (health & safety), but I somewhat over-engineered it and in the end it was strong enough to do pull-ups on (though I didn't try at 5m).

Andy

[mlutthans]

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

I like to go a bit higher than the purely bisected angle, being paranoid about avoiding lid reflections.

Yes! A trick I learned from the late John Eargle in 1990 or so was to get the mic capsule just "this side" of the plane of the piano lid, to maximize direct sound from the piano, while minimizing reflected sound from the piano lid.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by mlutthans

Yes! A trick I learned from the late John Eargle in 1990 or so was to get the mic capsule just "this side" of the plane of the piano lid, to maximize direct sound from the piano, while minimizing reflected sound from the piano lid.

Interesting - why would you want to get rid of lid reflections as that is how the audience normally hear a piano?

Getting rid of lid reflections would give an unnatual sound that is not normally heard by the listener in a live recital.

[David Spearritt]

John, we've been though this before. Imagine that the audience is not getting the ideal sound because they cannot be suspended above the soundboard to listen.

But a microphone can.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

John, we've been though this before. Imagine that the audience is not getting the ideal sound because they cannot be suspended above the soundboard to listen.

But a microphone can.

Yes - but a musical instrument is designed to be heard by an audience.

If the "ideal" position was above the sound board, surely a piano would have been designed in such a way that the sound board would face the audience.

As it is designed, the audience is intended to get reflections from the lid, so, I would ideally record the instrument in such a way as the audience would hear it.

Having said that - everyone seems to have their own way of recording a piano and one uses what best suits them to give them the result they want.

[mlutthans]

Originally Posted by John Willett

Yes - but a musical instrument is designed to be heard by an audience.

If the "ideal" position was above the sound board, surely a piano would have been designed in such a way that the sound board would face the audience.

I don't know that I agree. When the piano was invented in (depending on source) around 1700, surely some compromises were made that reflect the physical/practical manufacturing capabilities of the day. Once an instrument gets into common usage, also, any major alterations pretty much go out the window. (Surely, today we could build a piano that opens on the other side or that wraps around the player in a semi-circle....but we don't.)

There are many, many ways to skin a piano. I've had good results, for instance, using xy with cardioids, but I think my best sounding recordings have been made when I used John Eargle's idea of minimizing reflections by being aware of the piano lid plane.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by mlutthans

I don't know that I agree. When the piano was invented in (depending on source) around 1700, surely some compromises were made that reflect the physical/practical manufacturing capabilities of the day. Once an instrument gets into common usage, also, any major alterations pretty much go out the window. (Surely, today we could build a piano that opens on the other side or that wraps around the player in a semi-circle....but we don't.)

There are many, many ways to skin a piano. I've had good results, for instance, using xy with cardioids, but I think my best sounding recordings have been made when I used John Eargle's idea of minimizing reflections by being aware of the piano lid plane.

I don't actually disagree with what you say.

But.....

My thoughts go along the line that a composer composed the music to be played on the instrument and espected his audience to hear it with reflections from the lid - I tend, therefore, to try and record as the composer would expect the audience to hear it, rather than from a theoretical "ideal".

As I said; everyone has his own ideas and this is how I approach it normally (given a good piano, good pianist in a good acoustic space).

[David Spearritt]

Originally Posted by John Willett

... that a composer composed the music to be played on the instrument and espected his audience to hear it with reflections from the lid ...

John, not sure that this is a fair assessment of the situation either. Nearly all respected piano composers are players first and foremost so they hear, live and breathe the instrument from the keyboard with their head right near the soundboard and not getting any lid reflections at all.

[Ozpeter]

Of at least equal significance is the lateral position of a coincident (or near coincident) pair - in David's photos the mics appear "straight on" to the piano, whereas I would always have them further to the right, tail-wards, pointing at the left end of the keyboard (approx). (Actually, I'd have them placed where David has them but would turn the piano so its tail was a bit more to the "audience").

But I guess that's all unrelated to stands and height, so I won't mention it.

And we've all got different ways.

[mpdonahue]

Just a couple of quick observations.
WRT a concert grand piano being a "compromise" I would tend to suggest quite the opposite. It is actually a very highly developed thing, the Ferrari of instruments.

To sort of expand on what John was saying, the instrument is really designed to be listened from the front of the instrument, with a blend of:

1) the direct sound from the top of the sound board
2) the sound from the bottom of the sound board bouncing off the floor
3) the sound from the lid projected forward.

You can do significant things by adjusting the height of the lid and dampening some of the floor bounce coming from under the sound board. But as with all things, the real trick is to listen to what you're recording and understand the the tools you are using.
It doesn't matter which mic technique you use. What matters is the aesthetic you are aiming for and how close you get to it. I suspect that for a Steely Dan record the close mic thing inside the piano is the correct approach, but I wouldn't want to listen to Evgeny Kissin play Rach 3 from inside the piano. YMMV.

As to turning the piano on its side so the sound board faces out, they have done that. They call it an upright.

Now, back to more pressing matters, the wife wants me to move some furniture around the livingroom.

All the best,
-mark

[3rd&4thT]

Originally Posted by John Willett

My thoughts go along the line that a composer composed the music to be played on the instrument and espected his audience to hear it with reflections from the lid - I tend, therefore, to try and record as the composer would expect the audience to hear it, rather than from a theoretical "ideal".

A perfectly sound theory, but there is evidence that a piano from as recent as the 1920's sounds quite different from one manufactured today. In this context, I'm not sure how an appeal to the original intention works.

A contemporary Steinway D would have astonished Chopin, Liszt or Debussy, never mind Bach, Mozart or Beethoven.

I think we must approach today's piano on its own terms.

I've attached some examples.

Best,
3rd&4thT

[aracu]

This is turning into a highly educational thread. Just listened to the 1925 Bosendorfer clip on headphones... stunning. Can you give some details?

David S. was that an AKG 426 in the middle? Loved the tone of your
recording.

Rich, I'm impressed with how well centered the stereo image of your recording is. The "dry" piano takes up a specific space, while the reverb
spreads out wider.

[3rd&4thT]

Originally Posted by aracu

This is turning into a highly educational thread. Just listened to the 1925 Bosendorfer clip on headphones... stunning. Can you give some details?

The pianist is Valentina Lisitsa, and this is from a DVD of the Chopin Preludes Op. 10 and 25. There is extended discussion of this DVD on Amazon.com. You can also sample clips on Youtube.

YouTube - Valentina Lisitsa (Chopin 24 Etudes DVD track)Op. 25 No. 12

YouTube - Valentina Lisitsa ( Chopin 24 Etudes DVD track) Op. 10 No. 4

YouTube - Valentina Lisitsa Chopin 24 Etude Op. 25 No. 6

The contrast in sound is even more marked in a concerto with orchestra. I've attached to this post a good example of the kind of surprise you can get.

Cheers,
3rd&4thT