Mic stands for classical piano recording

[macula]

For versatility in recording classical piano, how short or tall should the mic stands be? Any particular suggestions? I will be trying all sorts of 2-mic positions and setups, including ORTF, MS coincident...

Thank you.

PS: Yes, I am that much of a beginner.

[John Willett]

For classical piano - by this I mean a 9' concert grand (which is what I record most often and am just about to sen four CDs to the pressing plant with an initial 3,000 run for each).

I would only use omni mics as they have a good octave at the bottom end that directional mics miss.

My favourites for the last 20 years have been the Sennheiser MKH 20s, my last CDs were recorded with the Neumann KM-D omnis and my next will be with the new Sennheiser MKH 8020s.

My microphone stand every time has been the K&M 200 stand (or the Sennheiser SEMS equivalent). This is a very high quality stand with a shock-absorbent base. I use the black version to keep it unobtrusive.



I normally have the pair of omnis at about 20cm spacing - but this and the distance can vary according to the music, the venue and the piano.

In the past I have used the manufacturers shockmounts, but I am just about to change all my mic. shockmounts to the new Rycote InVision series as, not only are they very inexpensive, they are also technically better than anything else - so I will be using these in the future.

My future piano rig will be the MKH 8020 on remote cables on the mini Rycote InVision - I am trying to persuade Sennheiser to do a Y-cable (as all the extension cables and remotes are stereo capable) and use a single Sennheiser 8000 series stand with a stereo bar at the top and a pair of the MH 8020 heads.

I hope this helps.

[hughesmr]

Originally Posted by John Willett

I normally have the pair of omnis at about 20cm spacing - but this and the distance can vary according to the music, the venue and the piano.

Wow, that's very narrow for A/B. Do you use flanks? Do you have any samples you could post using that spacing?

For me, stand height depends on distance to the istrument. A 12-15' stand should suffice in most any instance.

Cheers.

[danijel]

Originally Posted by John Willett

For classical piano - by this I mean a 9' concert grand
.................
I normally have the pair of omnis at about 20cm spacing

Originally Posted by hughesmr

A 12-15' stand should suffice in most any instance.

i vote that remote forum gets an in-built unit conversion applet!
..... before true hell unleashes and chinese people get internet access. who knows what measurements they will bring into the game.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by hughesmr

Wow, that's very narrow for A/B. Do you use flanks? Do you have any samples you could post using that spacing?

It works very well for classical piano at about 2m distance and around shoulder / head height.

I have nothing on a website, though - it's all on CDs.

Originally Posted by hughesmr

For me, stand height depends on distance to the istrument. A 12-15' stand should suffice in most any instance.

For solo piano, I normally go much lower, normally at a height that the audience would hear it - after all, that's how the piano was designed to do.

[hughesmr]

Originally Posted by John Willett

For solo piano, I normally go much lower, normally at a height that the audience would hear it - after all, that's how the piano was designed to do.

Perhaps I should clarify: I use a 12-15' stand so that I have the option of going that high if necessary. The further back one goes, the higher one should go in order to see into the instrument better. Also, should the piano be on an elevated stage and you must mic from a lower floor level (e.g. in the first rows of seats), then you need some extra height just to get the mics up enough, even if the height relative to the piano is modest.

[David Spearritt]

Originally Posted by John Willett

It works very well for classical piano at about 2m distance and around shoulder / head height.

John, this must be quieter music is it? No Appassionata or Bach Busoni Chaconne on the CD? I my experience this would be way too close for concert grand at fortississimo or fortissississimo.

For solo piano, I normally go much lower, normally at a height that the audience would hear it - after all, that's how the piano was designed to do.

But I think you can get a sweeter sound by going higher up and avoiding the lid reflections and get line of sight to the soundboard. The lid is a work around to try to beam the sound out to the audience, but that doesn't mean its perfect. The perfect radiation must come from the sound board when the lid is off and it goes straight up.

[macula]

Thank you all for the useful responses.

[Corran]

Personally I always get boom stands to facilitate different stereo miking techniques.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

John, this must be quieter music is it? No Appassionata or Bach Busoni Chaconne on the CD? I my experience this would be way too close for concert grand at fortississimo or fortissississimo.

Actually it worked very well for the Appassionata on my last recording - both the pianist and producer were very happy.

Normally distance depends on the piece and the acoustic - the last recording was in The Menuhin Hall and it happened o work well there.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by Corran

Personally I always get boom stands to facilitate different stereo miking techniques.

Yes, I have booms for all mine.

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

But I think you can get a sweeter sound by going higher up and avoiding the lid reflections and get line of sight to the soundboard. The lid is a work around to try to beam the sound out to the audience, but that doesn't mean its perfect. The perfect radiation must come from the sound board when the lid is off and it goes straight up.

But the audience always hear a piano by reflection from the lid - so if you are trying to get a realistic sound, having the reflections from the lid is actually a good thing.

[0VU]

Originally Posted by John Willett

But the audience always hear a piano by reflection from the lid - so if you are trying to get a realistic sound, having the reflections from the lid is actually a good thing.

Quite often they hear it from tens of yards away/above/below/in a room full of people coughing or with the guy next to them 'whispering' to his gently snoring friend how the pianist isn't playing the Liszt as well as he did forty years ago in Vienna. That isn't necessarily the perspective one wants to capture either.

Not everyone wants to hear a piano captured with the acoustic it's sitting in from the perspective of a 5ft8 man in a big woolly jumper sat in the third/fourth/whatever row, with his head level with the performer's feet, listening to about 80% lid/floor reflections, 10% room noise, 5% direct from the underside of the soundboard and 5% coughing.

I appreciate that this probably isn't the 'audience' perspective to which you refer but given that the description is perfectly valid as a common scenario for how parts of an audience hears a piano, and there are thousands of other possible scenarios, what makes one recorded perspective any more realistic or valid than any other? If the idea is to capture the 'ideal' audience perspective in a given hall, whose concept of 'ideal' is the benchmark? Without an objective way of measuring, what is the arbiter?

It's just perspectives; no two people in any room hear exactly the same thing and there's no one way to achieve a 'realistic' recorded result that suits everyone. For some people lid reflections are part of how they are used to hearing a piano; for others, they screw it up and for others they play little or no part. So they're not necessarily needed or a good thing; sometimes it's better that they're not there. Neither necessarily is 'wrong'. Or 'right'.

[JEGG]

The character that is imparted by the lid works differently depending on distance. The closer you are, the more obvious the time/phase differences. Further away, the differences-proportionally-are much less.

If you wish to avoid or reduce lid reflections without removing the lid, you can go higher vertically-within some rather small limits. Or use boundary mics on the lid.

I'm not so sure that pianos are specifically designed to be heard with the lid, any more than they are not designed to be heard with the lid. There are a lot of stage and historical building (of instruments) conventions operative, here.

I think these factors are all unique to each situation.

So, I guess this is a 0VU +1.

[danijel]

may i add that franz liszt was the first player to turn the piano sideways, so that the lid reflections shoot the audience. if you are recording pre-romantic works, you may consider avoiding them reflections alltogether. lol

[sonare]

A fine pianist whom I recorded a few years ago for a label was also quite an accomplished recordist, and his extensive experimentation led him to choose to position mics so that when peering through the narrow opening "behind" the piano where the hinges are (looking out to the audience) the mics would appear equidistant between lid and body regardless of distance from the instrument.

While he was hardly the first to arrive at that position, it sounds quite good as a start with performer taste being the final arbiter.

Rich

[mljung]

Originally Posted by sonare

A fine pianist whom I recorded a few years ago for a label was also quite an accomplished recordist, and his extensive experimentation led him to choose to position mics so that when peering through the narrow opening "behind" the piano where the hinges are (looking out to the audience) the mics would appear equidistant between lid and body regardless of distance from the instrument.

While he was hardly the first to arrive at that position, it sounds quite good as a start with performer taste being the final arbiter.

Rich

If I understand this correct it's a very strange approach; maybe I got it wrong. Please Rich, is it possible for you to make a drawing of this setup, and do you know what kind of microphones he used.

The general problem with grand pianos are their chaotic resonances. Do you know if the technique was developed trying to control these. Can't imagine how a recording from 'behind' can be any good. But then again you never know with pianos...

Mads

[John Willett]

Originally Posted by 0VU

Quite often they hear it from tens of yards away/above/below/in a room full of people coughing or with the guy next to them 'whispering' to his gently snoring friend how the pianist isn't playing the Liszt as well as he did forty years ago in Vienna. That isn't necessarily the perspective one wants to capture either.

Not everyone wants to hear a piano captured with the acoustic it's sitting in from the perspective of a 5ft8 man in a big woolly jumper sat in the third/fourth/whatever row, with his head level with the performer's feet, listening to about 80% lid/floor reflections, 10% room noise, 5% direct from the underside of the soundboard and 5% coughing.

I appreciate that this probably isn't the 'audience' perspective to which you refer but given that the description is perfectly valid as a common scenario for how parts of an audience hears a piano, and there are thousands of other possible scenarios, what makes one recorded perspective any more realistic or valid than any other? If the idea is to capture the 'ideal' audience perspective in a given hall, whose concept of 'ideal' is the benchmark? Without an objective way of measuring, what is the arbiter?

It's just perspectives; no two people in any room hear exactly the same thing and there's no one way to achieve a 'realistic' recorded result that suits everyone. For some people lid reflections are part of how they are used to hearing a piano; for others, they screw it up and for others they play little or no part. So they're not necessarily needed or a good thing; sometimes it's better that they're not there. Neither necessarily is 'wrong'. Or 'right'.

Agreed - which is why I keep saying that there are probably more ways to record a piano than there are engineers.

I just post my way of doing it and why I do it that way - though people must like it, because I keep getting asked to record solo piano.

[David Spearritt]

Originally Posted by sonare

A fine pianist whom I recorded a few years ago for a label was also quite an accomplished recordist, and his extensive experimentation led him to choose to position mics so that when peering through the narrow opening "behind" the piano where the hinges are (looking out to the audience) the mics would appear equidistant between lid and body regardless of distance from the instrument.

While he was hardly the first to arrive at that position, it sounds quite good as a start with performer taste being the final arbiter.

Rich

Well, this seems totally nutty, IMHO. Most classical performers I have worked with are generally clueless about acoustics, bless their hearts, and this is further evidence.

[NorseHorse]

I recently purchased DFLEX mic clips so I can clip SDCs into the piano.

No mics stands for me. I was tired of positioning them.

Mixing that signal with a Crown SASS in the audience should get me anywhere I want to go.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by sonare

A fine pianist...the mics would appear equidistant between lid and body regardless of distance from the instrument...

This is the most excellently brilliant insight I have ever run across regarding this whole connundrum, and it singlehandedly captures the essence of several truths I've stumbled across recently, when I haven't been too busy to notice-- you need two things, in equal measure, to call a piano recording 'adequate': some kind of sting in the attack of the notes, a clear reading of the 'bite' that the player is after, and then the whole wash of the sound as it lingers in the air. (Some people give you the wash and call it a day.) It stands to reason that the mic would have to "see" the hammer hitting the note in order to register what that interaction was like--no matter how far away it was watching from.

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

Well, this seems totally nutty, IMHO. Most classical performers I have worked with are generally clueless about acoustics, bless their hearts, and this is further evidence.

I have a hard time listening to blowhards myself, expecially second hand, but someone was telling me the "ultimate" technique he had seen this "expert!" demonstrating: (and he propped his arms up like giraffes to show me): you're maybe seven, seven 'n'half feet up in the air, as far up as you can comfortably hold your arms and make giraffe's head shadow puppets with your hands: and then-- how do I describe this, it's a little visual: you're out maybe five feet from the open lid: the part of the lid that's wider goes higher up in the air, so this giraffe is "gulping" the sound at a higher level in the trees-- the "lower" part of the lid, the part that isn't so wide and so doesn't make such a high "terrace", that giraffe can feed a little lower. But both giraffes are sorta equidistant from the 'arch' that's theirs. "Any piano, any hall!" I don't endorse being a loudmouth opinionated person... but it does make a whole lotta sense.

[Corran]

Joel, nicely put

Oh and I didn't quite get the technique, I thought sonare meant the mics were sticking through the little gap between the lid and the piano. Now that would be dangerous...imagine a stage hand closing the piano lid and utterly crushing the mics...

[sonare]

Originally Posted by David Spearritt

Well, this seems totally nutty, IMHO. Most classical performers I have worked with are generally clueless about acoustics, bless their hearts, and this is further evidence.

Then either you are clueless as to what was described, or by extension you are calling me clueless-- I wonder which?

This person has played with major orchestras in this country, and was VERY advanced in his understanding of art and technique, something which few on this forum have a firm grasp.

Rich

[sonare]

Originally Posted by mljung

If I understand this correct it's a very strange approach; maybe I got it wrong. Please Rich, is it possible for you to make a drawing of this setup, and do you know what kind of microphones he used.

Imagine you are standing to one side of the stage, and the main box of the action is parallel to the floor-- that is zero degrees. The lid, open on full stick, is at about 40 degrees. The mics (at ANY distance from the instrument) bisects those two at 20 degrees, looking down into the piano. 8 feet out it might be at 8ft height-- 12 feet out it might be 10 ft height. Never actually measured that stuff so the numbers are approximate.

His favorite mics were Schoeps MK2H spaced at 1 meter. His girlfriend did a solo piano recording at Skywalker and Lesley Ann got a Grammy nomination with it. The setup was similar.

If I can figure out how to do an illustration I will post it.

Rich

[sonare]

Not to scale!!!

[3rd&4thT]

Originally Posted by sonare

Not to scale!!!

In fact, move it a little closer to the piano on the same line, and it'll look very much like the newsreel footage of RCA recording Rubinstein with a single mic in the late 40's. (Haven't found it on the Net yet. If you see a clip of him playing in his shirtsleeves instead of a tux, let me know.)

3rd&4thT

[David Spearritt]

Originally Posted by sonare

Then either you are clueless as to what was described, or by extension you are calling me clueless-- I wonder which?

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.

[hughesmr]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

This is the most excellently brilliant insight I have ever run across regarding this whole connundrum, and it singlehandedly captures the essence of several truths I've stumbled across recently, when I haven't been too busy to notice-- you need two things, in equal measure, to call a piano recording 'adequate': some kind of sting in the attack of the notes, a clear reading of the 'bite' that the player is after, and then the whole wash of the sound as it lingers in the air. (Some people give you the wash and call it a day.)

And some people give you the sting and call it a day. It's all a matter of taste, my friend! (And BTW, you listed three things, not two ... unless sting=bite )

Rich, your drawing looks a lot like what I do in the nice hall I record in occasionally, perhaps with the exception that I tend to aim more at the midpoint of the inside of the lid. The mic characteristics may also be a large variable here in determining angle ... degree of HF lift, etc.

Cheers!

[joelpatterson]

I would give you Sting, if it was in my power to do so, and please do not return him!

[David Spearritt]

I like to go a bit higher than the purely bisected angle, being paranoid about avoiding lid reflections. Here is a project I am working on at the moment, omnis and blumlein combined. Its a good result I think. Sorry about the blurred pics, no flash.