Classical Piano: A "Larger than life sound" Preamp-Mic

[Corran]

I sure hope audio ergo sum is not going to prance around this forum quoting Joel's post from a week ago at every opportunity in an attempt to be either funny or just a jackass.

[joelpatterson]

I dunno, it sounds good to me... but then I have a sick sense of humor...

There could be a whole conspiratorialist school that would claim that I created audio ergo sum, that I'm playing some kind of clever game, to manufacture controversy and stir things up... I don't know if I'm that clever, though...

[John Brook]

88man, you mentioned you weren't planning on putting a carpet under the piano, and I am wondering why. 50% of the sound energy is coming off the top of the sound board, the other 50% is coming off the bottom, 100% out of phase. With a highly reflective surface under the instrument, you're going to get wonderful nodes all over the place.

Once I attended a concert at a hall where some brilliant, but ignorant, engineer put a "bottom lid" on a Steinway D, thus insuring no sound from the piano reached the audience. A most unpleasant experience.

If the instrument sounds great from the bench, why not put your 414's just above your head and see how that records? It may be just what you're looking for.

[fader8]

88man,
Here's a snippet from a classical piano CD I recently produced. I mention it because this was recorded in about the same size space as you're describing. While the room didn't have any anomalies, it wasn't real "sweet" either.

Debussy, Golliwog Cakewalk

After much fiddling with various mic's and techniques, I settled on a close pair, spaced about 2 feet, basically mic'ing the low and high harps separately. You could also say it was one mic covering hammers and the other a bass fill located about mid-string on the bass harp. Depending on how you look at it. Mic's are about 16 inches off the strings.

I'm not keen on how well it translates to mp3, also the pianist is 78 years old and her tuner was about the same! But anyway, you get the idea.

7 foot Schimmel, carpet under, Neumann TLM-193,s into Lavry's.

[88man]

It's been a while since I've been on the forum...

Thanks for the snippet fader8. Close miking would work for the the Debussy Golliwog Cakewalk because it is a crisp sounding piece. Very well played, by the way.

With the advice of Idylldon and Ethan Winer, I finally made my own bass traps for broadband absorption and treated the room. The nearby reflections are well tamed now with traps in the corners, walls, and ceiling. Seven 2ftx4ft, 4in-thick OC-703 panels were sufficient. The bass is tighter, more definitive, highs around 1.8-2.1kHz are more in balance, and flutter echo is gone. I can safely record in omni safely from a distance of 5ft from the curve of the piano, and it sounds great!

If I'll get another preamp, it's going to be the DAV BG-1U and/or Thermionic Earlybird 1.2 for the future to add another instrumentalist to the mix...

Thanks guys!