Recording 2 grand pianos this Sunday. Help!?

[Gakboi]

Hi.

I'm recording a classical concert (well it will be without an audience as the actual concert is a week later) featuring two grand pianos as a favour this Sunday. I am very limited in the gear I have to use. Though I think I know how I will setup I would be interested in hearing some more experienced views. I have never recorded 2 pianos at once before and the lack of gear options only makes this more challenging

I only have an mbox2 available so I will have to mix on the fly on a mackie 1604vlz desk (i know it's not ideal...). I have 4 condenser mics available which are:

AKG414 (one of the newer ones)
AT4033a
Rode NT5 matched pair.

I will have an opportunity to master the final product through some quality outboard at a later date but it's unfortunately not an option to have it on site on the day.

Thankfully the room sounds amazing so I think it will be hard to f up but having to get it perfect first time (I have 2 hours to setup and record a 45min set) is making me sweat

Any tips on piano positioning (relative to each other) mic positioning, which mics where etc would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Yannick]

First: I never record piano with the lid off.
Second: it is quite impossible to record two piano's with the lid on !

The rest depends on the position of the two piano's: a. with the curbs against each other (one pianist on the left, the other on the right)
or b. keyboards side by side, so one piano is back and the other front, but both pianists sit on the left.

a. the balance will never be OK if one has the lid still on.
b. here the farther piano could have the lid on, as it could sound further in the main mic array, so both will compensate.

The easiest way is to remove both lids, put stereo array between both instruments (position a.) and go up. Then you could spot each piano where it works best and where you have less of the other instrument (which is a pain, because it is just ... big)

In position a. the funny thing is that a LOT of sound comes out of the bass bridge on the soundboard, spotting piano1 near the treble can actually amplify the bass bridge on piano2 more. ouch.

[Gakboi]

Thanks for the tips. It's given me some food for thought.

I was thinking of putting the pianos so the players faced each other, pianos curve to curve, leaving the lid on one piano (exactly as at 1:32 in this video YouTube - HD: Mozart's SONATA for TWO PIANOS - Anderson & Roe ) and then micing conventionally with an xy or ms setup about 2m out from the curve of the lid on piano as I was hoping this would remove any phase issues arising from having two pianos.

The only draw back I could think of was that there may be some tonality issues from the unlidded piano.

[RobAnderson]

Sounds to me as though you have the right idea.

Mic the two piano's as an "ensemble" or consider them to be a single instrument.

Regardless of how the piano's are arranged, the lid on the front piano will come off. The lid on the rear piano will remain on.

Since it appears as though you only have one pair of mic's for stereo recording, I think your microphone choice is already made for you.

[pkautzsch]

In the "facing each other" setup you'd probably (!) best put up the NT5 main pair in front, and then if necessary use the AKG and the AT as flankers or spots. You'd probably need to get a bit more definition at least in fast parts, so the spots might well end up somewhere near the stick position (although there is no stick as there is no lid).

When the players are sitting next to each other (typically left, with the tail end pointing to the right), your main pair can either be in front of P1 and will then pick up P1 more directly than P2. If both are equally "important", you can set the main pair up in a Fouquet-style tail end way, ending up with both pianos equally close or far sounding. The LDCs could then either make up a non-matched (and therefore more interesting) room pair or, as in the "facing" setup, as spots for more definition in fast parts.

Mixing them to 2trk on location isn't rocket science, but you need to sit in another room and preferrably have a pair of good nearfield speakers to judge stereo image.

[Ozpeter]

I'd be very surprised if you get a choice of the arrangement of the pianos. This is critical to the performers and you'll have to accept their requirements.

If they do want an interlocked-curve arrangement, then with the lids off you can put a single stereo pair on a tall stand looking down on the pianos. You can then obtain the image you personally like by rotating the pair, with one extreme being that the pair points across the two, through 90 degrees to where the mics point towards each player. There are interesting possibilities in between.

With almost any other arrangement you can place a stereo pair as if it's listening from the audience perspective at a distance of your choosing according to your taste. Then place your spots pretty close to the tail of each piano, which you can then mix in hard left and right to separate the instruments, if that's what you want (bearing in mind that from the audience's point of view there won't be that kind of separation happening, however), or adjust the balance.

Hopefully, if one lid is on and the other off, the pianists will select the pianos, and adjust their performance, so that the best natural balance is obtained. Don't go into the situation assuming that it's not going to work naturally and that you've got to create an artificial balance. Personally my rule of thumb in any situation is to get a stereo pair to the best available position, listen to that, and only add further mics if you can hear that it's not working.

[MaTr1x2051]

It actually is possible to get two pianos, side by side, with both lids on to sound pretty darn good. The lid of a piano is a very integral part of both projecting the instrument and balancing it naturally. Sound projects from pianos in two nodes off the lid. The optimal position is usually very close to the first node which bisects the angle the full stick lid makes with the body of the instrument. The secondary node follows the angle of the lid up nearly exactly. Thus, with the pianos in the correct position, you can most likely mike the front piano on the secondary node and the back piano on the primary node. Of course, the back piano will sound a tad more distant. Try adding a not too close spot for more control on both instruments. Taking the lid off drastically changes how the instrument balances its sound... so it might take some time to find good spots to mike.

If the stage is big enough and if the performers are ok with it... you can try putting the pianos in a kind of semi-circle around the main array. Both lids can be full stick, both can be miked on the primary node, and you get a cool stereo separation that helps define the instruments from one another later in playback. Put a not too close spot on both for added control if you wish, but you can probably get a very good balance using this method. The problem is....... the performers have to be extremely good because communication between them is made very difficult.

Best of luck!

[Gakboi]

Thanks to everyone for the help. It's great how many varied views were put forward and amazing that you were all right in some way or other.

In the end I had to forget about my plan and go with the flow because the players wanted to sit side by side so they could see each others hands. Took the lids off and stuck the NT5's in xy between the pianos (roughly in the middle of the curve and at about 180cm high..... where it sounded nicest to my ears). Sounds great with excellent stereo separation. Will see if they'll let me post a tune here.

Thanks again