Dual Piano (Duet/Duo) Recording

[Jabbaz]

I'm recording a pair of grand pianos (jazz duet) in two weeks in a nice sounding room and am more than a little undecided about how to approach it. I'm still a little shy on details about the project, but will add to this post as they come in. Note this isn't a live performance, i.e no audience.

I've got:

4ch RNP
2x Josephson c42
2x AKG c481
(whatever mics and pres I need to rent in addition)

My thinking is to do a near-coincident room pair, plus an XY stereo spot in each piano.

The biggest question in my head is layout: If the lids are facing opposite directions, room mics are inevitably going to pick up more of one piano than the other (unless placed directly overtop looking down).

To solve this I could:

a) remove the lids - never done this before, and don't know if the owner of the pianos would allow/care. Still the stereo pair would be closer to the bass strings of one instrument and the treble strings of the other - might be a weird stereo image.

b) face the pianos the same direction, lids focused towards the room mics, but then lose the line of sight from performer to performer (maybe set up a mirror to assist?)

Anyone have a suggestion in regards to instrument layout, mic layout, anything? My search for piano duet let to a lot of threads about pianos being recording with an Apogee Duet

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[joeq]

I have never recorded dual pianos, but faced with a jazz situation, I would remove the lids.

it is not hard to do, just pull a couple of pins and have some guys strong enough to set the lid down gently.

If you really want to do an 'audience perspective' type of recording, you could remove ONE lid and set up like the attached photo below...

personally I think a stereo pair out front would get a little mushy for jazz, and I would make sure my close mics were working really well.

[Remoteness]

I bet this thread would have yield a lot more traction if it was place in the correct forum.

What do you think?

[GKennedy]

Take both lids off and get above the 2 pianos with a single pair. Not too close or you will have an over wide image. Maybee your 2 spare mics as single mono close mics? You should be able to get it on a pair in a good room.

GK

[Jabbaz]

Not sure what forum this was originally posted in (or if it's been moved at any point)... but I ultimately did exactly what you said GK:

Take both lids off and get above the 2 pianos with a single pair. Not too close or you will have an over wide image. Maybee your 2 spare mics as single mono close mics? You should be able to get it on a pair in a good room.

The results are in this thread for anyone interested: