Two Piano Jazz - Location Recording

[Jabbaz]

Attached is a sample of a recording I did recently.

Looking for general feedback.

Recording chain:

- One Piano was a C5 the other a G5
- Room was a fairly live church with a non-parallel ceiling
- 2x AKG-414 B-ULSs spaced pair, in cardiod evenly positioned between the two pianos (close as possible), into a Great River MP-2NV
- Each piano had the tail end bass strings close mic'd with a josephson c42, into FMR RNP

All into an RME Multiface.

For mixdown I used a bit more of the left 414. I lowpassed each c42 generously and played with the time position of each track to get the best phase relationship, panned each to where I heard the bass register through the 414s. Added some light compression to the overall mix, and some light 1k multiband compression to round off the peaky high registers of the two pianos.

Love to hear what you think! Feel free to constructively criticize...

Thanks,

Dave

[AfterViewer]

Liked the Work all 'n all, Clarity in sound reproduction, interesting duet. Would soften out on the ending, say, 6 seconds out. Nice, different enough on the composition. thumbsupthumbsup

[Jabbaz]

Thanks afterviewer. I'm still really interested in hearing more opinions on this. I can hear some stuff in it that I'm not 100% fond of but I'm curious how other people percieve it.

[loujudson]

Nice! I'm only hearing it on laptop speakers at the moment but will check it in the studio. I like what I hear though.

You might enjoy this too - also 414s (which I don't own or use, but check out their positions!) but mono:

YouTube - Oscar Peterson & Count Basie - Slow Blues

Two of the greaest having a great time together!

L

[Roland]

Hi there. It sounds pretty good, if a little bit closed in. Even though it's a reverberant space I would have tried to give it a little more air. If it were mixed with drums, double bass, etc I think that it would probably work very well, being it's just two acoustic piano's it's very exposed. Keep at it, seems like you are heading the right way!

Roland

[Jabbaz]

Originally Posted by Roland

Hi there. It sounds pretty good, if a little bit closed in. Even though it's a reverberant space I would have tried to give it a little more air. If it were mixed with drums, double bass, etc I think that it would probably work very well, being it's just two acoustic piano's it's very exposed. Keep at it, seems like you are heading the right way!

Roland

Thanks, and I agree. It was tricky because the low/mids were getting too washy/unfocused as I backed the mics away, while the high end was a bit too in-your-face.

[Mark A. Jay]

This is really nice work. Personally, this is one recording where I think the ambient (reverb) is just right; I wouldn't add any 'verb - but as they say, it all comes down to taste. In short, this recording 'works' for me.

Again, I really think you did a fine job.

[RMJAZZ]

I am of the school that believes most recordings in this style and Classical have too much room in the mix. So I like this one a lot. I think it is very 2010!

What's cool is that I can tell which player is playing what.....I hear a lot of these piano duo recordings that are almost impossible to distinguish between the two players.

Keep making good recordings!

Rob

[jazzmanATB]

would love to know how you are panning all of the mics per each piano, as I am in the middle of mixing a 2 piano series that I do.


Alan