Chopin Prelude no. 20

[Bigus Dickus]

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=2316&alid=-1

No, it's not the best performance, and I'm still a little unsure of mic placement, but this position seems to be about as good as any of the others I've tried so for now it will do.

I really have no idea what to do for mixing. This is my first hack attempt at it, and I'm still fiddling with all the plugins trying to get a feel for how they affect the sound.

A basic question - what is used as a starting point for EQ? Your ears? A frequency plot or histogram? Both I'm sure, but how do you guys approach acoustic instruments like this?

This is using an X/Y mic placement, and I'm not sure about the width of the stereo field. What do you think?

 

[HogansHiro]

Could you give us alittle more background on how it was recorded ...... size of piano.....lid open/closed/off?....... mic type/s and placement/s. Piano in my opinion is one of the biggets pains ion the ass to record..... I have a baby grand and for me to get a good sound I use four mics...to pencil style condensors X facing down at a 45 dgre across sound-board and two large diagphram over head from left to right to get good stereo spread. It takes a lot of tweakin to get a placement that works in your studio.....piano is the one instrument where there are no absolute recording ideals.

 

[mixmkr]

personally, I like a wider sound on a piano in a situation like this..but that may be more towards a "pop" sound actually VS a more realistic recreation. I was never really a fan of the XY stuff on pno either, but preferred to separate the mics and get them closer to the piano for a more "in your face" sound, with really wiiiiiide separation. Is it natural sounding..?.... probably not,.... so then just make it sound like it is on a stage in a great concert hall then with really greaaaaaat wiiiiiide NATURAL sounding reverb.

oh..use the ears first of course...skip the holograms and all that other evil stuff. I'd think minimum EQ would be the route too. Get it right tracking and don't muck with it much when mixing. I mean...how much are your really going to mix a stereo pno track?

I'd watch your fade out notes/damper pedals, etc too....and squeeky pno benches!!

 

[erichenryus]

....and squeeky pno benches!!

you mean like glen gould's infamous chair?

downloading presently and praying not to hear you break into that song by barry manilow!...i'll be back.

back...sounds pretty good to me. i, of course, have no experience micing a piano. i gotta disagree with going with a real wide separation for classical though. i mean how many recitals to you listen to with your head inside the piano?

thanks for the post, i just got out my chopin books again. i may not show up at work tomorrow .

 

[Bigus Dickus]

Could you give us alittle more background on how it was recorded ...... size of piano.....lid open/closed/off?....... mic type/s and placement/s.

Take a look at this thread:

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?s=&threadid=72982

The first post contains pretty much all the information about the piano, room, and recording equipment, and towards the bottom is a listing of mic positions. This prelude was recorded on what is basically the number 17 position. Positions 8, 12, 17, and 18 are still on my page at nowhereradio if you'd like to take a listen at those.

Piano in my opinion is one of the biggets pains ion the ass to record.....

No kidding! I'm new at all this recording stuff, and I think I started at the wrong end of the difficulty spectrum.

I only have the two Oktava mics to use, which should ultimately be fine for my purposes. All in all, I'm pleased with the sound, as it's as good as I figured I'd get when I set out on this project, but it cost more money than I had planned. My biggest complaint is that the sound is much less "open" sounding than the piano actually sounds to my ears, and I have a feeling that this is largely due to the mic pre's I'm using - a DBX 386.

 

[Bigus Dickus]

personally, I like a wider sound on a piano in a situation like this..but that may be more towards a "pop" sound actually VS a more realistic recreation. I was never really a fan of the XY stuff on pno either, but preferred to separate the mics and get them closer to the piano for a more "in your face" sound, with really wiiiiiide separation.

I'm very split on this myself. From the results of the mic placement test I did (see link in post above this one) I had a hard time deciding between number 12 and 17. 12 had a much wider and more apparent stereo image, and while 17 sounded a bit more natural. I guess I could just limit the panning using a wide spaced placement to keep it from being so artificial... I'll probably re-record this prelude with wide spacing and compare those two.

I also wonder if there's a middle ground placement? X/Y is pretty much coincident source, and my wide spacing (12) was about 24" with the mics nearly parallel to each other. Maybe only 12" separation? What happens when you take the angled towards each other part of X/Y and put 6" or 12" space between them? Damn, more testing.

so then just make it sound like it is on a stage in a great concert hall then with really greaaaaaat wiiiiiide NATURAL sounding reverb.

I played with reverb on a few test tracks I did using a variety of music styles, and with any non-sustained, especially staccato passages, any amount of reverb greater than "a touch" sounded very artificial, this using the Timeworks 4080L. Of course, I still don't know what I'm doing with reverb either, so that could have just a little something to do with it.

I mean...how much are your really going to mix a stereo pno track?

Well, this prelude is actually three stereo tracks. It was hard to tell what different EQ and reverb settings were doing, so I duped the tracks twice, used different effects/settings on each, and adjusted faders until I had as much of each as I wanted. Probably a lot better way of doing that, but I'm still learning.

Besides, I've read stuff on this board about compressing the attack (hammer strike) differently from the sustain portion, EQ'ing reverb-only tracks differently, piling multiple reverbs on top of each other...!?!?

I'd watch your fade out notes/damper pedals, etc too....and squeeky pno benches!!

Yeah, this piano is a bit noisy when it comes to releasing notes and pedals. I had to take great care during this prelude not to release to harshly, and it is still noticeable in places. Oh well, that will probably get better as my playing adapts to the needs of recording. Good advice though. I have to watch my breathing as well... on a few takes of a different passage I took a big inhale before a difficult section!