phew.... sounds like fun... and stress, and fun...
my 2c.
I wouldn't use the pzm's on the floor, just guessing that your room really is small, you'd get way too much mud in the mics to make them useful, especially if you're looking for seperation between the instruments... I guess its important to consider the nature of the pieces you're recording... could they be performed on one piano with four hands, ie, is that the goal, or do you want to bring out the different timbre's of the two instruments to accentuate the fact that it is in fact a duet.
The 184s have a really nice low and low mid response, and the earthworks, have a wider response curve, but if I recall are accurate up to 30k? and imho, sound more transparent in the highs... so... you have two choices...
Pick the two instruments, decide which will be warmer and darker, and which a little more airy... and assign your stereo pairs that way, or... what I would try is split the mics... 1EQ 1184 on each in a stereo config with the neumann on the lower harmonic strings...
You haven't mentioned what kind of piano's you're using... but that's just crazy amounts of detail at that point.
The problem with just doing stereo for the room is going to be the size of the room, and the shape... personally unless you were in an open space, I wouldn't want to deal with the issues that might cause... the other consideration is the muddying of the tone through the sympathetic vibrations between the two pianos.
As for the pzm's... you can play with putting them inside the piano towards the top of the midrange strings... ultimately, since you have 8 channels... your best bet is to get the sound you want from the 2 mics on the inside, and hook up the pzms to mix in, per effect as you settle into your final mix.
Regardless of which stereo config you use... point the mics over the corresponding strings towards the hammers... you'll get more percussiveness, (something you can blend down with the pzm's if you use that technique) but more importantly, you won't get as much bleed between the two instruments, allowing you to give separate treatment.
use your left over ins for the shures which you can setup in a psuedo stereo room config, with each mic taking a preference to a piano.
Depending on your room, you'll be able to use this, with the pzm's to countervail any amount of overly percussiveness you run into with the EW's and 184s.
All this being said, the only time I've ever been stuck doing two pianos was in school, and we had separate rooms with glass between them.
Just trying to give you my plays for what you'll get the most options in your mix out of, as classical musicians don't like doing this stuff more than once.
Good luck... post a mix, if the performers let you, be interested to hear how it turns out.
Regards,
Rich
Radium Reactor
