Recording a grand piano - Nt2?

J

jakenauta

New member
I am going to be undertaking a recording project soon and this will involve a grand piano to be recorded... I will have at least 1, possibly 2 Rode NT2's and a couple of SM57s

I am a young fella, havent done it before

I want the piano to be crunchy and pure, and it is an nice piano...

Any techniques anyone knows and can share with me..

If your from AUS - Missy Higgins - The sound of white has a piano sound that i do like....

Thanks guys, any help would be wicked

Jake
 
Make sure you have a "tuning note" from the piano to which all other instruments on the project can be tuned would be my first bit of advice... trying to find some other, maybe small diaphragm FET condenser mics or Avenson's or something better than the RODEnt 2 would be my next bit of advice... then as far as positioning goes... you didn't mention what kind of sound you were trying to achieve so I'm going to guess the quasi-modern close mic'd stereo mic'ing thing that produces a very common piano sound that is impossible to achieve in nature...

Put one mic somewhere around 2/3rd's up the bass strings [headed toward the nose... that's your "left hand" mic], the other one somewhere around the "label" [that's your right hand mic]. Find a good sound with the 'left hand mic' [it should be clear and distinct, preferably with no EQ but that probably won't be possible with something like a RODEnt]... then put the sound into "one speaker mono" and position the mic that is somewhere over the label so you get a very clear representation of the piano with the two mics, level matched in mono... when you put it into stereo you should get a very nice, totally unnatural [unless you normally lay inside a piano when someone is playing] modern sound that is phase coherent and should sit in the track.

If you're in a decent room... you might want to consider running a track or two of room mics... the 57's will work for that.

Best of luck.
 
How can a piano be 100% in tune. When a piano is in tune it is actually out of tune! That always throughs guitar players for a loop but it is.

Second, a piano will be somewhat out of tune, a few hours after it has been tuned. Humidity is a bitch.
 
There's an excellent article in this months issue of Recording magazine concerning micing and recording grand piano.
 
In Tune Audio said:
How can a piano be 100% in tune. When a piano is in tune it is actually out of tune! That always throughs guitar players for a loop but it is.

Second, a piano will be somewhat out of tune, a few hours after it has been tuned. Humidity is a bitch.
Click to expand...
That's why fletcher said to tune all other instruments to the piano.

Check out my song "December's Mist" here:
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/album.php?aid=1656&alid=-1&20040703081136#13796

If you like the sound, let me know, and I'll tell you how it was done.
 
Tempered tuning not withstanding... if you print a tuning note from the piano and make sure the other instruments are tuned around that note you probably won't run into "the piano is __ cents sharp/flat" when you get to the end. You can pick nits or make records, I really don't give a damn... but it seemed like the brother was thinking about making a record... so... I gave him a little "real world" piece of advice.

Use the advice, dismiss the advice but please, let's not quibble semantics.
 
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