Mic that Grand Piano

T

ThomD

New member
Sorry to post another "what should I do" thread :)

I want to record my 7 foot Schimmel grand piano. Mid-size living room, carpeted floors, heavy drapes. I'm mostly looking to record myself so I can critique my playing. If I'm feeling wild and crazy, I'll burn a CD for my mom.

Most of the music is classical. No jazz, no rock - not that there is anything wrong with that.

If I can do it on one mic, great. If I need 2 different mics, that is fine too. I'll be recording to a PC, probably through something like M-Audio's MobilePre USB. Unless you convince me of something better.

The budget is flexible, but I don't want to spend beyond what my ears can hear. I suspect I will be unhappy with $99 mics, probably happy with $300 mics and not buying $500 mics. I'm particulary interested in the tonal qualities of the mics. I'm looking for a neuteral sound. I did all of my "bright" vs "darK" analysis when I picked this piano - it has the sound I want.

So, please help me spend my money.

Cheers,

Thom
 
I have mid-seize grand i get so frustrated with micing it I bought a kurzweil stage piano that sounds pretty damn good. Once you find a setup i suggest you memorize it and/or glue you mic stands to the floor with the booms loacked into that position. Once you find it...keep it.

Anyway...here is an article from SOS that talks about micing a grand piano. Towards the bottom they have possible mic setups you can use for a good stereo recording.

Piano Article

Article about mics to use
 
One mic, about 6-8 feet in front (audience perspective), at about 4-5 feet high.

Or, alternatively, have someone play, and find the spot which sounds the best with your ears, and put a mic there.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
grand micing

I have had very good luck recording our Steinway with an ORTF pair about 8' From the piano. That gives the piano space to develop it's sound.

if you have to close mic. I would put one cardiod centered above the low end strings, another over the upper strings. Run them just a bit Left for low and Right for the highs--just a few ticks from center. That will give you a huge stereo image of the piano.

If that doesn't work, put one mic on a stand at the curve and aim it into the piano.
 
Thanks guys

Good articles in those links.

I'm going to start with the "single mic in the curve" idea. Now I just have to decide which mic.

-thom
 
The only time I would want to use a boundary mic in a piano is if it was on stage with the lid shut due to stage volume issues (i.e. drummer, guitar players etc....)

Personally, I would start with either one large diaphragm condensor that has some sort of pattern selection, or a pair of small diaphragm condensors.
 
I agree.Again I haven't tried boundry pn piano but a friend of mine recorded small grand with boundry and sent me samples.I liked the sound a lot.Very percusive.You could hear the soft hit of the hammers and a little...very little of the pedals. It totaly suprised me the way it sounded. And that doesn't happen very often.
If you are doing rock n roll maybe will be fun.
My advice:
TRy and Try and TRy .Mesure.then cut.
 
[WARNING: Some generalisations follow below. YMMV!]

Have you read the big, sticky, mic thread?


Anyway, you have at least 3 options: 1) One or a pair of Large Diaphragm Condensors (LDC) with cardioid or variable pattern, 2) One or a pair of Small Diaphragm Condensors cardioids, or 3) One or a set of SDC omni mics. There are other options and combinations as well.

The room you're recording in, and the placement of the mics, will also have a big impact on the sound you get.


1) For the most "neutral" sound, a set of omni SDC mics are best. But they pick up most of the room sound, so if the room is crap, you may be out of luck. You can, however, place them very close to the piano without any increased bass response (proximity effect) and hence giving you more direct sound, which may work for you. But placement becomes critical, the closer you get, unless you want an imbalanced sound ;-)

The ECM8000 gets some OK response here, for a starter. They are dirt cheap, but since omnis are easier to make, they produce an OK sound. They are very small diaphragm mics, so their impulse response is quite good -- but they can be a bit noisy.

Going up pricewise from there, you can get several of the ones below with omni capsules -- or even a LDC with an omni pattern.

2) SDC cardioids can colour the sound more, but will usually pick up less room sound, so it gives you flexibility to move away from the piano without getting too much room sound, maybe easier achieving a balanced sound. In addition to differences in their colouring (some are bright, some darker), they also are different in their pick-up pattern and thereby the amount of room they pick up, and in the colouration of their off-axis response and thereby the colour of the room sound.

Some mics to consider in the lower end are Oktava MC012 (maybe not as bright as some of the others), MXL 603, SP C4, Røde NT4, etc. There are also better and more expensive ones (Shure, Peluso, ... all the way up to DPA).

3) For LDSs, these will typically colour the sound a bit more, or at least give it a bit more "shimmer" -- which is one reason why LDCs are often chosen for e.g. vocals.

You say you don't want that... however, I assume that most of the sound you are hearing is what is heard by you as the player -- have you tried having someone else play the piano, and listened carefully if that is also what you like, from other places in the room? Remember that our ears tend to "disregard" the room acoustics on location, unless it really distracts. Anyway, my point is that maybe you would be happy with that extra bit of shimmer?

Some mics to try are SP B1 (bright, neutral), MXL V67G (darker, coloured). These are both sub-100 USD. Going up, I would check out the CAD M177 or M179 (neutral, uncoloured)... or one of the "instrument mics" such as Røde NT2A, etc.


So... this probably didn't help you much in terms of narrowing it down...

Personally, in your situation, I would try to rent, borrow, or even buy with the right to return, a set of SDC cardioids. I think you should be able to get a good result with a pair of Oktavas, MXL, SP or Røde (all addressing roughly the same segment, it seems).

Or you could try even a single SP B1?


-- Per.
 
Thom, if you're wanting to make recordings mostly to critique your playing – and you'll be using an M-Audio MobilePre –I'd recommend you get a pair of Behringer ECM8000's. The going price is about $49.99 each. These mics are pretty flat and neutral.

Outside of upgrading your preamps to something like the Sytek MPX-4Aii @ around $850 or something serious like a Millennia HV-3C @ around $1700 and some good, neutral omni pencil mics [ least expensive would be Peluso CEMC6's @ around $500/pr or moving up to Schoeps or Earthworks @ around $2000/pr ] you're not going to get any major increase in sonics. And if these recordings are mostly for your own ears and not for professional reproduction, I think you'll find you'll get quite could results with the ECM8000's. They'll run you $100 for both. Unless you're wanting and needing to at least throw around $1400+ for a pre/mic solution – I wouldn't spend any more on mics than the ECM8000's – because unless you're needing to make the jump to something higher level, you won't really find anything to offer a better solution in a neutral mic until you reach the $500/pr range with something like the Peluso CEMC6's w/ omni caps or the Avenson STO-2 (Stapes) mics. Some very good neutral LDC mics for your possible consideration later on would be the ADK TL's @ $500 each or the AKG 414's @ around $800 each. But I'd go with the ECM8000's for now. You'll find you can play with positioning for days with these mics to achieve various results. At this point learning where to best position the mics is more important that the kind of mics you have.
 
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baekgaard said:
The ECM8000 gets some OK response here ...... -- but they can be a bit noisy.
Click to expand...

I have found them to be quite a bit noisy, like it sounds like somebody's scrambling eggs during tracking. Others report a bit noisy so I wonder if I got a worst case scenario one. I swear I didn't order the extra noise though! ;)

A pair of SP C4's wouldn't be bad in the pair of SDC realm either and you do get the extra caps.

War
 
Keep those ideas coming.

Thanks for all the good info. FWIW, I do a lot of photography, so I fully understand the idea of just buying the good stuff the first time - rather than working through a couple of cycles of cheap stuff before you eventually buy what you should have bought originally. (Man that is an ugly sentence.)

I'm tempted to start with the ECM8000 solution, at that price I can just toss 'em later. :) Then I was looking at the M179. I didn't know there were multi-pattern mics, so that sounded interesting. Start with one as an omni, later add a second SDC and switch to cardioid pattern if I want a difference sound. Is that a reasonable approach?

So what about a pre-amp? I'm totally lost on this one. I can either into my PC with a USB based device, or I can get a stand alone pre-amp and record into my iRiver digital audio player. Don't laugh - remember I'm not trying for a Grammy. So, my cheap solution is the EMC8000, into somthing like MAudio DMP3 (just picked at random) and then into the iRiver. The more expensive solution is a couple of M179s into something like Edirol UA25. If I can get out of this for $700 (mics and pre-amp), I'd be happy.

I like the rental idea. Have to find a place to do that I think.

Ok, snicker away and set me straight.

Thanks

-thom
 
The M179 certainly has its fans on this board, myself included. It's probably the best multi-pattern LDC in its price range and the sound is very good.

Two of those and a UA-25 can be had for below your stated price range, well below in fact.

The Behringers and M-Audio stuff will certainly get the job done.

War
 
ThomD said:
Thanks for all the good info. FWIW, I do a lot of So, my cheap solution is the EMC8000, into somthing like MAudio DMP3 (just picked at random) and then into the iRiver. The more expensive solution is a couple of M179s into something like Edirol UA25. If I can get out of this for $700 (mics and pre-amp), I'd be happy.
Click to expand...

I agree that the ECM8000's with a DMP3 is the best inexpensive solution. Though I don't think the M179/UA25 is a very good solution for the money. You could, in fact, get some pretty good mileage out of the DMP3, and then possibly just upgrade mics later to something like the Peluso CEMC6's with omni caps and continue using the DMP3 for the preamp. For a $700 solution the CECM6/omni with a DMP3 is considerably better than the M179/UA25 combo. If you later want multi-patterns you can buy optional capsules for the CEMC6's. There's no mic in that price range [ $500/pr ] or below that even comes close to touching the clean, neutral performance of the CEMC6's.

The DMP3 is quite clean and neutral, and you won't get into a better-quality clean/transparent/neutral multi-channel mic pre until you move to the Sytek which is in the $800+ range.
 
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As far as preamps go, you could also look at a D&R preamp at $475 for 2 channels. I have a big D&R console in my studio and the D&R outboard preamps are made the same. In fact, the preamps even have newer chip designs than my console. As far as the sound goes, it's extremely clean and open, with a lot of depth. In my opinion you aren't going to find a nicer clean preamp until you look at Millenia, Buzz, Earthworks etc... Even then, the differences are pretty subtle. That would leave you about $225 left for mics. You could look into a SD pair of Studio projects, or even start with the Behringers for now until you can afford a better pair of mics, or maybe even a different style of mic (LD condensor). There are just so many choices and different ways of approaching the same thing that it can get overwhelming.
 
On preamps, I can second the DMP3. Clear, pretty cheap and good value for the money. Even if you decide to get more heavily involved in recording, you can probably still find use for it.

As for the mics, lots of good advice above by much more seasoned guys than myself.


-- Per.
 
I've had good luck with the DMP3; it's a hell of a performer for the money and pretty quiet. I'd go with Light's suggestion to begin with - use a large diaphragm condenser a few feet away and to the front. I've had decent luck with one mic off the far end of the piano. Nothing very fancy, but it gets a lot and you miss all the hammer noise of a close mic'ed pair.
 
I've been getting good results with a pair of M-Audio Lunas in x/y configuration about 1' ouside of the bend of a 6'3" grand, about 1' above the rim and looking slightly down with the lid on full stick. Through a DMP3, this is a very quiet and clean signal chain, with the whole shebang coming in at about $550. My experience with the ECM 8000 has been that it's annoyingly noisy, so much so that I never use it any more. YMMV.
 
cool

thanks everyone. Unfortunately, I broke my arm mountain biking last week, so my playing (and recording project) are on hold for a while. :( whenever I get back to this, I'll let y'all know how it goes.

-t
 
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