My thoughts on piano FWIW
Hi,
I just finished my first piano project so that makes me an expert.
If the piano sounds good in the room mic the room not the piano.
I recorded a Steinway Baby Grand in Suzanne Michell's teaching studio that is the living room of her house.
Suzanne was playing with the lid closed when I first started listening and I walked around the room listening. I was amazed at how much the sound changed from different places and I was surprised when I walked into a corner beside the piano and all of a sudden I had a rich stereo sound.
When I opened the lid the first impression was that the piano sounded a lot better. Fuller and more robust. But careful listening showed that with the lid open in this small hard room I lost bass definition and the upper mids became very stringy leaning towards a harpsichord sound. Short stop on the lid improved this and there was one place where the magic happened if you wanted a little bit of that stringy sound. I didn't so I closed the lid.
I used a pair of MSH-1 omnis on my Jecklin disc in the corner beside the hinge side of the lid. All my thinking would tell me this place was wrong but my ears told me different. I added a couple of gobos between the mics and the walls.
And that's it. KISS.
MSH-1 omnis > DMP2 >
Zoom H4
I am very pleased with the full and rich piano sound on the recordings.
Different pianos, different rooms, different pianists will call for different solutions but I do think close micing the strings can lead to anomolies as noted above. Especially if you're recording solo piano don't record the piano. Record the sound of the piano in the room.
Thanks,
Hairy Larry