Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum The Audio, Video Music Production Thread

Nice, but there goes the budget...

I know... The entry level model, XR 1000, is $259...

B&H Photo

Actually not a terrible price...

Here is another taking on recording the piano and equipment they use:

One of the posters in the "pianists" area posted this video and sound track. It's an interesting melding of video and music. It has two music scores, I was wondering what the name of the second one. (Around the 3 minute mark). It has a familiar new age sound to it. Sounds like a fun piece to learn too.

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lQV1_B63LTM[/video]

Hi everyone,

I've posted a video in another thread and I've been redirected here to share the technical details about the video. If i knew this thread existed i'ld have post it on here in the first place! Sorry if my english isnt all that great i speak french as my main language...


As my contribution to this thread i'll share with you my experience micing an upright piano. What gears i use... what mic placements i used, etc... Its been hard to get info on that by myself as there is very few resources online for micing pianos, especially upright. On top of it being a complex instrument to actually record, I had to take info here and there and do some trial and error to finally gain good results. So i thought i'ld share what i've learned with you all. I'm not a sound engineer but if you listen to the videos i'll link with good headphones or speakers you'll see the improvement from a video to another.


Micing with standalone microphones :

First off, the gears i use (those are all kinda affordable stuff... not high end equipment):

- 2 AKG perception 220 microphones (large diaphragm cardioid). Those are the first mics I bought... they do ok but not so great. A bit muddy.

- A matched pair of studio projects c4 (small diaphragm and comes with cardioid, omnidirectional and hyper-cardioid interchangeable capsules). Those are sexy. Delivers an awesome sound for piano and good stereo separation. At 400$ for the pair (6 capsules included), you can't go wrong!

- An Akai EiE pro USB audio interface. I'm pretty sure you know that but you need mic preamps with phantom power those kind of microphones up there and the EiE pro is the only one i found with 4 decent preamps (instead of 2, like the scarlett 2i2 wich has very good reviews) at a reasonable price.

- Your favorite audio editing software! I used garage band but then i got Logic pro (wich i dont know why i did because i dont even modify the sound on my videos... oh well lol.)

Before I go into mic placement, I'll take time to explain a bit how to work your mic signal into your editing program. It may sound basic but i don't know how much you guys know about this stuff so feel free to skip this part. What i like to do is to record each mic on a seperate mono track. That way i can decide how hard i want to pan (left/right) and adjust each mic level separately, wich is a good thing once you get into fancy mic placements! Nothing more frustrating than getting a good performance and notice afterward one of the mic should have been quieter. With mono tracks, you can fix that in a single click! Once I have your my microphones set... i usually pan each mono channel hard left and hard right (meaning to the maximum right and max left). I read somewhere that a general rule of thumb is you are supposed to pan the mic on the bass strings hard right and the one on the higher strings hard left. Its the way pros do it as it reproduces piano music from a listener's point of view. With that out of the way lets move on to:

Mic placement (to listen with headphones if you want to see the difference between the placements lol):

The micing technique i use is called spaced pair technique. Its one of many micing technique used (The Zoom device uses a technique called XY technique btw) in studios and i found its the one that suits my needs best, the piano being a large instrument.

First off, i usually remove the front and bottom pannel from my upright for better sound projection. That would be the equivalent of opening the lid on a grand. Moving the piano away from the wall really helps too. Please also note that small adjustments to mic position can really change the sound you get from mic placement... Every time you want to record something you have to take time to test different angles and make slight adjustments before you get the sound you want for the piece your recording. See those descriptions below more as guidelines or ideas to start with and build from there.

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In this first video, being the first one i did with my accoustic piano, i used my pair of large diaphragm condenser mics (the perception 220). I placed the mics just below the keyboard in front of the piano (between the pedal and the keyboard). That way it captures the soundboard from up front. They're set about 4 feet apart from each other and about 1 feet away from what is supposed to be the pannel covering the strings (i.e about 1.5 feet away from the actual strings). Here's the result (watching in HD gives better sound btw):

All the recordings i'll link has no effects added at all (no equalization / reverb etc...) except the link #3 wich has a little bit of reverb... very slightly tho

Youtube link 1

As you can see... the sound is a bit muddy. Its still good but it lacks clarity (mostly in the treble). This is due to the mics being a bit "bass heavy" in the first place... and that kind of placement also provides more bass than others since the bass strings are directly exposed in front of the mics. Another drawback of this placement is your pedal must be very quiet (unlike mine)or you'll hear the clicks in your recordings. Micing the soundboard from behind would give you similar results. At least it did for me. Still not bad result... lets move on.

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In this second and third video I used the Studio projects c4. You'll see the sound is way more clear. One downside of those mics is i find they lack a bit of bass (grrrr!) and they have alot of self-noise (that kind of hiss you hear when the piano isnt playing). I've put the omni capsules on (ones that captures the sound coming from all directions evenly) and put the 2 mics again about 4 feet apart from each other and about 2 feet above the piano (with the top lid opened). Now listen :

Youtube link 2

Youtube link 3 (has a bit of reverb)

As you can see the sound is way more clear. With the omni capsules on i get the sound from the actual room i'm in. It gives the recording that kind of live sound we're used to when listening to professional recordings. This technique would be to avoid if your piano is in a small room. Here its in my living room so it got plenty of space to breathe. A funny thing is usually when I make adjustments to my placements before recording, my dog is lose in the house and i can hear his claws hitting the floor as he walks around. Every time i listen to the recorded audio it tricks me into thinking my dog is still walking around and as i try looking for him i notice he's chewing his bone on the couch... Yea.. the stereo image is that powerful. You don't notice it that much with the piano as all sounds blend together but having a good stereo image makes whole lot of difference.

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Finally, being kinda not 100% satisfied with the sound i was getting i tried another technique using the 4 mics this time. This one yield me better results to my hears. For this one i placed the piano in the very center of my room. The 2 studio projects c4 are place behind the piano... right next to each other at about 1/2 feet away from the soundboard about 1 and a half octave below the middle C (kinda hard to explain). The 2 other mics (p220's) are set about 10 feet apart from each other and 6-7 feet away from the piano. Here's the result :

Youtube link 4

To me this is the best result i got. The sound is clear, with just enough bass (kinda hard to hear the bass since most of the piece plays in the middle of the keyboard). Still a live sound but a bit more intimate. Its very close to what my piano actually sounds like in my living room. The piece is a simple one but i did test out with some other pieces i know that covers more range on the keyboard and it just sounds gorgeous to my hears. I plan to use this technique for my future videos.

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Hopefully you find the information on here useful and it gives you guidelines for using standalone mics to record your piano. Don't hesitate to ask if you have some questions!!!




On a final note i'ld like to direct you guys to a youtube tutorial i found useful for making interesting dolly shots on a budget (like the one at 0:59 and 1:51 seconds in the "youtube link 4"). Its a DIY version of a product called spider trax dolly. I made one for myself in like 2 hours spending about 75$. You can go really creative with that assuming you have someone to operate the dolly while you are playing. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHV0rqIVEfg

Very thorough and detailed explanation. Your English is a lot better than many native speakers that I know, so you shouldn't feel self-conscious about it. Everything you wrote was quite clear what you were saying.

I don't have the means or time to do a setup like this, but if I ever do, I'll definitely come back to this post and try these techniques (I have a spinet).

Great job on this explanation, and video #4 is very interesting and sounds amazing.

Thanks, slpianoproject.
Really great information you've provided here of your experience of experimentation. It is very helpful.

The best resource I've found online is below. What is suggested here, looks to be quite similar to your middle attempt of videos 2 & 3 you provided.

It is this system that I have tried to replicate for my recordings, and continue to experiment with mic placement and sound editing. I use Audacity vs. Garageband and have different mics, but also large and small diaphragm condenser mics, as suggested in this video.)

My weakest link at this point I believe, is my pre-amp (m-audio vs a more quality pre-amp.) This is where my hiss is coming from, as I think my mics are reasonable and one is actually quite good (ADK A51 Type III large condenser.) Beyond the pre-amp though -- and perhaps better software at some point (I am very novice though) -- your multiple 4 mic system is very interesting and may be my next attempt at improvement.

slpianoproject and Greener , thanks for sharing the info!

Just woke up and will really be checking your stuff out.

>Speaking about zooms... I think it would fun to use some sort of a "flycam" in a piano video sometime. Here is one type (which is often used by the famous PianoGuys) called the GlideCam:

I'm using the steadiCam, but only a few times for piano. You need someone that is pretty good at this and even then it will usually take multiple shots to get something good. And then of course you have to match the video against the audio if you needed multiple shots. Very hard to do this all perfect. If you use this, it's easiest to avoid long clear views on the hands to make that matching step easier.

Regarding that glidecam, you can do something similar with a tripod - pick it up the tripod with a pinch grip just below the camera

That said, a good steadicam system requires careful balancing of a lot of forces, particularly if you are going to rotate and/or accelerate. The mounting plate and gimbal has to be 100% slop free and adjustable. This comes down to sub-millimeter accuracy to get it really right. So I would not expect too much from the cheap versions.

slpianoproject took me a while to go through your post. To sum up your results it seems the 4 mics gave you the best sound. I assume everything goes through Akai EiE pro USB audio interface. Does this give you one overall sound track combined or 4 separate sound tracks to add to your video?

And speaking of the video, you mentioned the lens, but somewhere I missed the actual camera.

I know you edit the music in garage band, but what are you using for video?

Thanks again...love what you are doing and I hope you can share more of your great playing and recording tricks.

Mark

After seeing and hearing slpianoproject results I am intrigued about changing my recording setup. Currently Zoom H2 and Flip HD camera.

Mics he mentioned were:

AKG perception 220 microphones and studio projects c4

ADK A51 Type III large condenser used by Greener.

With this said, I'd love to hear what mics everyone is using, especially for miking up acoustic pianos.

If I go this route, I guess I will need mic booms, cables, audio interface and hopefully my old laptop can handle the rest. Would most likely use Audacity.

Thoughts?

After we dissect mics, I'd like to talk audio interface followed by camera equipment.

That is great! Do you have a piano video you can share with us in which you used your steadiCam system?

I recently did an experiment with green screen just for fun. I used one of the kids lime green bed sheets as my green screen. Here is the result:

[video:youtube]rL5DFVX63iY[/video]

Amaruk, sweet video and playing. So how did you do the green screen? And did you do the castle panning or was it already there?

Found this gem for miking up a grand:



Another miking video:

Green screen, or chroma keying as it is also called, is very simple actually. Just shoot the video with a green background. The green can then be turned to invisible in the video editor if the editor has this effect. The tricky part is to fine tune the chroma filter. Wrinkles or uneven light will complicate things. I think I will get a collapsible green screen for my next green screen project.

Yes, the panning of the castle was there already.

You use Mac right? I'll have to see in Sony Vegas has it.

Yes, I use Final Cut Pro X on a Mac. But Sony Vegas has chroma key effects too.

I'll have to check it out. I'm sure it has a steep learning curve. And wait till my wife hears I'm painting the living room green...

To answer your questions, yes the 4 mics go through the Akai interface and gives me 4 seperate mono tracks.... I would have the option to have 2 seperate stereo tracks (1 for each pair of mics) but i prefer to work from mono.

The camera is a Sony a57 dslr... any camera with interchangeable lens would do. You just want large aperture opening for the shallow depth of field. Btw, for a film look, you want to film at 24fps with 1/50 shutter speed. It makes a whole lot of difference.

And finally, i edit in the sound Logic pro, but any editing program would do as i dont really manipulate the sound coming from the mics. For video, i use Adobe premiere elements (i bought it in a bundle with photoshop elements for photo for 150$). I think i'ld have get the same results using Imovie tho since i didnt really do any fancy stuff in the video editing as well.

Glad you appreciate the info!