Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum My Piano's Audio Recording (added pictures showing microphone placements)

SteveY, thanks! I appreciate the web link you gave on the other thread, and has been reading up.

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Kincaid, viktor kam, pete,

Thanks for your kind words. Will try a recording of something very different in character this week-end and see how far I can go with the equipment.

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Dan M,

The "crackling noise" -- my wife was wrapping Christmas gifts in the living room.

I'll try to get a picture showing the room and the exact mic placement. I can't thank you enough for getting me started.

That's hilarious!!!

Confession time:
Some of you know that I have a studio that I use for work. It's about 3 miles from my house, and about 30 minutes from NYC, which is very convenient. However, my piano is in my living room (not the studio). So on projects where I need a great-sounding acoustic piano, I have to kick my family out of the house to record piano. Of course, I usually send them somewhere fun so they don't resent me too much. It's good incentive for me to make quick decisions while recording and especially to play well. If I don't move quickly, I may not finish by the time they return home!

In the winter, it's even more comical. I have to turn the furnace off while recording due to noise problems. However, I can only record for about 30-40 minutes before temperature/humidity start to become an issue. So I'm 40 minutes on -- 20 minutes off. Not the most efficient way to track piano!!!

I do, however, have a great home for recording. A large open space that's approximately 1800 square feet with wood floors & high ceilings. I'm on a very quiet street and there's a good deal of space between homes. So unless my neighbor's gardeners are working, I'm good to go. It's usually not a problem.

End of confession (just don't tell my clients!!!)...

Steve,
Not surprised about the air conditioning - that's a pretty common recording problem I understand. I'm lucky in that my house doesn't have central air and I live in a mild climate. Just a few direct vent gas fireplaces which are silent.

Ax - ah! I was going to guess it was a wife wrapping christmas presents ... (yea right). Anyhow, glad I could help. Do see if you can get a quieter signal chain, for me, electronic hash just squashes the music.

Dan

Ax - That was beautiful! The song, your playing and the piano!

SteveY,

Nice "confession." Thanks for sharing. Don't worry, your secret is safe with us.

I have to work out something similar with my wife.

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Dan M, for that "quieter signal chain," I'll try, but I don't know how yet. I looked at the Lavry for an A/D, but all the Lavry's cost a fortune that I don't have. I thought about wrapping all my cables with aluminum foil. Would that help?

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teachum, thanks!

The following two pictures show the two microphones' placements. I keep the microphones in their boxes when not using them, but have left the mic stands the way they were since I recorded that sound clip. The red circles are drown around the shock mounts and indicate exactly where the microphones were. Comments/suggestions for audio recording improvement welcome.





Description of room:

Piano is in a 10'x15' "room" with cathedral ceiling edging up from 7'6" on both sides to a 10' high plateau in the middle (above where the pianist would sit). Fully carpeted floor. _{(Slightly edited thanks to BruceD's comment below. )}

Said "room" opens up to a larger family room (probably 12'x24') with 7'6" ceiling, hardwood floor, and filled with assorted upholstered and bare-wood furniture. The piano's wing lid opens up towards that larger room (sound would project along the 24' dimension).

Comments/suggestions for audio recording improvement welcome.

Just a comment on the room: Sounds as though you have a great space for your piano. Not sure, however, that I - if I were playing - I'd want to be on "...a 10' high plateau in the middle (where the pianist would sit ..." Yikes!

Cheers!

Hi Ax,
About the noise, I'm certainly not suggesting a Lavry, but it should be not too hard to find an A/D for your computer that is quieter, and is relatively cheap. Soundblaster has a card, Audigy 2 I believe, that comes in PCMCIA. It's around 130$. Just an idea, but make sure you can return whatever you may try in case it's noisy too.

I've done the same exact position with those mics, as long as you don't pick up much hammer noise it gives good results, as you've found. Which brings up another topic, what does stereo mean for a piano?

I've been puzzling about this. Most other instruments are easy, oboe, violin, voice, you want to have a nicely localized stereo image. This means that when played back on a stereo, you can pinpoint the position of the performer in a horizontal position. This gives the listener a good impression of 'reality'. What about the piano, or worse, the organ?

The piano, unless you can step away from it around 20 feet or something, doesn't have a stereo pinpoint image. And for solo music in the house (the most natural venue for the piano), the rooms are too small for any such thing. But even then, in a good hall a piano seems to fill it in a way different from most instruments.

And of course with the organ it's even more true, with the room/hall becoming an extension of the instrument. So what constitutes a good capture of a piano?

I'm not sure, I've been listening to recordings and thinking about the ones I like and don't like, and why. Many people will say "good acoustics (meaning good reverb)", but I find that recordings in halls with lots of reverb sounds poor, and unusual. Any hall with a proper audience shouldn't have much reverb.

So lately I've been thinking that a good sound is one where there is (as yet undefined) differentiation between L & R, but most importantly, the tone and dynamcis of the piano are captured.

Sorry, long winded.

Dan

AX,

Sounds Great!!

Larry

Axtremus:

Ditto what Larry Buck just said. Thanks so much for posting about your recording equipment, etc.

I will be getting into recording within the next couple of months, hopefully, and find your thread and the others about this subject very helpful in choosing what to buy. But I think I'm going to be a little bleary eyed by the time I'm ready to go buy something. There's so many different ways to record and different approaches to equipment - AAAACK!

Jeanne W

Ax,

Enjoyed your playing. Nice song too.

Your mics seem to be set up pretty far off axis. Is there a reason for this?

BruceD - edited the post. :p
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Dan M - I tried to position the mics 20 feet away from piano... didn't work as well, so I brought them back in to about 10 feet from piano... still experimenting.
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Larry Buck - Thanks. You know, it would not sound that good had it not been for that very good piano tech who worked on the piano just the day before I made the recording.
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Jeanne W - You're welcome. Hope to hear your recording soon.
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Phlebas - Thanks.
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SteveY,

"Your mics seem to be set up pretty far off axis. Is there a reason for this?"

Yes, that's because I don't know what "axis" is... I'll look it up.

Very nice performance, Ax. Is there any processing in this recording, i.e., reverb and compression?

kraniak,

Thanks.

(Moved on to THIS THREAD .)

Wonderful playing Ax and your Kawai sounds great.

I must admit that reading all this technical stuff about recording makes my head hurt. I don't know if I have the patience, the smarts, or money to attempt it.

JP

Axtremus,

These are the kinds of things I like on this forum.

I think you were the one who played that stirring Chinese piece on the Bluthner at Beethoven's on last year's piano crawl in NYC. I was impressed by your performance of it as much as by the music. I heard your new recording through twice. The RX-A is a great piano, not sure they're still making them. Yours sounds like it's in very good prep, especially liked the softer passages in the upper registers and the few spaces of silence and it seems to have plenty of gutsy muscle when you need it.

Look forward to seeing you again live in NYC sometime.

Hi Axtremus,

I'm electronic challenged, but I was inspired by your recording and purchased all the equipment you listed for your recording projects, in hope that I can record myself.

Well, the equipments came and it looks more complicated than I thought, like I have to figure out how to connect this thing to the other... Speaking of that, I realize I don't have any assorted cables. Would you tell me what kind of cable I should buy and where to buy on the net and what cable go to where?

Don't laugh. I still listen to my boombox because stereo system is way too much electronic for me to handle.

Thanks a million. Kim.

Cables:

TWO microphone cables, with female XLR connectors on both ends (of sufficient length -- I bought the 25 ft ones which I now think are probably overkill).

Use these microphone cables to connect your microphones to the AudioBuddy.

Now assuming you also use Griffin Technologies' iMic like I do, then the next cable you need is this: Y-cable with two male phono plugs on one end and a mini stereo plug on the other end.

The two male phono plugs connect to your AudioBuddy's two outputs. The mini stereo plug goes into your iMic's input.

When you record, flip that little black switch on your iMic so it records at "line level." (Refer to the iMic's instruction card to see which way of the switch is "line level.")

Good luck.

Hi, Kim,

Don't feel remedial--I was getting prepared to ask the same question. My new AudioBuddy just arrived, but I haven't even opened it yet, as I have a sick husband and I don't want to subject a pneumonia patient to my recording efforts (which will include playing the piece again and again because I'm mistake-prone and I'm very picky) until he's stronger and can fend for himself.

Anyway, I may have the microphone cables Ax described, but I'll need to get the double-headed thingie. Where do they carry those? Stereo stores? Music stores? Wal-mart Superstores?

Just another newbie,
Mary Anna
http://www.maryannaevans.com