Hi everyone,

I have done a search and did come up with some older info, but would like to hear what you composers do in regards to recording an acoustic grand piano.

My situation is that I have a very "live" room with hardwood floors, throw rugs and vaulted ceilings.

I would like to record my Estonia 190.

Questions:

1.) What are the best microphones to use?

2.) Where should they be placed, particularly since the environment that they are in is quite "live".

FYI: I will be running the mics through a quality pre-amp that is connected to a Mac using Logic 7.

Thank you for any advice and/or suggestions.

Hey pianobuff. I'm going through the same search and shopping. I want to buy a good pair of microphones before xmas.

1.) My piano is also on hardwood floors, but only 9' celings, not vaulted. I borrowed a JVC digital microphone and a pair of Rode NT5 from a sound engineer friend of mine. The JVC was ok and the NT5s were even better, but I'm still not very happy about the bass response of either.

I'm still consulting my sound friend, and I've been hunting audio recording forums. I've gathered the following list of microphones recommended for solo grand piano recording in closed quarters (not a large hall):

- Rode NT5: $430 a pair.
- Earthworks TC20: $1029 a pair.
- Earthworks SR30mp: $1839 a pair.
- AKG C451B: $1104 a pair.
- AKG C414B XL2: $2000 a pair.
- Audio Technica 4040: $598 a pair.
- Audio Technica 4051: $1000 a pair.
- Neumann KM184: $1650 a pair.
- Shure SM81: $698 a pair.
- Peluso CEMC6: $700 a pair.

Obviously you can't beat the NT5 for price. I get many votes for the KM184 if you can pay the price, followed closely by the AKG C414 if you prefer large diaphragm. Others have mixed reviews.

2.) Microphone placement is another can of worms. I find so many suggestions and many come to the conclusion that best results are achieved with experimentation based on the room, the piano, and the quality of the microphones:

- 1 foot above strings.
- One above the sound board near the treble, another below the sound board near the tail.
- One 2-3 feet from treble, another 2-3 feet from tail.
- XY pattern from player's perspective (above head or where your ears would be).
- XY pattern 4-6 feet near the concave right side of piano.
- and many others.

Do you have certain microphones you are leaning towards? What pre-amp do you use? I'm looking for one of those too.

Good information here , about different mic placements for a grand piano and the different tonal effects that result.

I record my C7 with a pair of AKG 460's in a xy near coincident pattern about 12-18" above the strings, over the hammers for a players perspective (near coincident or ORTF: 7 " apart at 110 degrees seperation.) I record them through a TLA pentode tube preamp, into a fireface 800, into the Mac running Logic 7.

This is a good pop orientation, but wouldn't sound too natural for classical music, as the stereo seperation is quite pronounced.

Another nice preamp I tried is the Daking Mic Pre, very present sounding.

Hi pianobuff,

We have recently discussed a couple of micing positions in this thread (see my posts at pages 2 and 3) which are recorded with NT5s.
I prefer the spaced pair while others preferred the ORTF technique.
If you are interested, I can post an XY recording of the same piece too.

For some interesting ideas on piano micing and recording you might check out this. He gets some very nice sound using a novel technique...

http://innig.net/music/recordings/method/mics.html

Thank you everyone!

Great info. The mic pre-amp is an Alesis io/26.

I have a pair of Octava condenser mics that I bought years ago, on discount since they are russian made. I've been told good things, guess I need to just try them out and see if they work for me.

I have heard great things about the Rode NT5's. Especially for the price.

Yes Hakki! I would love to hear your recording. Please Post.

Thanks again for all the wonderful info, this forum is GREAT!

Hi pianobuff,

Here are 3 recordings of the same pice (same piano too of course) with different micing positions, using a matched pair of Rode NT5 microphones.


XY Recording

Spaced pair recording (excerpt)

Near coincident recoding (ORTF)

Hope these help you to have an idea on how NT5 sound.

regards,