Many of you will remember a few weeks ago when our Piano Miking Summit was reprised to discuss the topic of upright pianos specifically (inSync/TTOTD 1/21/00). We fielded and posted several responses (inSync 2/1/00), but since then a few more have trickled in. For those who haven’t had enough yet, here they are.
Jesse Cian Fawcett
DNE Productions
Just wanted to point out that my suggestions for the grand piano are derived from my experience miking uprights. But to reiterate, an omnidirectional about 6 inches away from the back of the piano, and towards the bottom, with an additional omnidirectional mic in front to pick up both the person’s voice (if they sing) and some different elements of the piano’s sound. If the person doesn’t sing, point the mic toward the piano, or straight down toward the keys, but at least 12″ away so that it doesn’t pick up the sound of the keys themselves. EQ the front mic for mid-range, and the rear one more for bass and treble. I used AKGs for both mics, can’t recall which model.
Anonymous
Of all the numerous piano miking set-ups I’ve heard, the M-S approach always seems to win with me. This approach works especially well for popular music forms where there tends to be a lot of audio information of differing timbres competing for “presence.” Proximity to the soundboard varies with room size and acoustics, but generally 3 to 4 feet away.
Matthew Reeves,
Mount Pisgah United Methodist Church, Georgia
I’ve had reasonable success miking an upright piano by placing a Crown PZM upside down on the lip where the lid rests. I CAREFULLY closed the lid on top of the mike and got a pretty good sound.
FC,
San Francisco, CA
I’ve had good success through a combination of simply hanging a pair of omnidirectional mics (I use the Earthworks QTC1’s) inside the piano from the top and one or two room mics at a distance (less than five feet). For the hanging mics I simply tie the mic cords off to a large boom stand. I use the stand’s position to control the height (depth?) of the mics in the cabinet. A few inches makes a big difference here. This sound by itself isn’t very natural, but it does have good presence and when blended with the room mics the sound becomes remarkably well rounded. The low midrange can sometimes get a little “boxy” sounding on the hanging mics, but that’s been easy to correct with EQ.
As before, we will add these responses to the appropriate section of our Piano Miking Summit pages.