We have a Yamaha C-7 grand piano, and the sound that was received sounded like the inside of a tin can. I was not pleased.

The mic works well on this 'kit'. The battery is internal, and when it dies, it doesn't matter if your board as onboard preamp or not ... it's dead. To replace the battery, you unscrew 4 screws, remove the entire outer shell, and wedge out the old battery with a screwdriver (extremely tight, right next to all of the electronics). Someone wasn't thinking when they designed the battery access.
Mic is fine. Preamp direct box ... I'd recommend looking elsewhere.

I host a weekly Jazz Jam in a small room, often with a full rhythm section and up to 5 horns. After trying several different methods to amplify the Baby Grand piano, using the Barcus Berry is the one that has worked the best.

Open lid with placement following directions: near the middle "C" string, yielded great sound with 1 attempt. I put the Planar Wave sensor to the left above sound hole #4 and parallel to the soundboard brace. EQing adjustments via a K-MIX (Keith McMillen) mixer optimized the piano to fit nicely in the mix and cut thru when soloing. No feedback, bleedthru or narrow-band nasties and a great full-bodied sound is the result. Two different keyboardist have played this setup and they simply "Love It", therefor = "Highly Recommended". This, totally gets the job done!

Extra Kudos to Mark Bruhn at Sweetwater for excellent service and all his expertise in selecting the Barcus Berry 4000 to solve my acoustic piano MICing issues.

Try something else. We have never found this microphone to give satisfactory results. We have struggled with it for two years and we are preparing to replace it. It was a costly mistake

Bought the 4000XL system for our church piano and am very unhappy with it. We have tried many different positions and have severely utilized the EQ on our board, but can not get rid of the VERY tinny sound.

I was in need of a method to mic a grand piano for use in a monitor feed for a choir. Due to the physical layout of the area, it was not possible to orient the piano to direct the sound towards them nor was it possible to open the lid wider becuase of sound managment within the sanctuary. While I would not classisfy the Barcus Bery pickup as translating the richness of the piano as well as a set of carefully placed condenser micrphones, I would emphaisze it is quick and easy to atttach to the soundboard. The resulting tone is crisp which places well in a mix.. I have used the BB pickup in the past for FOH reinforcement with excellent results. Very easy to get an acoustic piano to set in the mix with this setup.

the planar wave system for our church Grand Piano, is everything I expected. It gives us the depth of tone we needed. Thanks guys.

Great way for micing piano without any bleed from other sources, but as others have noted the sound is very thin and tinny even on our fairly nice Yamaha grand piano. Tried different pickup locations on the sound board closer to the bass strings, but didn't help at all. Massive EQ on the console helps a bit, but just not the same as a good full-spectrum mic.

I ordered this with the impression that I could effectively fine tune the mic-ing situation with my piano in my Worship Center. My sound tech, Media/IT guy (with previous sound experience), and I have tried just about everything we know and cannot get a good mix with this mic. Just not what I expected.

Bought for recording sound effects. It sounds unlike any other contact microphone I have ever heard. Quieter than the trance audio mics to my ears.

I was looking for something to mount inside a grand piano so that when we moved it we wouldn't have to worry about repositioning the mic. I followed the installation instructions and the tone was very thin and bright with little to no low end. Tried placing the mic in different spots and doing some dramatic eq-ing on the board to no avail.

I quickly returned it and will take a look at mounting a boundary mic or using a small diaphragm condenser since that's what we were using in the past and it sounded much better.

Clarity is much better than the mic we had. Overall good sound ... it's going to take some more time from sound engineers to balance the pickup to the room to combat some of the tinniness. Overall, we're happy though.

I like using the BBE on Piano because I can use it to feed the pianist monitor and not have a feedback issue. Sometimes the piano needs to be shut, using a couple SM91 and the BBE I can acheive a very warm not electric sounding Grand Piano.