[Scott Dorsey]

Nate Najar wrote:
so there's this r&b outfit I have worked for off and on over the years. It=
's very loud. The band leader is an exceptional singer and a skilled keybo=
ardist. He plays left hand bass on a bass synth, and has a variety of diff=
erent modules and so forth. But in one room we've been working, they have =
a grand piano, and he likes the look so he's been playing it (surrounded by=
all his other keyboards, and a hammopnd A100!). We carry our own sound (i=
t's a rag tag mish mosh of once good gear that has been severely abused) an=
d he plays everything too loud. Still, last night I made a handful of adju=
stments to the rig and it was significantly cleaner than usual. =20

Two RE-20s will work well.. if you use one, you will have to pull it far
enough back that leakage will be a problem. If you use two you can bring
them in close, but if you're too close you get too much hammer sound and
it's like your head is inside the piano.

My normal "spots on jazz piano" thing is to use two 441s. Just a little bit
in the mix to bring the piano up, so the excessive hammer sound is not as
much of a problem as it would be if it were soloed.

None of the piano pickups really sound like a piano, but if your goal is to
make the piano really loud at the expense of sound quality, they can be a
good choice. A well-known deaf Latin performer uses the C-Ducer feeding
two dual 15" JBL monitors turned up to OSHA-violating levels, combined with
AKG C414s up against the strings for the actual PA feed. Piano is closed
to keep the monitor leakage out of the C414s and usually covered with packing
blankets.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."