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wrote:
a friend wants me to make a CD of classical solo piano for her.
Hmmm ...
she owns a wonderful bosendorfer 7'4" grand piano,
Expect two tunings after moving it and two tunings after moving it back
if the rent a hall option is used, especially if this is a rarely
disturbed and thus also rarely tuned instrument. She may like you more
afterwards if you do not move the piano too much around now that its
frame as "at peace with itself" than if you start moving it too much and
it then needs frequent tunings until it settles again.
Rolling a piano 3 feet over carpet can be enough to cause a problem, I
have recorded a concert where the piano tuner was still tuning when I
arrived for setup, so it was freshly tuned and it is a frequently tuned
instrument, so there should be no mechanism settling to worry about. It
got rolled to the side because it would not be needed until after the
intermission. The pianist looked very surprised as she struck the first
chord, as did quite a few other people and then just played, there was
nothing else to do. Rolling over carpet unavoidably warps the frame
slightly, and things had happened, it was no longer in tune over its
entire range. The carpet on stage, thick btw. ... well, the location
_is_ very reverberant by design, it has probably shown itself to be
necessary.
I have also experienced a possibly rarely tuned school concert grand, a
rare Hornung & Moeller full size concert grand as I recall it,
completely loose the freshly made tuning when the pianist played the
first bar of Griegs piano concerto. A bit of cellphone frenzy and the
tuner was back and tuned it again and stayed for the duration of the
concert.
It is because of this experience with a rarely tuned instrument that I
suggest double tunings after each move. It could be best for the
recording to move the piano, and best for the piano not to. Because of
this I suggest going a long way to try to make the recording work where
it is, but I may be as overconcerned in this as I am probably
underconcerned in other matters.
but it is in her dinky living room in a small house - maybe
22'x 11' at most, with 8' ceiling, sheetrock walls, carpet floor.
What you do not get with that room is the piano's reaction to the sound
of the hall. I would try a pair of cardioids on a stand near the second
leg on the short side, lid full open, aiming along a line parallel with
the lid and some three inches below it. I understand the genre to be
classical, in which case the lid acoustics are a part of the sound.
Jazz, rock, contemporary ... perhaps try without the lid.
Fake room will need to be applied, so what matters is which parts of the
living room that will contradict a fake room by providing a too close
reflection: the ceiling. Action must be taken to make it reasonably
non-reflective above the mics, and not having reflections from the wall
on the "open side" (players right) also makes a lot of sense.
dark horse concept, may quite probably fail
Back in 1984 I did some piano recordings in a living room with Sony
510. Booring, so I tried playing the after tape signal over the decent
stereo (Luxman, Bovox) in the room. Artisticly it was nothing special,
just my girlfriend and her daughter playing 4 hand, but it did provide a
useful feeling of larger room, also to the players and by implication to
the piano. The room in question was however twangy from flutter echo,
and it didn't no less twangy from being enhanced. I miked the standup
piano with a MD421 through the small open lid at the low end and a MD413
at the high end, both aimed "inwards".
/dark horse concept, may quite probably fail
i am thinking of a close-spaced pair of
DPA 4061s right up inside the piano, and a spaced pair of
4006s out in the room (about 6 feet out), and then blend
to taste when mixing. any other ideas i should consider
for this project? thanks.
I think the approach should be cardioid and that "rear" and "upper"
borders of the room should have reflection prevention added, at least
near the piano to provide credible "stage box" acostics.
It may be advantageous to have a "less close" mic pair to add the fake
room to instead of adding to the main pair. I would want to prevent
ceiling as well as floor reflections around the secondary mic stand. To
benefit from this concept the recording axis has to be in the long
direction of the room.
Preventing (rear, possibly also front) and ceiling reflections and
having the axis in the short direction of the room may be better because
the sidewall reflecctions will then arrive later. "Rear" and "front" are
as seen by the mics, which means that "front" is behind the sound
source.
Just some sunday morning ramblings while I wait for the coffee to take
effect ...
Kind regards
Peter Larsen
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