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Default grand piano in a poor space?

a friend wants me to make a CD of classical solo piano for her. she
owns a wonderful bosendorfer 7'4" grand piano, 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. 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.

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Scott Dorsey
 
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wrote:
a friend wants me to make a CD of classical solo piano for her. she
owns a wonderful bosendorfer 7'4" grand piano, 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. 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.


Rent a better hall and use the piano there. It'll cost some money, and
you'll probably need to call a piano tech in, but you'll be a lot happier
with the end result.

If you absolutely _have_ to spot a piano for this sort of thing, use fake
reverb. If you're careful you can delay the onset of the reverb so that
it picks up as the short room reflections die out. You still won't get
natural tone with the mikes up so close, but you can get a surprisingly
natural room decay.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
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Iain Fraser
 
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the hall rental is a great idea, but if that cant happen experiment with
micing techinque. Close mic to eliminate the room, but try a few things!


"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
wrote:
a friend wants me to make a CD of classical solo piano for her. she
owns a wonderful bosendorfer 7'4" grand piano, 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. 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.


Rent a better hall and use the piano there. It'll cost some money, and
you'll probably need to call a piano tech in, but you'll be a lot happier
with the end result.

If you absolutely _have_ to spot a piano for this sort of thing, use fake
reverb. If you're careful you can delay the onset of the reverb so that
it picks up as the short room reflections die out. You still won't get
natural tone with the mikes up so close, but you can get a surprisingly
natural room decay.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."



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i'm a serious pianist myself, keenly aware of it's sound. think about
mid-side recording with a figure-8 and a cardioid. i find that people
who know what they're doing can pull off extraordinary piano recordings
using that technique.

As a guess, I'd take the lid off (as in unbolt it with a screwdriver
and store it somewhere), aim the cardioid down from above, and have the
figure 8 up there too. if you get the null right, you'll cancel out
the ceiling, and get a nice length run for both sides of the figure 8
to capture down the 22' space.

home depot sells granite squares that are 1 foot by one foot, they come
in packs of 8 or 10. you could get a few 8 packs and build a temporary
stone floor area around the piano if you need to liven up the area a
bit.

but you might not need that. the cardiod will capture bright sound
from having a direct sightline into the piano guts, and then the figure
8 will pick up the ambience from the room.

i am batman.



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it doesn't get better than a bosendorfer by the way!

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Peter Larsen
 
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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

-
*******************************************
* My site is at:
http://www.muyiovatki.dk *
* The Vienna Copyright convention applies *
*******************************************
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cooper
 
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Don't sweat it....
Just cut it.
If you are close miking,it won't make that much difference.
Use as many mikes as you can to as many tracks as you can.
You can always sweeten and blend as needed.
The absolute worst case scenario is that the recording will suck!
What are you out?
Recording media and time.
Live for the moment.

coop

wrote in message
oups.com...
a friend wants me to make a CD of classical solo piano for her. she
owns a wonderful bosendorfer 7'4" grand piano, 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. 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.



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Leo
 
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wrote:

a friend wants me to make a CD of classical solo piano for her. she
owns a wonderful bosendorfer 7'4" grand piano, 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. 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.


Important question - does the friend like the sound of the piano in the
room it is in?

If she does, then she may be expecting the recording to sound as it does
in the room it is in. In which case I'd suggest 2 mics as close to the
strings as reasonable (in the front lid would be best). Then put 1 mic
directly above the middle of the piano, and 1 mic in the best listening
point in the room (move around until it sounds cleanest and brightest up
and down the scale and put the mic there).

Your ears (or your friends ears) are the best tool for placing the mics,
and doing what sounds best is the only real test. Experimentation can
often get you where logic cannot.

Otherwise hire a pro sound recording studio (who will record the piano
in an acoustically "dead" environment, and then add reverb etc later on).

If you cannot afford this, or it's not practical, you will need to
"deaden" the acoustics of the room. This is achieved by putting an
asorbent layer (lined blackout curtains are good for this, or duvets -
the carpeted floor will count as 1 of the surfaces) around the room on
at least 4 of the 6 surfaces. This will be much like the wadding used in
speaker boxes to absorb standing waves, and will produce an acoustically
"dead" environment. To place the mics, read this web page for some
ideas:
http://innig.net/music/recordings/method/mics.html . A google
search for "piano recording" will come up with a few other ideas too.


Scott Dorsey wrote:

Rent a better hall and use the piano there. It'll cost some money, and
you'll probably need to call a piano tech in, but you'll be a lot happier
with the end result.


By far the best solution if you can afford it. A local concert hall
would be best depending on where you live. The sound of a really good
hall is impossible to re-create properly with effects (places like the
Palau de la musica in Barcelona have a unique sound, and really add to a
recording - if you can find (and afford) somewhere like that, then do so)

And if you can afford this, then the in house engineer is a must for
setting it up, as they will know from experience what works best.

The local village, or town hall is probably not worth the hassle though,
unless you go in, and the acoustics really stand out.

Remember, if you want to move a piano, it will need re-tuning at the
other end, and is best left in the location for a week or so before
recording (in order for the wood and strings to adjust to the new
environment), otherwise the sound may not be stable, and may change
while recording. Picky, but if you are going to all the effort of moving
it around, you want it to sound as good as it can.

This is all IMO though, and is based on experience mic'ing other
instruments (I've done a piano once, and nothing like the piano you are
talking about). I have done a fair range of other difficult instruments
though, and drum kits regularly which is a similar problem to the piano.

Hope it helps.

Leo


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Ethan Winer
 
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JN,

it is in her dinky living room in a small house


As Leo said, if you deaden the area around the piano you can avoid sticking
microphones up against the strings and sound board which has its own set of
problems. But I'd avoid thin materials like drapes and blankets because they
don't absorb to a low enough frequency. You need something more substantial
to absorb down to, let's say, 300 Hz.

I also agree with g.a.p. about covering carpet with something more
reflective. But you don't need granite slabs! Home Depot sells Masonite
pre-cut into 2 by 4 foot panels. Put those under the piano with the shiny
side up.

--Ethan


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I had some surprisingly good results recording a concert grand piano in
a NY apartment. The owner of the piano was a collector that rented her
instruments to many artists that recorded in the halls in the NYC area.
The artist I was recording could not afford the hall and moving/tuning
costs so we did it in the apartment. One recording was done with a pair
of Sanken CU-44x cardioid microphones and the other with a pair of
Sennheiser MKH-40 cardioids. There was definately no need for room
mics. The results were quite good. My working distance was 4-5 feet
diagonally out from the soundboard. The instrument was a NY Steinway
concert grand with a gorgeous tone. The NY steinways are generally less
bright than the Hamburg variety.

My recording teacher (from a class I took at Juilliard), Tom Frost,
recorded a couple CD's of Vladimir Horowitz in his living room at home
(an apartment in NYC). He used Sonex to cover the windows and treat the
room. He also used a pair of Schoeps MK2 omni microphones with a Sony
TCD-D10 with custom apogee filters.

So, it certainly can be done with decent results. I would keep the
recording chain simple, possibly treat the space with some carefully
placed sound absorbtion materials, and then place some robust sounding
microphones in a spot that smoothly captures the the frequency range of
the instrument. Some Bosendorfers are rather bright sounding and this
could be an issue with your microphone selection. I should also mention
that I have had much more difficulty getting good results from smaller
instruments such as the Steinway B (@7 feet)

Best of luck,

Mike

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