Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#1
|
|||
|
|||
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. |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
|
#3
|
|||
|
|||
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." |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
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." |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
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. |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
it doesn't get better than a bosendorfer by the way!
|
#8
|
|||
|
|||
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. |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
|
#10
|
|||
|
|||
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 |
#11
|
|||
|
|||
Chris Hornbeck wrote:
On 18 Jun 2005 18:54:40 -0700, 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. Reading through all the good stuff already posted makes me wonder if treating the existing room wouldn't be the most practical solution. Maybe a serious, but temporary, ceiling deadening with a sub-ceiling "flown" on supports from the floor, and an over-floor as already suggested. All you can do is get rid of the bad reflections. You still can't add any good ones. And you _need_ those good reflections to blend all the different piano sounds that come out in different directions into one sound. --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#12
|
|||
|
|||
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 |
#14
|
|||
|
|||
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 |