Recording - May 2021 - 19

Piano

First and foremost: get it tuned! " It was
tuned last month, " is not good enough. If
a piano is getting played regularly, the
tuning is going to slip. If a piano sits idle
for an extended period of time, the tuning is going to slip. Playing piano over
modern tracks that use pristine sample
layers and programmed material make
it even more important that the piano is
properly in tune, so don't cheap out.
Next, what kind of piano are you recording, and what is its intended role in
the song? A Yamaha (for example) tends
to be brighter, or-is it a Steinway that
tends to be darker? In general, if it's a
dark piano, ribbons will make it darker,
where condensers will balance it out. Condenser mics on a brighter piano might do
the trick when you really want the sound
to cut through. If it's a solo performance
piece, you need to do what works for the
artist and their preferences. Ask for some
examples of the type of sound they're
looking for. After all, we're all different.
I'm typically a fan of large diaphragm
condensers on piano. The goal when
miking a piano in stereo is achieving a
balanced stereo image of the entire instrument when the mics are hard panned.
It's important to keep a traditional piano
player's performance in perspective.
Most cats don't play the top and bottom
octaves of a piano. The action (no pun
intended) is in the 'cash' register, which
is the middle four octaves. So, as you
can see in the photo, taken at Criteria
Studios in Miami, I have Morgan David

positioning two Mojave MA-301fetVG
mics between the top two and bottom
three octaves of the piano, about six
inches above the strings. For most pop/
rock music, this will work pretty well. But
what about something like jazz? Good
question. A hip thing to try on a jazz
session is placing two small diaphragm
condensers pointing face down toward
the hammers and again, about six inches
above the strings.

Organ

There are so many organs and so little
time. The good news is that there are a
ton of them out there, and because they're
so big and heavy, they don't always sell
well on Reverb and eBay. Nobody selling them wants to ship them, and most
people looking to buy them don't want
to drive out of state to pick one up. So,
keep your eyes open for deals. Plugins
are great, but nothing sounds like the real
thing. Not to mention, there are still companies making organs today.
The most popular organ is the Hammond B3. For the uninitiated, organs are
different animals than typical pianos and
synths. Some considerations: controlling
a rotating Leslie speaker, working with
drawbars to shape the sound, working
the volume pedal, and etc. If a player
knows what an organ should be doing in
a track, it's is a welcome addition. If they
want to drop some organ in the chorus
because you have one in your studio, but
they've never played one and think it'll
be 'fun', you could end up wasting a lot

of time. The Leslie cabinet that works with
the organ is equally important. The organ
can be in great shape, but if the Leslie is
shot, you have nothing but a cool piece
of furniture.
To get that stereo doppler sound, I use
two mics placed at the top of the cabinet-either on the left and right corners
of the uncovered back opening, or right
in front of the side vents. The trick here
is that when you pan the tracks to the
left and right, the spinning horn (L to R)
sounds like it is pulsing left to right and
back again. I usually add a third mic on
the bottom of the cabinet to capture the
low end of the bottom octave and the
pedal work. I tend to use a highpass filter
on the top two mics and a lowpass filter
on the bottom one for increased control
and separation. Then, I process all three
as a group with compression, effects, etc.
As popular as Hammonds are, they
aren't the only organs out there. For
years, I had a Lowery organ that I later
sold to my buddy Joey in Georgia (Hi,
Joey!). Think 'Baba O'Riley' from The
Who or 'Strawberry Fields Forever' from
The Beatles. Remember that arpeggiated
synth on the intro of 'Baba'? That was
the arpeggiator built into the organ-
yes, you read that correctly. The Lowery
was a lot of fun in the studio when people took turns playing that intro. When
it came to recording it, I had to squeeze
a mic in between the keyboard player's
knees and the speaker in the bottom of
the cabinet. What mic did I use? Whatever was laying around that would fit!

RECORDING May 2021

19
Recording - May 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - May 2021
