Recording - May 2015 - 32

soundboard and the lid, or slightly
lower-you'll hear it. See Figure 2.
Aim the mics down into the soundboard.
Start with them about 2 feet apart, then go
listen. I like to ask the pianist to play the
white keys from bottom to top. I want to
hear the notes move very linearly from right
to left, without a hole in the middle. If they
seem to jump across the middle that means
the mics are too far apart. Sometimes the
low end of the keyboard will sound too distant and muddy, in which case I will move

the low mic a bit closer to the bass strings.
In this configuration I have also had excellent results with a pair of ribbon mics such
as the Royer R-121. You can get a warmer,
more 1960s-style jazz sound this way.
For a closer jazz sound, or maybe for a
rock mix, you can move in past the edge of
the instrument with the mics directly over the
soundboard. Once you get this close, you
are going to have a hard time avoiding an
extremely wide image, so you might need
the mics closer together. I'll try a nearcoincident pair such as the ORTF configuration, which is a pair of cardioids 17 cm
apart and angled 110º away from each
other (see Figure 3). If this still sounds too
wide, I may move them a bit closer and/or
decrease the angle to about 90º.
If you need the piano to compete with
distorted guitars and bombastic drums,
you may want the brightest, most percussive sound possible. In that case you can

3

put the mics directly above the hammers
as in Figure 4, sticking with the nearcoincident pair or reverting to the spaced
pair. You might even switch to dynamic
mics here for a pleasantly lower fidelity
edge. Again, listen to the part the pianist
will play, and adjust placement for the
stereo image you desire.
Mo' mono
If you absolutely require mono compatibility-if, for example, you want the
option to pan both mics all the way to
one side in your mix-you can use a coincident stereo mic configuration, where
the mics are right on top of each other.
You can do this in any of the above
described scenarios with XY cardioids,
but you may find the image too narrow
and boring. Using XY figure-8 mics will
give you a pleasingly wide image and
sound wonderful in mono as well!



Recording - May 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - May 2015

Contents
Recording - May 2015 - Cover1
Recording - May 2015 - Cover2
Recording - May 2015 - 1
Recording - May 2015 - 2
Recording - May 2015 - 3
Recording - May 2015 - 4
Recording - May 2015 - 5
Recording - May 2015 - Contents
Recording - May 2015 - 7
Recording - May 2015 - 8
Recording - May 2015 - 9
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Recording - May 2015 - 11
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Recording - May 2015 - Cover3
Recording - May 2015 - Cover4
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