Mic'ing a piano

[Eboy87]

I know that the coming year will find me figureing out how best to mic our piano for any live music things, and I want to be ahead of the game.

It's an upright piano, and we've just stuck one mic in the top of it, and it sounds like crap. I was thinking of either putting two mics (we only have AKG C1000's for our wired mics, we have no dynamics) and EQ'ing and panning them, doing the same, but point them at the soundingboard, or sticking one of my MXL 990's in the piano, but I'm not sure phantom power works with our patchbays.

Anyone have any other suggestions? Our mic selection is limited to the c1000's, our wireless hh ones, my dinky AT digital reference dynamics, and my MXL condensers.

[wolf825]

The C1000's should be fine..a 57 would work too for an upright.

Positions: Place one mic in the top of the upright around the mid point, and the other outside the piano on the rear about 3/4 the way towards the bottom of the soundboard (near where the hand grips are). Should be about 1 foot away max. Mix the two mics together to desired sound. EQ may be needed to fine tune it. Roll off the HPF for the top mic to about 150-200hz for resonance, and for both mics Adjust the EQ around 2k and 8k for boost, and roll off around or between 500-800hz, and again at 250hz to clean it up some if needed.. EQ slightly until you get the sound that is clearest for you...

Thats one suggestion--others I'm sure will have other methods.. You won't know until you try various ones to get the sound you want...
-w

[foeglass]

I think wolf got it in one out of your mic selection c1000 would be the best choice,

On an upright unless you open the top most of the sound will come from the back as long as it is an acoustic and not an electric. I will assume acoustic for the time being.
Although, in the piano? Actually sitting inside with the strings and hammers?? Would there not be alot of reverb that you could avoid by keeping the mics outside the piano? I actually would say I know more about pianos then mics (which is saying much) so I would like to know myself how that would work.
However the two other mics sound right to get excellent sound.

[falcon]

when we do pianos in the studio, well, we use electric which just plug into a DI and into the board. But when we did acoustic pianos, we used three mics, one above the piano in the centre, and the other two where in the back on either sides. that way, you get the highs in one mic, the lows in the other, and the mids is picked up with all three, and teh one above just fills in the sound. just playing with those levels and eqs seem to be the best for us in our situation.

Just experiment with mic placement keeping it outside of the piano, unless you like the reverb, and try to find what works for you.

[Peter]

I was at a college last week for a christian conference, and the last night we had a talent show and the house tech was going to put two AKGC 1000's under the lid of the baby grand we were using, although other people insisted on moving the piano during the show, which kinda squished that idea, and he went back to using a single boundry mic (no idea what kind) taped to the inside lid.

sorry, that was kinda random, but I just felt like sharing it. (oh ya, and by the way, i'm back, I missed you all :-) )

[bwayhawk2002]

Originally Posted by Peter

I was at a college last week for a christian conference, and the last night we had a talent show and the house tech was going to put two AKGC 1000's under the lid of the baby grand we were using, although other people insisted on moving the piano during the show, which kinda squished that idea, and he went back to using a single boundry mic (no idea what kind) taped to the inside lid.

sorry, that was kinda random, but I just felt like sharing it. (oh ya, and by the way, i'm back, I missed you all :-) )

If i saw the house tech doing that...i would have taken over his job in a snap, and been able to do his job much more efficiently. I mean, you don't tape a mic into a piano like that. If you're gonna use a mic on a piano, use a boom...NEVER EVER TAPE IT IN TO PIANO!!

Oh well..nothing more one can do about it now.
I guess that's enough blabbing outta me.

[AVGuyAndy]

Is there an acoustical reason for that or just because the tape could fail and the mic could fall into the strings all that?

[Peter]

Ya, ditto AVGuyAndy's question.... it's a boundry mic so it has to be RIGHT on the wood of the piano or it wont work properly.... so i am not sure how else you would do it.

[Eboy87]

the book for the college i want to go to has a picture of a neumann gaff-taped inside a grand piano above the strings.

A question about one mic inside the piano and one outside, would those have to be out of phase of eachother? I think i saw another post here about a snare drum with one mic on either side of the "noise maker", for lack of a better term, and they had to be out of phase with one-another for them to work.

[The_Guest]

Well it all depends if the two mics are canceling each other out or not. It really depends on how the mics are positioned.