Miking a Baby Grand

[Roman Wallfisch]

Hey guys, I'm recording on an old Mason & Hamlin baby grand tomorrow. Mics available are not stupendous, and I've got a little bit of an idea of what I wanna do, but I'm not that experienced. Some help with placement would be much appreciated!

1 AKG d112
1 Shure sm7b
2 Audix scx1

Thanks

 

[John Norris]

Try this: use the 2 SCX1s, placed inside the piano over the strings, past the hammers. Place one of the mics approx. 1/3 way in toward middle C from the left (bass) side and the other mic approx. 1/3 way in toward middle C from the right (treble) side.

Maybe use the SM7 as an overhead. Don't use the D112 at all (unless you are wanting to get an exaggerated bass response).

Is the piano tuned? That will make perhaps the biggest difference in getting a satisfying sound.

 

[Art Welter]

Hey guys, I'm recording on an old Mason & Hamlin baby grand tomorrow. Mics available are not stupendous, and I've got a little bit of an idea of what I wanna do, but I'm not that experienced. Some help with placement would be much appreciated!

Roman,

Too late for your last gig, but if you are looking for a decent sound and very high gain before feedback with a minimum of external stage noise, simply laying an SM 58 or similar microphone in the loudest, best sounding sound hole works remarkably well with the lid open or closed. Plug one ear and listen with your other ear right in each hole as you have the pianist play the range of notes they will use in the performance to find the "sweet hole". Gaffer tape the mic cord at the angle that the mic sounds the best, which is generally with it pointed in the direction of the bass strings.
An added advantage is the mic stays positioned when the piano is moved, and there is no mic stand to get bumped out of place by somebody's ass during the performance, or worse yet drop into the strings as happened on a live televised performance not too long ago. The technique works best with round sound holes, but if the sound hole is not round, you can gaffer tape the mic in position over any shape hole

If you need even more gain with less stage wash, I have a Helpinstill magnetic piano sensor (pickup) system available for rent. The Helpinstill pickups don't sound quite as good as a microphone can since they primarily only pick up the string sound like an electric guitar or bass pick up, but they pick up virtually no stage noise- it's what players like Elton John use to cut through in a loud rock band situation.
Hearing an electric piano sound is far preferable to hearing the piano mics amplifying drums and bass. The four Helpinstill pickups and mounting brackets will work on any piano from a small upright to a full size concert grand. Figure an hour to set and adjust the pickups the first time you use them, once you get used to it, only takes about 5 minutes.
My pickup sensor box has additional "through" outputs so each pickup can be run through an individual DI box to it's own channel of the console to optimize and balance each portion of the piano strings. If that level of control is not needed or desired, one can simply use the single passively mixed XLR output with it's overall "tone" control following the volume controls for the top three pickup inputs. Most pianos only require three pickups, the additional fourth "low" string pickup always needs to be loudest, so no volume pot was added for it, as I did not want to ruin the look of the classic "Helpinstill Piano Sensor" transformer isolated direct box.

My Helpinstill DI box also has another useful modification, a clip lead connector that can be attached to a string or metal "harps" to minimize RF (Radio Frequency) and line hum (50/60 Hz) pick up.

Charlie Helpinstill recently (recent relative to the introduction of his pickup system in the 1970's) made "hum-bucking" pickups available for high RF noise or line hum situations typical in radio stations, nightclubs and just about anywhere .
The higher cost "hum-bucking" pickups use two coils wound with inverted polarity to cancel noise, while very effective in that regard, the out-of-phase components usually tend to make the sound a little less "pristine" than single-coil pickups. I say "usually" do to my experience with electric guitars, though I have heard some exceptions to that rule, and not having heard Charlie's "new" pickups can't say comment specifically whether they sound as "good" as the single coil pickups.

One thing I can say for certain- some pianos have cracks in their wooden sound boards that acoustically sound terrible when the cracks buzz upon hitting certain notes that excite their resonant frequency, but the Helpinstill pickup does not "hear" the buzz, so may actually "sound better" than any microphone possibly could.

As expected, if the piano is out of tune, hearing it louder and clearer will simply accentuate any tuning problems. As John Roberts, inventor of the Resotune II drum tuner says: ""Tune it or don't Use it" ;^).

Or as somebody else said, " You can Tune a Piano, but You can't Tuna Fish".

Art

 

[Max Warasila]

I played a piano as a kid and it was the first thing I learned how to record. There are a couple of different ways I found work best. As Art suggested, a 57 or 58 in one of the sound holes works remarkably well, and is always a quick and dirty choice for when I am working quickly. If you're looking for more attack and the sound of the hammer, I like a pair of SDCs above the hammers, at about 1/4 of the way from the edge of the piano on each side, maybe 1-3" away from the player. Works very well for more percussive pop styles. For classical, there are so many different options depending on what you have to work with in terms of time, space, visual considerations, and so on, but they work best with a pair of LDCs IMO.

 

[Malcolm Brown]

Also late to the game. I've liked a pair of Audix Scx25 on their harp clamps. Treble side just back from the hammers, bass side 3/4 of the way back. If I can, I'll run the lid at 1/4 stick. It is a very forgiving (read easy to make sound good) setup.

 

[Gene Hardage]

Roman,

Too late for your last gig, but if you are looking for a decent sound and very high gain before feedback with a minimum of external stage noise, simply laying an SM 58 or similar microphone in the loudest, best sounding sound hole works remarkably well with the lid open or closed. Plug one ear and listen with your other ear right in each hole as you have the pianist play the range of notes they will use in the performance to find the "sweet hole". Gaffer tape the mic cord at the angle that the mic sounds the best, which is generally with it pointed in the direction of the bass strings.
An added advantage is the mic stays positioned when the piano is moved, and there is no mic stand to get bumped out of place by somebody's ass during the performance, or worse yet drop into the strings as happened on a live televised performance not too long ago. The technique works best with round sound holes, but if the sound hole is not round, you can gaffer tape the mic in position over any shape hole

If you need even more gain with less stage wash, I have a Helpinstill magnetic piano sensor (pickup) system available for rent. The Helpinstill pickups don't sound quite as good as a microphone can since they primarily only pick up the string sound like an electric guitar or bass pick up, but they pick up virtually no stage noise- it's what players like Elton John use to cut through in a loud rock band situation.
Hearing an electric piano sound is far preferable to hearing the piano mics amplifying drums and bass. The four Helpinstill pickups and mounting brackets will work on any piano from a small upright to a full size concert grand. Figure an hour to set and adjust the pickups the first time you use them, once you get used to it, only takes about 5 minutes.
My pickup sensor box has additional "through" outputs so each pickup can be run through an individual DI box to it's own channel of the console to optimize and balance each portion of the piano strings. If that level of control is not needed or desired, one can simply use the single passively mixed XLR output with it's overall "tone" control following the volume controls for the top three pickup inputs. Most pianos only require three pickups, the additional fourth "low" string pickup always needs to be loudest, so no volume pot was added for it, as I did not want to ruin the look of the classic "Helpinstill Piano Sensor" transformer isolated direct box.

My Helpinstill DI box also has another useful modification, a clip lead connector that can be attached to a string or metal "harps" to minimize RF (Radio Frequency) and line hum (50/60 Hz) pick up.

Charlie Helpinstill recently (recent relative to the introduction of his pickup system in the 1970's) made "hum-bucking" pickups available for high RF noise or line hum situations typical in radio stations, nightclubs and just about anywhere .
The higher cost "hum-bucking" pickups use two coils wound with inverted polarity to cancel noise, while very effective in that regard, the out-of-phase components usually tend to make the sound a little less "pristine" than single-coil pickups. I say "usually" do to my experience with electric guitars, though I have heard some exceptions to that rule, and not having heard Charlie's "new" pickups can't say comment specifically whether they sound as "good" as the single coil pickups.

One thing I can say for certain- some pianos have cracks in their wooden sound boards that acoustically sound terrible when the cracks buzz upon hitting certain notes that excite their resonant frequency, but the Helpinstill pickup does not "hear" the buzz, so may actually "sound better" than any microphone possibly could.

As expected, if the piano is out of tune, hearing it louder and clearer will simply accentuate any tuning problems. As John Roberts, inventor of the Resotune II drum tuner says: ""Tune it or don't Use it" ;^).

Or as somebody else said, " You can Tune a Piano, but You can't Tuna Fish".

Art

Great to hear some love for the good old Helpinstill pickup system! I love it when you mention this stuff to the younger ones and they of course have never heard of them and when you describe them as a long thin guitar pickup they look at you like you're crazy.

I'll add to the list here with something that has not been mentioned yet. A PZM type mic can work too. I have one of those old cheap Radio Shack PZM mic's that was probably made by Crown when they first came out and I altered with an XLR jack and I use 2 short 6 volt batteries instead of the single 1.5 volt AA battery for more push and better fidelity. Some day I might experiment with just removing the battery part and going with the phantom power from the board. PZM only works for quiet jazz gigs and preferably with the lid down. I've gotten reasonable volume from this method and just placed a powered monitor pointing at the player but not the piano. I like to lay the PZM under the bass string area but have also taped one to the front cover of a spinet type piano. Way back when we were hauling around a spinet the most pleasing sound was a blend of Helpinstill pickups with the PZM added for the natural sound.