I have just bought a cheap microphone to have a go at recording myself using audacity. This works fine for the oboe but I don't know where to put the microphone for the piano to get a satisfactory sound. Any suggestions?

Open the lid of the piano and place it above the stings. I'm not a tech person, so someone else will probably give you a more comprehensive answer, but this is what my teacher did.

I tried putting it on top of the piano with the lid shut (it is an upright) but this gave a horrible muffled sound with lots of other parasite buzzings. Then I tried putting it just behind me which got rid of the parasite buzzings but the base was still muffled. My third attempt was to put it on the floor towards the higher notes which got rid of the muffled base but also meant it was very unbalanced with the right hand far too prominent. I was wondering about putting it right over the other side of the room.

If you don't have any gain control, then I suppose the only way for you to change that is to literally move the mic, maybe to the other side of the room! Experiment!

Ta-da!

Do you need three microphones for that??

Thanks - that is very helpful!

No, it's showing you the different positions that you can use. You can use one mic if that's all you've got, but my teacher always used two. Position A is the one that I was trying to describe.

In my experience it's very difficult to get a satisfactorily decent quality recording of an acoustic piano with a cheap microphone. In fact I've never managed it. A single Neumann might just suffice positioned correctly, but unfortunately they're not cheap.

Having worked with various techies, with uprights I find that behind the piano is better, or with grands then ontop with the lid open

Recording piano is my speciality.

Taking the diagram below:-



Position "B" would be my first choice. position "C" will give you a lot of pedal noise and position "A" will give you a lot of hammer noise.

I normally use a pair of microphones and almost always omnis as a directional mic. misses the bottom end (though not so important with an upright).

You also need to be careful of where the piano is in the room to avoid the "honk" caused by standing waves and problems caused by reflections from the walls, etc.

In the first instance, get someone else to play the piano and go and listen to how it sounds in various positions - where it sounds best to your ears is almost certainly the best place to put the microphone.

I hope this helps.

John

What is audacity?

Thanks for the help everyone. I think I will just have to experiment.


Audacity is a free programme which allows you to record and edit music. I found about it on the forums so maybe some helpful person will put a link in to the relevant thread (either that or you can try searching for it).

Oh! There goes my vision of you pushing your piano to and beyond it's limits, in the same way I understand Paganini used to publicly play his Strad.

Audacity is a freeware Audio recording and editing program.

You can find it HERE.



John