I actually loved the very 1st position you started in. I could hear both a crisp sharpness to some notes while at the same time I got a good amount of reverberation, but not too much. The 1st position is just how I'd like all piano recordings to be. A great balance of clarity, dynamics and reverb.
For me position #2 was best. I felt it captured all those wonderful tonal qualities of the piano. #3 sounded too weak and missed some of the more subtle tones that I guess are heard in closer proximity. The best part about #4 was Master Miao Chan sitting on the piano ;) Oh and your playing of course. Looking forward to hearing what you come up with later.
Wahou ! The 3D sound really give us a new perspective of the instrument ! Thanks a lot to sharing this with us ! I really enjoyed the 3rd position, the distant one. It brings a beautiful room sound, and add space to the sound !
I'am french, bad english, my printing : Test mic positions 1 : more balanced ,i like Test mic positions 2 : more rich in harmonics, but too close, invading, not airy music Test mic positions 3 : Acoutics ,but the room ... Test mic positions 4 : More emotional ,i like ,i like ,like
I fully agree. Most of my recent binaural piano test videos in the "Now and Zen - Jing 3D" playlist at ru-vid.com/group/PL2rZHduA-UHg0LEZu4_mdSOTyLQpL1o12 have been from an extreme version of position #4. But position #2 is also promising. I'll be working with these two, adding binaural IR reverb, so see which yields the grandest and most comforting feel. Thanks so much for your comprehensive reply! :)
Very interesting. I like 2nd position from all. I also noticed that the sound is reversed. Thanks for sharing the video and it could help me decide my recording position.
Position 2 sounds the best. 1 and 4 are meh, and 3 sounds too much like a practice room, the room is too small for this distance, but a longer distance could work in a bigger room. 2 is more like a close mic that hides the deficiency of the room and gives more detailed, intimate and full-bodied sound.
I personally like the 2nd and that 3rd the best. There are differences though. The 2nd position sounds more detailed. You can clearly hear the music but also the fun part is you can hear something like the mechanism inside the piano. It's very very emotional at some point. The 3rd position however represents the space more. What I mean by that is, I can feel what kind of environment you are playing in. The size of the room and the feeling of the distance is very obvious. Anyway I love these experiences. Good music and good video!
Thanks, Vincent! Your feedback is helpful. I am working on capturing binaural reverb to be added to these recordings, so hearing the "space" of the room won't be as critical. I think the best recorded sound of the piano is primary, and to that point, your comments on position #2 speak well. Thanks for your help!
Matthew Lien with all pleasure Mr. Lien! Thanks to the development of Hi-Fi equipment that i can enjoy your music better than i first met you 10 years ago! I mean i wouldn't hear so detailed sound if we don't have good headphone/earphones. Anyway, "Bleeding Wolf" still exists in my iPod! Respect!
Im no expert but i personally feel like it’s sounds better than some « official » studio piano recordings. I played along with my Keyscapes midi piano and they’re very close.
hi. mic placement for sound recording is equally important as most as the speaker placement to match with room acoustic for sound reproduction.Thats only master key to achieve something amazing results what we called natural realism. You are absolutely on correct way. just find out the Position where you like to listen (feel better) in the room. Probably away from reflective flat surface. Then put binural mic skull on same place,just pay attention to set proper gain which matchs the experience best.All the best. Binural recording is the future recording for headphone users and for home music system listeners it will 8 feet wide stereo record pair of suitable mic. Enjoy
Pos.1 ... Sounds most casual, as you usually hear it. Not my favorite. Poz.2 seems to be reversed, low on right, high on left. Not so nice impression after all. I see what you meant in comment to previous video :). Pos.3 you get a room a lot, it would be good to damp it. But if piano was one instrument of many (in a band), I would go this way (or for pos.1) for piano not to be the most important instrument in band. Pos.4 I like the most. Location of notes seems very natural (oddly, as I am not a piano player :)) and pleasurable. Honestly hearing room responce is the thing that I don't like in most binaural records I heard. My room has a response known to me and I while hearing it is natural for me (I can hear it for all sounds, not only for ones from loudspeakers and it changes with head rotation), listening to recorded responce seems artifical. Well, unless you use it for "special effects" like in impulse rec video :)
You should treat your room acustics first. You're doing yourself a disservice. You're trying to get the best recording possible, but no room treatment. You could improve the sound drastically with proper treatment. Gik acoustics is one of the best for room treatment.
Yes No: 3 head position just melts me.. more sense of the room reflections .. @Time 4:33 i actually here some kind of light tap behind me-- far left side.
What kind of mic technique would you recommend for untreated livingroom? M/s, x/y, ortf, blumelein? Also what pair of mics? Omni? Cardioid? Binaural? Thank you
Well, you'll want to be close in. If it's a grand, I have good luck with a pair of 414 mics, about 8" apart, positioned where your ears would be if you were standing in the curve-notch of the body, facing the hammers. I also love a pair of DPA 4006 omni mics, also on the side of the full-stick opening, pointing parallel at the harp, about 2 to 3 feet apart. I would not go with M/S as that will grab the room acoustics more.
@@MatthewLienMusic i have a pair of akg 414 too! I plug them straight to sound devices pre 3 cause they have crystal clear pres and lots of headroom. I will try them the way you mentioned on my yamaha c3e and see what happens.
Funny thing, I kept coming back to the sound of the piano and when we came to position 4, I saw it was a Yamaha piano. I sort of knew it, and I'm not even a pianist! :) It sounds more like a piano and not a grand piano. Not bad, just.... hm... limited. I may very well be other factors playing in. I think the position 3 where you get more room response is sort of the interesting way to experience binaural. If I wanted "my" room, I would go for very close up microphones in a more or less dead room. Getting the feeling of being somewhere else using binaural and headphones seems like the most interesting prospect of binaural recordings.
That's a really good point. And now that I am working more with binaural convolution reverb, I am less fearful of distant mic'ing and the acquired room sounds that come with that (I am not fond of this room's sound).
By the way, one factor in the piano "sound" which might be adding to the "limited" sound you mention, is actually the absence of limiting... compression, I mean. This is totally dry without reverb, compression or EQ. If this were any piano in any studio recording, a degree of all of those would be applied.
True, but since I've heard quite a few grand pianos "live" as a musician (not piano player though, I play the oboe), all pianos have their own "sound" and Yamaha is, hm, clinical? Not like a warm Bösendorfer or a Steinway or the Swedish Malmsjö.
I like binaural recording for their ability to get the "full experience". Of course it's interesting to process the sound to get an interesting sound, but to me binaural is better suited for that immersion in another room. So, would the best route be to record close and process the sound creating a pleasant sound, or perhaps finding a better room? Now, getting a better room might not be the easiest to do, but I'm thinking of the possibility to experience different concert halls around the world. That would add greater depth as one not only chooses recording based on performer but also venue. Traditional recordings contain a lot of processing to create a very special sound. Comparing a live performance and a recording, even in the same room, often sound completely different. What I would want is binaural recording from a sweet spot where one can fully experience the music as it sounds in that room.
If you look at the various videos on my Jing3D channel, you'll hear a variety of reverbs (more on the way) which are all binaural impulse responses (IR) which I have personally sampled in some amazing spaces. The optimal situation would be a room or hall with a sound you like for the initial intimate tone (or a fairly dead studio without much character), and then the additional of binaural IR from a space you wanted the piano to bloom into. I love Steinways for their "wooden bells" like tone. But I purchased this particular C7 because it had amazing rich and warm low tones. Yamahas are also preferred in studios because the tone mixes better with other mainstream instruments. The edge cuts better, both through a mix, and into reverb.
Let me play the devil's advocate here: What's the difference between a Neumann binaural head and a matched pair of omni-directional, high quality condenser microphones, or even a pair of Neumann U87 spaced 20 cm apart? Answer: The size of the membranes. There are physical limitations to the dynamic range of those mics and no way to overcome those limitations in a close-to-the-piano environment. The 3D is an illusion that you can create just as well with a decent pair of onmis spaced at the same distance as the artificial head. Mind you, the mics themselves were a revelation themselves and a total blast to actually record a piano with and giving you the real feel of a live concert - 30 years ago, used with a Sony Professional Walkman.. In terms of actual recording quality they are mediocre at best. And if you happen to work with a pianist on the right piano, the mics themselves, not the recording device, will get you into clipping in really loud passages. It's all fun and games, until it's not games anymore, but serious recordings, and then you'll just buy a decent, matched pair of omni mics. BTW: Your C7 is an exceptionally nice instrument and well maintained.
I'm a fan of omni's on a piano, specifically the DPA 4006 mics. However, I have to completely disagree with you that spaces omni's offer the same result as the KU100. First, the KU100 is an awesome stereo mic. I have used it for lots of stereo recording (which happens to be binaural) which sounds great on stereo speakers, as well as being noticeably binaural on headphones. The human head aspect of a binaural mic (head structure, accurate average pinnae, concha, ear canal) creates an "out of head" sound on earphones that NO non-binaural mic can achieve. I once thought as you and attempted to fool my engineer. I used two DPA 4006 omni mics, and also a pair of 414's, spaced appropriately, with some solid structure in between and some foam pads angling to the rear to simulate "behind the ear" dampening like your ear would do. It didn't work. I then gave in, and purchased silicone ears and a mannequin head, and put some cheap omni lavs in the ears. Terrible sound quality but definitely an "out of head" sound on headphones. I then replaced the cheap mics with DPA 4060 mini mics (also omnis), which was much better but sounded terrible on stereo speakers. I then used the Kemar, head and torso which sounded too clinical. And then I finally invested in the KU100. AWESOME mic. One aspect of achieving a noticeably binaural recording is the capturing of early reflections. This can be difficult with a piano because it creates such a wall of sound. But it is an important element. The nest step is the applying of binaural convolution reverb. See my video "Audio Reality" for more on that. And yes, that C7 is exceptionally warm. That's why I purchased it. Most are bright and sometimes harsh... good for cutting through a mix but not the best for soothing solo piano. Thanks for listening.
Strictly speaking, we should be listening with special binaural headphones as well, that do not have the HRTF frequency response correction. I.e - we should be listening with headphones that have a perfectly flat frequency response. Listening with standard headphones, we have TWO HRTFs being applied - one at the dummy head, and the other at the headphones. This might be why the sound is slightly mellow. Or perhaps the dummy head system you have does the correction? Discuss. ;^) Nevertheless, it sounds lovely, even through speakers.
There are certainly extreme considerations if this were a strictly scientific undertaking. But for my interest, I am actually seeking a noticeable improvement in binaural music production for the average listener, which would therefore need to be across a variety of headphones. Please see this video, to better understand where I am going with all this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-onuVjhZ_MWs.html
Matthew Lien I didn't mean specific headphones - I just meant any standard set of headphones. Headphones are designed to compensate for the frequency response of the human anatomy (head, ears, ear canal, upper torso etc), such that the resultant sound wave at the ear drum is equivalent to that which would occur if the person were listening to perfectly flat response loud speakers in an average listening environment. I.e the *raw* frequency response of standard headphones is far from flat. In any case, as I said, it appears that binaural setups typically take that into account so the user doesn't have to worry about it. Ultimately, you're the master anyway - as long as YOU are auditioning with standard headphones, you can make any necessary adjustments so that the result is what you are trying to achieve, and then we'll hear a reasonable approximation, given that we all have different headphones and hearing perception. What headphones are you "mastering" with? :)
One thing I discovered is that the D/A converters and headphone pres make more of a difference in the binaural realism, than various headphones. Using the Chord Mojo, for instance, yielded a huge improvement in imaging on a good quality smartphone.
With binaural recording, there is an oddity which sends the perceived location of sounds directly in front and at eye level, to your rear. This is a psychoacoustic survival function. So the only way we can keep a sound in the front, is to either have it be slightly elevated or lowered in relationship with the microphone.
@@MatthewLienMusic Wonderful! Thank you. 'Eye Level' is also a mysterious brain function (Perspective). Is it not possible to create a sound plane with the listener at the center that passes (clockwise) directly overhead, down to the right and under the feet, up the left side to overhead starting point? And then rotating that plane about a central left/right axis to finally produce a sound potential sphere .... say, with the belly button as the center ? or is it as you say, a psychological limitation and not a technical limitation? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4-dGcjqNzO4.html
Wai lani It has been surmised that the trouble with the front image switching perceptively to the rear, is because the human brain -- when hearing a sound with equal energy (it could be from the front or rear) -- will assume the sound to be behind us, for survival purposes. Presumably, monkeys who assumed a sound of equal L/R energy (and not confirmed by sight) was behind them survived evolution, while monkeys that did not automatically assume the sound to be behind them, did not (being eaten by that jaguar at night sneaking up from the rear). ;)
@@MatthewLienMusic I understand and very much appreciate your presentation and replies! I also very much like your music! The discussion could become VERY profound ... Psychological vs technical is equivalent to Mind vs Matter. I am a 'Mind Only Buddhist' at that level and take serious issue with the 'Matter Only Scientist".. That aside, your reply of 5 days ago is wonderful! I pose this question... Can we not hear a sound from the front at eye level? If a constant sound source were to completely encircle us, from front, to below, to behind, to above ,,, and repeat that, then we would never hear the sound as coming from the front? I do think I can locate a mosquito flying around my head..... even in front, but as you note, finding that mosquito from sound alone is VERY VERY difficult! I am sharing your youtube and our discussion with my wife's younger brothers (in their mid 60's) .. they are professional musicians, sound engineers in charge of music recording and reproduction for studio and for public performances .... beside the 'stereo' issue we are discussing the virtues of analogue vs digital. May your sphere of listeners grow and grow!
