How to Record Piano: Best Mic Placements (...and Principles) 

Thanks for the kind words Mario! Exactly what I'm going for. Agreed about the player! 🙂 -Justin

Great to hear Ryan! Thanks for watching. -Justin

I came to the comments to leave a few paragraphs, most importantly my favorite technique of mic’ing the acoustic holes in the plate, and removing the lid via the 2 (sometimes 3) hinge pins. But you got everything covered! Cheers from a fellow piano tech, I’m a bellyman in the Steinway restoration department

So glad it was that helpful! Thanks, -Justin

Nope, it’s XY. :-) Blumlein is an XY array with both of the mics in a bidirectional polar pattern. These Black Holes are cardiod only, so it’s XY, not Blumlein. Hope that helps! Justin

Piano can be tricky. Fast attacks on these complex waveforms, particularly in the lower and middle registers, can often distort smaller speakers. You may end up hearing distortion on decently recorded pianos that aren't clipping on laptops and phones and other cheap speakers. But it's not the recording that's clipping technically... it's the speaker! You may have to work on softening the attack substantially during mixing, or carving out problem frequencies, and settling on lower output levels than might otherwise be ideal. I hope that helps, Justin

It depends a lot on the context! In a classical or traditionalist jazz setting where the goal isn’t strict isolation between elements for much further processing, then some of the more medium distance techniques are more common. In those cases a lot of the recording may come from a pair or tree of room mics for the whole ensemble, and the somewhat closer mics are there to give instruments a little more focus and definition, and to adjust their relative levels slightly if needed. But for more pop styles where you want more isolation and expect to do more processing, then it’s exactly what you described! Often, AB or hammers close to the strings, depending on what you can get away with. Some people will use a “boundary” mic under a closed lid. But for a closed lid approach, Earthworks makes a fantastic solution that sits inside the piano. I think those closed lid approaches are even more relevant to live sound reinforcement than live recording. For me, for live recording, if I could get away with it, it would be an open lid, even if it was only at half stick. But I’d prefer full stick open if I can get away with it. Hope that helps! -Justin

So glad it was helpful! -Justin

Great question. I don’t think about compressor type at first as much as I think about compressor function and envelope-attack and release times. Once I’ve decided on that, selecting the right type of compressor (or compressor settings on a fully variable compressor) becomes easy! For piano in a pop or rock context where you are more likely to compress there are two very good approaches: 1. Minimalist compression with a lower ratio. This MIGHT be a faster attack Vari Mu or VCA compressor if the sound needs to be smoother with more controlled transients. OR a slower attack opto or VCA if it needs a little more life, vibrancy and detail. 2. Parallel compression. This is going to be relatively hard compression with a fairly high ratio and fast attack time, often with a VCA-maybe a FET or a Vari Mu if the character works. But the big thing here, is that with parallel compression you are going to compress a lot, and you are going to make the parallel compressed signal very very bright. Then, you fold a little of this in with the main signal. In general, in the dense sections of a pop or rock mix, the piano will need a LOT of compression and brightening EQ. While this can be done directly on the piano track, I find I get more natural sounds more easily by doing it in parallel. I might even do both approaches in a very dynamic style of production. If there are sparse sections, I would be likely to just use the minimalist approach. And when we get into a really dense section, I would be folding in more and more of that bright parallel compressed channel, and maybe even backing off on the more full-bodied and minimalist piano track if needed. I go into great detail on this approach, and approaches to setting compressors more generally, in the Compression Breakthroughs course. There are a lot of good audio examples on piano compression techniques-and every other instrument-in there. Definitely worth it for that section alone! But of course it has that kind of thing for every single instrument group you can imagine as well :-) Plus exercises to help you hear and set compressors with confidence every time, do you don’t have to ask me any more! Hope that helps! -Justin (PS: Full compression course is here if that’s useful: compression breakthroughs.com )

@@SonicScoop Thanks very much for the detailed answer, Justin. 🙂 I'll check out the course.

In general, piano doesn't take to compression nearly as well as guitars, vocals, and drums. I find that most compressors compromise the sound quality far too much (if having mic'd a grand piano). Two compressors I've had great results with have been the TDR Kotelnikov GE and UAD's Fairchild 670. Both sound VERY different, but give a controlled compression that suits piano well -- without damaging the tone.

I think they sound great as is just listening by themselves. But I’d say that in the context of a finished release-especially in a pop context with multiple instruments-the sound is going to want to go brighter. It is very common for pianos to be EQ’d a LOT in dense pop mixes, EQ’d a bit in sparse pop mixes, and sometimes EQ’d a little in more traditionalist styles. The most common EQ moves in popular contexts are to cut some lows and low mids. And the denser the mix, the more that gets cut. I like different things about each of the mics. Hope that makes sense! -Justin

The two pairs is one of my favorites too. It works really well with an AB pair close up as well. Maybe even better! I didn’t want to smother people with like 30+ examples of all the possible arrangements but these ideas are a good starting point I think. -Justin

That is basically a pair of mics in an XY stereo configuration. Check out the way that we placed the XY configurations in this video. Then, you should get pretty similar results from your zoom! -Justin

@@SonicScoop thanks so much 🙏

There shouldn’t be distortion but on any of them. Both the record and export levels are pretty low, with no processing . Sometimes a distortion free piano will cause an old phone or laptop speaker to distort though, because they just can’t handle the thick and complex transients of the instrument. Common problem! Could that be happening for you? What are you listening on? Thanks, Justin

Hi there, almost all of these examples are just using two mics at once! The four mics are up there only so you can compare two different stereo mic approaches. Also: These techniques and principles will work with ANY mics, whether you're spending $100 or $10,000 or anywhere in between. That said, JZ have special direct sales a few times a year where you can get MASSIVE discounts on these mics. You can sign up for the SonicScoop email list at our website to find out about when they happen. I hope that helps! -Justin

@@SonicScoop Ah I see. Thank you for your response, Justin!

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