compasspnt wrote on Tue, 07 February 2006 23:15 |
What then would your mic'ing technique be in a perfect situation?
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There is no such thing as a perfect situation, it is just different set of compromises.
When you have bad quality piano, or acoustics, or both, you have to fight those to make the sound at least more or less presentable.
When both piano and hall are wonderful the process could be much more tortureous, as you start trying not just something that would "sound OK", but have to make all kinds of artistic decisions. The intimate relationship between performer/piano/hall/composer/final result, is much more subtle and can take many hours to get the right compromise (which BTW, could be completely different on another day). Only your ears, experience, and talent can tell you the right solution.
The repertoire can also be a challenge, espessially if you need to put on the same disc such different composers like for example Mozart, Chopin, Ravel, and Prokofiev. Each of them has completely different sound aesthetics, and ideally would need different TYPES of piano, not to say different mics and miking techniques. So you have to decide and find an average sound, where neither of those composers would be out of context.
As for micing techniques, usually I use whether Jecklin disk, or MS, where for "S" I put a ribbon, and for "M" (depending on situation) omni, fig8, or a special mic of their combination (if I need a cardioid pattern). Rarely I use a "conventional" cardioid mic, as I beleive only true transducers (like pressure, or fig8) can create a natural sound I want. The omni/fig8 mate, with all its limitations and some anomalies, suites my purposes much better than "ready to go" cardioid capsule. In fact, I even don't own a matched pair of cardioids, as I never found myself liking them for piano, and only rarely use Gefell M294 for an "M", just in some certain situations.
When you record classical piano on artistic level, it is impossible to give any recommendations, as every situation dictates different solutions. For example, last year I was recording the full set of Bach's English Suites and last December the full set of his French Suites, with the same pianist, on the same instrument, in the same hall. For English Suites, with its quite dense music texture we found the Jecklin disk with one of my sets of omnies, working the best.
The French Suites are much more transparent and light, and after a brief sound check it was clear that MS, with omni "M" would work better, reveiling almost "human speaking voice" sound, the pianist wanted.
Another kind of situation... A couple years ago I was recording a very unusual CD, with very meditative type music, never getting above 'mf' range, with a tempo never going faster than Moderato.
It was clear that only Jecklin disk setup could give that very special sense of space, localisation, and atmosphere needed.
At some point I found a position, where mics would get a reflected sound from the piano lid so, that the mics would get this sound, then pick the sound getting back from the hall in a way when the hall would feel like an extension of the piano, and the sound would never seem to end...
Any other positions would give much clearer sound, but nothing would give that almost owerwhelming sense of that emotional
piano/hall/music engagement.
For me at that moment the sound was a little fuzzy and could be easily "fixed" by more direct mic positioning. Realizing that, very carefully I noticed to Maestro that sound purists would prefer to hear on a CD just clean straight sound. The answer was quite straight: "F**ck your purists. If they want, let them buy CDs made in a studio. You are not gonna change anything"!
After many hours of editing and mastering I still listen to that CD often... just for my own pleasure... despite on some fuzzines... which BTW, very well might be a part of that almost mystical atmosphere, created.
BTW, little suggestion. Whenever you go to record classical music, always know the pieces performed from memory, and always have a score right in front of you.
Best, Mark Fuksman