All language subtitles for How to Mic a Grand Piano and tips to mic any Piano

[Music]

hey guys

this is elliott with modern music studio

i'm gonna be walking us through a couple

different techniques for miking a grand

piano

and i'm just gonna hop right into it so

let's dive in

so to start off with there's a couple

different things that i want to go into

about just the

kind of physics of a piano and why you

mic them the way we're gonna be making

them

and to start with the piano has a really

large

range for uh frequencies of notes so you

got really high end note

you got really low notes

and to really capture the entire piano

what you want to do is you want to get a

mic on at least the bottom

end of the piano and a mic on the top

end of the piano so you're really

able to pick up those highs and those

lows

all right so now we've gone into a

little bit about just where you're

putting the mics

i want to talk a little bit about the

strings as well so on the left side of

the piano

you have really long really thick

strings these are your lows

and on the right side we have our really

short really thin

strings those are your highs so let's

make sure if you're putting a mic

on either side you just want to pick up

both ends of those strings

now in front of me right now i have a

spaced stereos

pair or otherwise known as an orft

setup i think it's ortf setup

and what this is going to do is it's

just going to be a

good way of capturing the lows and the

highs

from a really close point so these mics

are really close to the strings they're

about probably like an

inch and a half off the strings max and

they're

uh pointed directly at the strings i

usually try and find like a middle

ground so if this is the high end

and this is the low end of the piano we

just split it in half

at middle c you want to make sure that

your mic is in the very

center of these uh this set of strings

for these

keys so obviously this string

is on the farthest side of the piano i

don't want a mic right there i want a

mic a little bit closer to right here

and you can visually see where that note

is when you hit the piano key you

normally are able to look into the piano

and see the hammer move

and see what string that that hammer is

on

um conversely so on the low end of it

you don't want to mic this very very low

string right here you want to kind of be

in the middle as well

so say like c2 or

c3 but somewhere in that area and use

the same trick

just look for where that hammer is

moving and put the mic on that string

right now i'm just using two mics you

can go uh

farther into it if you have the setup

and put a mic kind of um

across the board of it and really pick

up all the strings

a little bit better that way but i don't

necessarily think that is necessary

especially with some of the other

techniques that i'm going to be going

into

so now i've gone through a little bit of

the ortf

setup or your spaced stereo pair i'm

just going to play a couple little notes

and give you a chance to really hear

what that sounds like

and then compare them to some of the

other mic and techniques that i'm going

to use

so here's a little something

[Music]

what i want to play

so

so there's a little something just kind

of showing you the whole side of the

or the whole range of the piano going

from low end to high end

and now i'm going to go into a similar

pair but i'm going to use the

move the mics a little farther away from

the piano

so bear with me while i move these

right so i've moved these mics just a

little farther away

you can see them one mic right here and

one mic

uh kind of pointing towards the low end

strings

and notice that they're still pointed at

the piano at the strings

but the the main difference is just

distance from the piano right now

and what we're looking at is as you play

any note on the piano

the way a piano works especially a grand

piano

is with this shell up here this uh this

lid

um with it angled what's happening is

you hit a note and the sound's gonna

move

up and bounce off of this and go

pretty much just like out towards your

microphones or if you're in a kind of

concert hall towards your concert

hall or the audience and that's the

reason why a lot of times people don't

actually mic

a grand piano in a concert hall is

because they are

super loud and just the way they're

designed they project

all of their sound towards the audience

using this

lid so what's cool about this miking

technique

is you're getting a really big stereo

sound

and you're picking up the high end left

right keys in the high end

or low end left keys using this

technique

just the same as if you had the mics

right on the actual strings themselves

the only difference here is you're

getting a you're giving the sound the

strings a little more time to develop

as they uh move toward the mic so

instead of picking the sound up right

away right here

the sound's gonna kind of come up hit

here and then bounce towards the mic

and what this is gonna do is it's gonna

allow all the

high end notes that you're playing to

kind of blend together a little bit more

and get a slightly more

balanced sound going to your mic same

with the low end

rather than picking up super lows

instantly

what's happening is the low end they're

going to have time to bounce up and go

towards your low end mic

and pick up a little more blended sound

if you will so let me give you a little

bit of a demo of what that sounds like

right now

i'm gonna play something similar to what

i played earlier

[Music]

so that kind of gives you a little bit

of a demo of what the

spaced ortf a little bit farther from

the piano sounds like

so try it out try different distances

from the piano

sometimes really far away and by really

far i mean more like probably five feet

six feet sounds pretty good

sometimes closer sounds better it really

just depends on the room that you're in

as well as the type of mic that you're

using so my next um

miking technique that i want to show you

guys is we're going to do something

called an

xy with these two mics and xy is only

doable with two mics so

kind of keep that in mind you can't do

it with one and give me a second i'm

gonna set it up and i'll explain what it

looks like

okay so now i got my xy setup

set up and um i'm just gonna go into

just a touch really quick

so an xy microphone setup is all you're

doing is you're putting

both microphones in the exact same place

but one's uh facing one direction

and one is at the same spot facing at a

90 degree angle at the other direction

and i'll give a close-up of what that

looks like in a minute

but for now just uh no what you're doing

here is you're picking up a stereo field

but instead of

a stereo field in a sense of like if

your ear was right there

you're picking up all the sound from

this side as well as all the sound from

this side

and i'm just gonna play it so you can

hear what it sounds like

and we'll go from there

[Music]

so there you have it that's an xy that's

what it sounds like

and i really like this uh setup

um personally i still prefer the ortf

over it that's spaced stereo pair but

say you have four microphones it's

not a bad idea to try this and then

blend all four mics together

but we don't all have that kind of setup

so keep it in mind maybe you'll like it

maybe you want

feel free to try these out move the mics

around a little bit

try different distances and if you have

any questions

leave a comment below and we'll make

sure to answer

you