Questions about piano recording.

[UnofficialSoundtrack]

Hi, I'm new here. I wanna start with some solo piano mixes, 'cause that's where i'm most comfortable, but don't know the first thing about recording a piano (except that it's extremely hard to do professionally). I have a 5'8 nice-sounding baby grand accessible to record, but I need to know about the hardware... My questions are:

1) What quality of sound does OCR expect for piano recording? I.E. can I get by with one or two solid mics and a little bit of sound engineering or would I need to track down somebody with 6-8 mics?

2) If I can do this with one or two mics, what are the best budget models? On the other end, what do I need to turn the raw data into a good remix (what hardware do i need besides my computer and what good programs are floating around?)

If I sound like I i'm just trying to be cheap, I'm sorry I mainly am just trying to figure out if recording my own piano is something worth investing in, so I don't have to track down people with the REALLY good equipment every time I wanna record.... anything.

Thanks for your help!

PS I know collaboration might be my best option, but I don't have notation software...

[Moseph]

Using only one mic would give you a mono recording, which might be okay if you were mixing this with other instruments, but two mics would be better for a solo piano performance because it would let you get stereo. As long as the mics are positioned well, it will sound good. Six to eight is definitely overkill. If you go above two mics on a single instrument, it's usually because there are specific nuances you want to pick up such as the room's reverb qualities -- more mics doesn't necessarily equal a better recording.

The SM57 is a perpetually-popular cheap-ish mic, but it isn't the only option. Really, any mic in the >$40 range would probably give you acceptable sound-quality for OCR. To hook the mic up to a computer, you'll either need it to be a USB mic, or you'll need a soundcard or recording interface that can accept mic input (this site is a good resource for learning more).

There is free/cheap software available for recording -- Audacity and Reaper would both work fine.

Another option besides actual recording is to download a good free piano VST such as the GIGA Continuous Velocity Piano. This would let you create a "fake" piano performance with just the computer by either programming by hand the notes that you want played or by playing on a MIDI keyboard connected to the computer to trigger the sounds on the computer. The results probably wouldn't be as satisfactory as an actual recording, but if you opted not to buy a MIDI keyboard and wrote the notes manually, the stuff you'd need for it would be free.

[Tensei]

I think recording a piano with one or two decent microphones and a good pre-amp (which is important too!) will be more than enough to bring up you up to OCR standards. I don't think they'll mind a little hiss and I'm sure nobody expects you to record a piano with a huge-ass multitrack recorder and six top of the line condensor microphones.

A possibly cheaper alternative would be to get a midi piano (of course not the cheapest one, make sure it has at least enough (weighted?) keys and decent velocity layering stuff) and play with it through a vst (I'd suggest the Tascam Continuous Velocity Piano which is based on physical modelling and is absolutely INCREDIBLE for a free VST). That way you don't have to worry about mic setups, hum and all that, though purists will of course argue that the real thing is better.

Another advantage of having a midi piano is that if you DO choose to try your hand at something different than solo piano mixes (church organ perhaps?), you already have a way to enter notes and drum patterns

Edit: Goddamnit Moseph, it's uncanny how much our posts resemble each other, great minds think alike?

[UnofficialSoundtrack]

Thank you for your replies! Very helpful

Yeah, I actually have a 88-key weighted (but very cheap) MIDI keyboard and Reason (which is being woefully underused as of now) and I've thought about going the "live"-keyboard-heavily-edited route, but I don't think I'd be able to capture emotive/tempo things the way I'd like (well at least not without grossly out-of-proportion amounts of tweaking). But some day I would like to try my hand at sequencing other instruments.... not yet though. As it stands, I think a couple mics would fit in the budget.

Any other comments/hardware recommendations?

[zircon]

We have definitely received some subpar piano subs before. In my opinion, get your recording setup the way you think you want it, make a quick demo, and send it to a judge. We'll tell you whether or not you need to work on it more. That way you don't waste your time getting the perfect performance of your remix, only to find out that the recording is no good.

[tgfoo]

Also, it's not just the hardware that you use for the recording, the room you're recording in, the positions you set the mics in and the piano it's self will also have a huge effect on the quality and sound of your recording.

[SnappleMan]

The higher quality the mike (yeah, I looked it up, the official abbreviation is "mike" not "mic" ), the better, but you can use sm57s, just make sure you know how to set them up properly. When recording non-mono audio, you have to be very careful of phase problems between the two or more mikes. Just make sure that the mikes are not pointing at one another, and it SHOULD help a bit. But, getting into the actual recording of the piano, you really need to do a little bit of homework. You can get a great recording with just ONE mic, just make sure it's a good one and you place is where the piano sounds best. To know where it sounds best, you gotta think logically about how a piano "amplifies" itself (PROTIP: It's the LID). The piano is meant to be listened to with you sitting perpendicular to the opening of the lid, so you place the mike there. BUT, make sure you don't place it too low or too high, pianos are notorious for drowning out recordings in overtones. Usually, I point the mike at half the angle of the opened lid, so if the lid opens at 45 degrees (I think that's standard), point the mike towards the opening at 22 degrees.

Once you get that set up, you can start adding more mikes. Try using 2 of them in the player position, one pointing straight down towards the lowest register, one straight down towards the highest register. Or if you have a good condenser mike, place it right in the center of the keyboard. You can also mike the inside of the piano, just point a mike at the strings, you can experiment at varying lengths.

The other big part of the sound is the room you're recording in. I'm not going into what makes a good piano room, but basically make sure it sounds good in the room. I don't think you should try getting into miking up rooms yet, that's a whole new animal in itself. You'll get a good amount of room sound into the normal mikes anyway, so yeah.

[analoq]

Official abbreviation for microphone? You've naively adopted spurious pedantry.

[SnappleMan]

Official abbreviation for microphone? You've naively adopted spurious pedantry.

For all my life I used mic, but Firefox spell check keeps underlining it

[Moseph]

The verb forms of the mic spelling (which I otherwise prefer over mike) have always been troubling to me -- micing? It sounds like you're throwing mice at people.

[UnofficialSoundtrack]

We have definitely received some subpar piano subs before. In my opinion, get your recording setup the way you think you want it, make a quick demo, and send it to a judge. We'll tell you whether or not you need to work on it more. That way you don't waste your time getting the perfect performance of your remix, only to find out that the recording is no good.

Awesome. I will keep this in mind. That's actually what I was most terrified of

...Oh and another followup question for anyone--My musical training is almost completely limited to performance and musical structure and stuff, so sadly i have no idea what makes for good sound quality. I can track down someone to help me with mic/ke positioning, but I don't wanna shell out money on equipment if the room is hopeless... How important is the room and how will I know if it's hopeless (by OCR standards)? Are there any tricks I can use to get a passable sound out of a hopeless room? Obviously, I can't be lugging around the piano into different rooms, and the only reason I would want to buy my own mic/kes is if I can use my own piano. I'll try and describe the room if it would help you guys answer this, just tell me which characteristics to include. I realize I'm asking for simple fixes to monumental issues, but I mainly just want to know if this is something worth pursuing before spending money. Thanks

[analoq]

ah, FireFox's spellchecker isn't quite an authority on recording jargon. Safari is fine with mic, though.

Most of the trades/books use 'mic' as a noun and 'miking' as a verb. I prefer mic'ing, myself.

[Zephyr]

Is there a chance that you could rent/borrow/buy then return a microphone (there, abreviations solved), I know this is unlikely but it could save you the money of buying it then realizing it's no good. Maybe you could get one from somewhere, then send in the quality demo and see if it's worth your money.

[analoq]

Mics generally don't have favorable return policies, especially if they can be used for vocals.

If there's a pro audio retailer (Guitar Center/Sam Ash/Mars) nearby drop in and let them know what you're trying to accomplish. They probably won't drag a piano in just for you, but they can set up some mics for you to play with to get an idea of their sound. Wanting to record your home piano makes you a typical customer, they can probably give you good suggestions.

cheers.

[UnofficialSoundtrack]

Well I was planning to track down somebody who knows a bit about recording and sound in general to ask them their opinions, so I'll probably ask them at the same time if they have a mic or two similar to what I might buy and see if I can't make a demo track. It's at least a possibility. Thanks for the suggestion.

Oh and the living room is carpeted and medium-sized (by that i mean not a little box, but not like a spacious cavity of a large house) with a normal ~10' ceiling and has wood and upholstered furniture and several openings to the kitchen and adjacent rooms. Walls are plastered, not brick.... anything terrible in that description?