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About Sennheiser

Miking Techniques

Upright Piano
Piano can be a tough instrument to mike, with all of the key noise, and the noise of the hammers inside the piano. As expected, there can be a large difference in sound quality between two different brands and models. The first thing is to start with an in tune piano. If you have a recording session that you are going to want to keep, you may want to have the piano tuned at least in the same week. An out of tune recording can make it difficult to add other instrument tracks later. There are a couple of ways to try miking an upright, but different methods may be used for different pianos. If possible, you want to remove the front face or the rear of the piano in order to reduce unwanted reflections. usually the annoying nasal high-mid frequency range gets boosted in a closed box piano. Also, move the piano away from the wall as much as possible, to avoid wave interference from the wall. A good place to start is to mike over the top of the piano, with one mic over the bass strings, and one mic over the treble strings. This may not sound natural enough for you, and you may get too much key noise, especially on an older piano. To reduce the hammer noise, you can mic the back of the piano soundboard, with two mics about 8 inches away over the bass and treble side. You definately need to move the piano away from the wall with this technique and if possible, point the piano away from the wall towards the center of the room. For the most natural sound, you can remove the kick board at the base of the front of the piano. Place one mic over each side about 8 inches away from the strings, at the level of the kickboard. This miking technique may pick up too much foot or foot pedal noise, especially with an animated player. This may actually be a desired sound for an old blues or ragtime song.