How to mic up and record a concert grand piano

In September 2011 I recorded a DVD production for internationally acclaimed concert pianist, Grace Francis.

This was a 5-camera video shoot that took place at West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, UK.

At the end of the second day recording this DVD, I decided to record this tutorial with the time we had left; after all, we had paid for the concert hall and model D Steinway for two days, so I was going to use that afternoon we had spare.

During this 22 minute tutorial, I'll show you how to mic up and record the concert grand piano.

The first 10 minutes is me giving the tutorial demonstration, and the last 12 minutes is one of the pieces taken from the final DVD of Grace performing the Liszt Mephisto Waltz number 1.

The DVD of the concert pianist performing Liszt and Mussorgsky is available for sale at www.gracefrancis.com

I hope you enjoy this tutorial as much as I enjoyed making it.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• recording a piano
• recording a piano recital
• piano recital
• digital audio recorders

[xdcamhd]

To be honest, I just can''t understand how 'nowbody's' put futile posts like this, when they clearly have no idea what they are talking about. It is oh so easy to spot musical idiots.

Sorry.

[xdcamhd]

I find it funny how she sounds 'typically Asian', when she was born in London and both her parents are English. This puts into question your own musicality. Grace Francis has been praised by Vladimir Ashkenazy and Mitsiko Uchida, Who are you? The Steinway is only five years old and Nikolai Demidenko played it and said it was one of the best Steinways he has ever played. As for the recording, Roland recently used it at a large production show, to huge acclaim by recording studio engineers.

[paulears]

Indeed Nigel - The comment is completely unfounded, and oddly I was think the opposite. I've been working on some grand piano projects for over a year now and have experimented with many different microphones and techniques, and have to compliment you on the sound you've achieved. I'll send you sometime some parallel tracks - a left, right and then a test with a stereo mic - stacked variable pattern heads. A Yamaha C3, so quite different timbre, but maybe interesting. Ignore daft comments. Paul

[arjens0]

Well,the sound is not so well.

Of course it is Youtube, so the sound will never be very well, but we can find much better recordings on youtube if you talk about recording grandpiano.

First, she didn´t choose a very good Steinway.

It good be better tuned.

The sound is very thin and supervicial.

The pianist is typical Asian, (authomatical machines), who has no any idea about European musical culture.

It is typical reclame, without any feeling for real music and sound.

Sorry.