***The Official Home Recording Studio Thread***

Soldato
Joined
18 Jun 2010
Posts
6,577
Location
Essex
@Lowe and @BigDannyO

How about this:

Oktava MK 012 stereo pair, in X/Y one pointing towards centre of treble strings other pointing towards centre of bass strings (and halfway up the strings). Recording into a Tascam dr-100mkiii.

I watched a pretty long full fat review of this.

As I'm new to all of this, I plan to record the whole performance and recording in one go which will be somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes. The Tascam has the feature to split the recording up over every 5/10/15/30 minutes so you get loads of files by the end of it. The reviewer said you should do this otherwise it's really hard to sync the audio and video later. Due to audio drift. Is it really that much of a pain to sync up audio over 2 hours?

The camera will be recording PAL 1080p50 and the recorder I can do anywhere from 16/44.1 to 24/192. I will leave the audio recording on the camera on, and I might try to mix some in for some ambient sounds but it will help me to sync the audio in the first place.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
18 Jun 2010
Posts
6,577
Location
Essex
Just quickly checking with all of you that this is alright before I order:

Recorder: Tascam DR100 mk iii
Mics: Stereo Matched Oktava MK 012 MSP-2
Stand: a K&M boom stand
Mounts: Stereo Bar with shock mounts for both mics
Cables: Some reasonably priced 3 metre XLR cables

This is how it will be setup in the picture below, obviously without the orchestra and the piano will have its lid on.

Un9pleo.jpg

I'll be recording a grand piano in a church. For mic configurations I'm open to suggestions, they're both cardioids. I can go A B stereo pair outside of the piano pointing at the lid. I can go ORTF inside one pointed at centre of bass strings one pointed at centre of treble strings. I can go X/Y for the same. I think ORTF to get the mics pointed in the right direction at 110 degrees they'd have to be pretty close to the strings. Worried they will sound too bright then.

Any help I'd appreciate. The concert is October 20th and I'll get the gear in the next 2 weeks or so and play around with it at home, although I don't have a grand piano!

My camcorder will be quite set back from the piano but it's in a church so it will pick up quite a lot of the ambient room noise, I'll try mixing a bit of that in afterwards.

So yeah, any advice on my selected equipment and on micing would be appreciated. Thanks.

@Lowe @BigDannyO @easyrider @SexyGreyFox
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
6,223
Location
Newcastle Under Lyme
Very tight on time but to summarise;

Gear looks fine.
Position? Lift the lid to its highest setting. As a *STARTING* point put the mics XY with the centre line pointing toward the middle of the lid, about 50cm back from the piano. Adjust to suit - get the player to do a minute or so or recording in sound check and listen back.
Don't use any camcorder audio, it'll be horrid. Just use artificial reverb if required, will sound far better.
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,065
Location
Autonomy
Very tight on time but to summarise;

Gear looks fine.
Position? Lift the lid to its highest setting. As a *STARTING* point put the mics XY with the centre line pointing toward the middle of the lid, about 50cm back from the piano. Adjust to suit - get the player to do a minute or so or recording in sound check and listen back.
Don't use any camcorder audio, it'll be horrid. Just use artificial reverb if required, will sound far better.

If I was there, I’d put my two Realistic PZMs hanging from either side of the balcony’s :)
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Jun 2010
Posts
6,577
Location
Essex
@Lowe @easyrider

concert is tomorrow. Got to test my gear out today with my teachers piano. Her piano is slightly out of tune but here it Is
https://youtu.be/pv9umEEM6p4

Haven’t EQ’d it at all. Just taken the wav file, amp’d it so peak volume is -2.0dB and whatever compression iMovie and YouTube have added.

You can see the mics. They’re about 45cm off the strings, x/y. One pointed towards middle of treble the other bass. Thoughts?
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Jun 2010
Posts
6,577
Location
Essex
I did mix the sound with the ambient sound of the camcorder mic. I think it sounds pretty decent, here's my performance. Please don't be too harsh :)

I think it sounds high quality but at the same time you definitely can hear that it was played in a big roomy church.

 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,065
Location
Autonomy
I did mix the sound with the ambient sound of the camcorder mic. I think it sounds pretty decent, here's my performance. Please don't be too harsh :)

I think it sounds high quality but at the same time you definitely can hear that it was played in a big roomy church.


Sounds good mate..what mics did you use again?

Waren Huart from produce like pro swears by one of hese for piano recording....

https://www.lewitt-audio.com/microphones/lct-recording/lct-640-ts
 
Soldato
Joined
18 Jun 2010
Posts
6,577
Location
Essex
123clowns

Something I've been playing around with.

Mason-, that is excellent.

Thanks mag.

Interesting piece, 1, 2, 3... What are you using to make that? I like the strings.

Sounds good mate..what mics did you use again?

Waren Huart from produce like pro swears by one of hese for piano recording....

https://www.lewitt-audio.com/microphones/lct-recording/lct-640-ts

Thanks easyrider, used these Russian badboys https://www.thomann.de/gb/oktava_mk_01201_mkii_matched_pair.htm

And the ambient sound was from my Sony FDR-AX55 camcorder.

It's those 2 mixed together.

The video I linked above which is me mic'ing my teachers piano has no ambient sound, it's purely the Oktava mics if you want to hear what they sound like isolated.
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,065
Location
Autonomy
Thanks mag.

Interesting piece, 1, 2, 3... What are you using to make that? I like the strings.



Thanks easyrider, used these Russian badboys https://www.thomann.de/gb/oktava_mk_01201_mkii_matched_pair.htm

And the ambient sound was from my Sony FDR-AX55 camcorder.

It's those 2 mixed together.

The video I linked above which is me mic'ing my teachers piano has no ambient sound, it's purely the Oktava mics if you want to hear what they sound like isolated.


I have those mics as stereo overheads on my drumkit :)
 
Back
Top Bottom