I would like to ask you all for some advice on recording an upright piano for an artist's residency. The room has high ceilings with glass and brick walls. I'm limited on the equipment however. I understand that using ones ears is the first step in choosing the right placement, but I would like some additional suggestions. I will share my plan below and if there is any thoughts you all have, please let me know.

Equipment:

Telefunken M60 FET (x2)
Telefunken TF29 Copperhead
Warm Audio WA12 MKII microphone preamp
Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 audio interface
Microphone stands (x3)
beyerdynamic DT 770 headphones (x2)
Upright piano
Laptop

I plan to move the piano away from the wall and put some cushions where the brick and floor meet to stop early refections. On the front of the piano I want to remove the front panel and point the two Telefunken M60 FET's horizontally towards the hammers, equally spaced apart from each other, acting as a stereo pair. This will run into channels 1 & 2 on the interface where I will control the gain. On the back of the piano I want to place the Telefunken TF29 Copperhead somewhere in the middle of the back and run that into the Warm Audio WA12 MKII, which will then go into channel 3 on the interface. As I only have three microphones available for the session, would this configuration be optimal? Thank you for any and all advice.

Pianist and owner of an upright (U1) here.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I do not like the sound of an upright piano close miked from the player's side, unless that pair is secondary and much lower in the mix. Same goes for peeking in from the top - I only do that if it's a live reinforcement situation.

I only record my piano on the soundboard side, with just one pair of cardioids pointed straight ahead and about 60cm wide. I start at 80cm away from the soundboard and about the same height and adjust as needed. You would think this results in a dull sound, but I find it more than bright enough. It only works if the soundboard is quite far away from a wall, of course.

Here's a track I did like that a few years back using a pair of CM3s. This is just a short accompaniment I recorded for a student vocalist but you can get the idea.

I also prefer micing soundboard side. When live i use one mic for this. Sounds better than peeking in for sure.

Peeking in sounds unnatural to me. I prefer micing the back too, unless I'm getting a whole lot of leakage from other instruments etc in an ensemble the piano is in. Micing the front helped with the leakage but left me with a great deal of action noise to clean up!

Yeah with Voltronic on this.

Think of it as a Piano on its side and mic rear, try A+B.

Open lid to taste.

Try moving it round the room a bit, surprising how small moves make big difference to recordings.

i mostly prefer mic'ing upright pianos from the front, often with the one or both lids off, but of course things (as always) depend on a variety of factors.

however, i often put mics both in front and in the back of the upright and in addition to close pairs, i'm using (at least) one pair of more distant mics/ambis plus either a blm, yamahiko or close mic for lf capture.

Another vote for soundboard side here - one of such occasions I recorded years ago with a pair of Shure KSM141 (in omni) from behind:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69bcJbdUdCI

But for "pop" piano, I've heard some nice results from the front , too: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS9Dv5tTI2s

Micing upright from behind makes it sound a bit more like a real piano and a tiny bit less honky tonky...

So the solution....

Record all sides and choose later!

Like they did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N-fqm2YLAU

Stick a finger in one ear, have someone play the piano, and move around listening with the other ear until you find a place that seems to have good balances between the top and bottom of the scale, the direct sound and the room sound, and has a good tone. Try opening and closing the piano. Don't be afraid to get behind the piano; the more dull sound back there is probably not suited for a solo piano but can be just the thing for some accompaniment. When you find where it sounds the way you want, stick a mike there.

It's possible you'll never find a place that sounds the way you want because the tone of the piano just isn't good in any direction. That's when it's time to call a real piano tech. (Or change your arrangement to feature less piano.)
--scott

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions, sharing, your experiences, supplying some videos for context. I have a lot of things to experiment with now!

this is 2 coles 4038's on the back.
2 bock 251's over the open top
yamaha subkick in front of bass string area in front

the piano is an upright Steinway K-52 - not the piano
used in the video


be well

- Jack

Very nice sound. Two questions:

1. Your setup description sounds like the front panel was left in place on the top of the piano, but the lower panel was removed. Is that correct?

2. Was the SubKick in the mix at all for this track? The piano part stayed in the middle register the whole time.

Lordy! - five mics on one piano?

All used in the mix?

this was 2006 - 18 years ago. trying to remember.

I was asking myself your question about the panels.
I think they were both left on. possibly the lower one was
removed.

The subkick was in the mix but not very dominant.
this was recorded on 2" 8 track, mixed with some plate to 1/2". I made a 24/96 file with an Apogee converter I had at that time, and the resulting 24/96 file was sent to the film company.
Rufus did one take.
He gave me about 3 minutes to get levels and said "let's go".......

Be well

Jack