A lot of it depends on how much spotting you're doing. If I have a spot mike on an orchestral soloist, I can nudge a little bit of that into the mix with the main pair without affecting anything else in the mix much. But if I am having to add so much of the spot mike that the leakage is causing tonal changes or audible smearing to the rest of the orchestra, a delay will fix that.

If you have to build an orchestral mix entirely out of spots and sectionals, say because the room is horrible or the noise floor is high (and I have recorded concerts in shopping malls where both were the case), delays can be your salvation.

On the gripping hand there are people who like that smearing. They want the "film soundtrack" sound where everything is forward but not detailed. I don't like the Enoch Light sound but some people do.
--scott

some setups/repertoire imo not only dictate to use coincident main mics but also make time alignment mandatory (such as drum/percussion ensembles)... - that said, a grand puano is a fairly percussive instrument!

(my desk has a neat feature (temporary ganging of any parameter across as many channels/groups/auxes/mains/matrices as wanted) which - once delays are dialled in - allows for very fast comparison between different settings)

I have a very old friend that is still maintaining an old JAG XKE that he will put on the road for a short ride on a perfect Sunday afternoon. The pleasure he derives from these infrequent drives is well worth the enormous time and expense he is willing to endure. Much the same could be said of folks addicted to playing acoustic pianos; the feel of the action and direct sonic feedback is their mania. I certainly can identify with these addictions as a vintage guitar player however, unlike my piano playing friends, I can do very well with a single Flea 47 to capture both my guitar and vocal simultaneously.
Any way you cut it maintaining, micing and two mix processing an acoustic piano is a king sized pain in the ass for both studio recording and particularly for live concert capture. One of the greatest benefits of the digital revolution is the Yamaha Motif digital piano and it's related cousins. When the ultimate recorded destination is digital, Yamaha will probably do it better with their Motif than most us could possibly hope for, regardless of the player, piano or gear deployed.
Hugh

professional pianists
an essential part of the artform to which they have dedicated countless hours of training and practice.

Fixed it for you

I am not about to enter a verbal whizzing contest with acoustic piano players. To clear the air please try to stipulate the accuracy of the following observations.

1) Most all accomplished musicians have dedicated countless hours of training and practice.
2) Guitars and most other string instruments are very easy to tune given the Peterson strobe digital software available with a clip on, or for an I-Phone: this is where acoustic pianos are at a decided disadvantage.
3) Key activated piano loops remove the chore of storing, transporting, isolating & micing an acoustic piano. Unlike most other string instruments there is little if any significant sonic difference between the factory digital loops and the absolute best recorded digital tracks of any acoustic piano.

For these and several other reasons the digital processing revolution is placing acoustic drum kits and grand pianos on the project studio obsolescence watch list. Within a two hour drive of my home there are a pair of world class acoustic guitar set-up technicians. (John Arnold & Ken Hooper) Their renowned luthier skills are following in the huge footprints of the local luthier legend, Wayne C. Henderson. My buddy Andy has a 1926 Steinway baby grand with an App red sound board that he loves to play: but it needs a pin block replacement and the logistics involved in that needed work is the ultimate reason the old vintage piano was sold to Andy.
Brent Hahn, in a similar thread, has identified some of the esoteric reasoning supporting maintaining a grand piano for A/V professional performance recording. IMO after the sonically beautiful acoustic piano's A/D conversion, the pre recorded loops generally sound better with much less effort.
Hugh

When I was buying the piano for my studio, I got opinions from the three pianists I work with regularly, and none of them wanted to play a digital piano - they all wanted a “real” piano.

Shocking!

I think this really boils down to the difference between 'keyboard players' and pianists.

Here's one with Sennheiser Twins spaced approximately 40cm and out 45*, placed diagonal from the piano.

The big thing about this is that the microphones are raised up high enough that you're not dealing with the reflections off the lid and the consequent comb filtering. This is really good.

It's awfully close-in for my tastes but my piano teacher would have considered it too distant. If everybody liked the same thing they'd all be listening to the Horowitz record and we'd all be out of a job.
--scott

This sounds lovely. How did you configure the two capsule arrangement, and is that another one at the tail? Thanks.

imo hugh got a point - which is that for less demanding situations, many piano players but also the audience would be better off if a digital piano and a self-powered 2-way speaker could get used...

(which tradition mostly prevents)

...at least when considering the costs: over here, renting a steinway costs around chf2000.-- per day: this includes the rental of the instrument, transportation from a nearby piano house and a capable piano tech tuning the instrument twice.

to make things worse, a model c (or even d) won't do the trick in many amplified situations so in addition to the piano, you need rent highly capable gear (and of course hire an experienced mix tech) to get a grand piano to sound right...

short: it's sheer luxury to use a grand piano as a standard in many situations!

Sure, and then just program in the song, and voila, you don’t even need a pianist anymore…

...or buy a steinway spirio! ;-)

I just checked the original project.

Front: 0db
Rear: -5db
Flanks: 0db (8090s)

The tail mics were muted (but did sound good in their own way...)

Put all that in an empty hall-- and you've done away with the need for an audience!

Thankyou, Mr Horse!

Thank you for posting this performance. Was that just one pair of mics (the Twins)? no mics further out? Reverb coming from the space, or added in post?

Thx,
Tom

He has just said, and you can see the arrangement in the photo.

I will imminently be recording an artist 'at home' on a 7.5ft Grotrian Steinweg. Long and thin room with an arched ceiling - piano is sited fairly centrally.

I'm thinking of trying some sort of variation of Pai Mai's Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique... sorry, wrong Forum... what I meant was Plush's Five Point Calm Exploding Mic Technique.

I totally realise I'm going to be absolutely fine with a single pair of mics in this situation and that a 5-7 mic technique is OTT and designed for vastly larger concert venues. And like many of us I live in fear of invoking the wrath of Plush for not conducting myself in an appropriately deferential manner and daring to apply 'Carnegie Hall advice' to anything smaller than er... Carnegie Hall. However, this is not for a recital or a formal release so it gives me an opportunity to experiment, while of course delivering a nice record of the session for the artist.

The mics I will take along from my locker are as follows:

• Geffel M296 omni (pair)
• Shure KSM141 omni/cardioid (pair)
• Line Audio CM4 wide-ish cardioid (pair)
• Neumann TLM170i multipattern
• Gefell M930 cardioid

The TLM170i pretty much chooses itself as the 'tail mic' as I've only one of those.

I'll set the M296s in the best place I can to capture the room, although I anticipate in this typical small room scenario they aren't going to make much of an appearance in the final mix..

My questions pertain to the cardioids at the rim of the piano. Plush mentions in his explanatory video that pointing the mics right at the rim gives a very mellow sound, but having visited the venue I would say the Grotrian already sounds very mellow. I've always got great results with the little CM4s on grand piano which have the advantage of being 'slightly wide' cardioids but on this occasion perhaps this particular instrument might benefit from the gentle HF lift of the KSM141s in cardioid mode? Or put them in omni slightly further back?

Some further qualifiers are a) I can't deploy Blumlein because I don't have two Fig 8s and b) traditional Decca isn't really viable because I don't actually think I have enough distance between the tail of the piano and the side wall of the room. Seems like spaced pairs + tail or perhaps even LCR?

TL;DR - I'm slightly concerned about getting brightness and definition out of what is already a very mellow-sounding piano with a modest (as opposed to vastly dynamic) program of intimate classical music.

Stupidly I forgot to take a photo of the room when I visited but for now, any thoughts from the floor?

James Lehmann is an excellent practitioner. For an esteemed practitioner like him I would never wade in with any criticism.

Two mics may do it in a room like that. My multiple mic techniques are mainly made to be used in a large hall. The low on the wood technique is to mellow out a bright Steinway piano set up with a boosted treble sound made to project into a 2500-3000 seat auditorium.

I will tell you what I do like in any piano situation and that is to have a large diaphragm mic put in to the butt end of the piano.

I put it a quarter of the way into the end of the piano with the capsule looking up the bass harp towards the keyboard. This is for left hand ooooomph and to capture the robust bass report if there is any in the music.

The solidity of bass makes a big difference in piano sound.

Regarding the panning of this LD bass mic…I’m guessing the method would be to listen to the bass to treble balance and spread of the main pair, and then slowly increase level until it perceptibly firms up the bass, and then tweak the panning until it reinforces the location of the existing bass from the pair ?

Since it’s so close to the strings and frame/lid, would the adding of reverb to the bass mic help it to integrate with the main pair ?

using a multi-mic approach is about offering multi-perspective/alternate ways to portray the source; depending on setup, the various mic systems can get combined.

the worse the room, the closer i put the mics and the more directional mics i'm using (to keep out the room to some extent) - however, i mostly set up ambient mics even in less favorable rooms which then don't get routed to the mix bus but get used as efx sends.

for capturing of lf, i almost always uae a separate mic (with a lpf) or even a pickup.

In piano recording bass is always on the RT. channel. So that butt end mic would be panned towards the RT.--maybe at 3PM clock position.

In piano recording bass always appears on the RT. channel. So that butt end mic would be panned towards the RT.--maybe at 3PM clock position.

Thanks for clarifying this Plush ! Actually your reply in post no.21 above expanded on all the required detail

I think I will set up something like this to begin with.

Completely OTT I know, especially for a 7.5ft, but it will be interesting to see what works best in the space.

This gives me in cardioid L/R, L/C/R, L/R/T, Decca, and an ambient pair of omnis to choose from.

I fully anticipate that by starting with this I will be taking things away rather than adding things in as I go along (recording might be spread out over several days) and zeroing in on a much more minimal set up comprised of the optimum sounding pair or perhaps three.

I am particularly curious to hear how the KSM141s fare as a pair, as I've only recently acquired a second one after a long and frustrating scavenge on the used markets!