AA - Week 7 - Piano

As everyone seems to already know, I employed resident pianist Courtney Day to bang out some piano(1) tunes for me. Shut up, Luke. I have had some experience with piano recording with the sessions that Jake and I conducted last year with Deanna Djuric, however this time I had plenty of time to 'tinker' with everything. I chose to use Neumann U87s, KM84s and a Shure SM57.


~MP3 502KB~ This recording is using the 'midside' technique. I opted to have the Omni-pattern U87 right-way-up, as I figured that there would be a richer sound with the combination of direct noise and noise reflected off of the piano lid. As per midside rules, the figure 8 mic (upside down) is duplicated, inverted and panned left and right. It sounds good, but the whole point of midside is to create a contextual stereo phase, which I feel has a stale sound compared to the actual sound of the piano.


~MP3 527KB~ This recording uses 2 Neumann KM84s as a spaced pair of room mics facing into the body of the piano, and the Shure SM57 placed underneath, aimed upwards at the centre of the piano body. The KM84s were panned left and right respective of their position in the room, and the SM57 was centred. I was very surprised at how good this sounded- personally I find it to be much better than the midside recording.


~MP3 396KB~ I was intrigued by the clarity that the SM57 had, so I tested the midside technique with the SM57 underneath instead of the omni-pattern U87. As per usual I duplicated, inverted and panned the figure-8 U87, and left the SM57 centred. This did indeed brighten the midside sound, however it still does not reach the level of clarity that the SM57/KM84 setup had.


~MP3 673KB~ Keeping the last setup, I added the KM84s so the SM57/KM84 combo was back in play, but this time with the figure-8 U87 as well. I find this recording to be equally as good as the original SM57/KM84 combo, however they are quite different from each other. This recording has a more 'chorus' sound to it, which suits the piece being played, and the original SM57/KM84 recording is a neater, more intimate sound, like you are right next to the piano.


To quench my curiosity I compared the omni U87 (above) and SM57 (underneath) directly, in order to establish why a microphone 1/100th of the price is sounding better than its exorbitant competitor. It turns out it doesn't on its own, but when in combination with other microphones the SM57 seems to add something nice to the mix.

Shure SM57 MP3 146KB
Neumann U87 MP3 148KB

1. David Grice “Audio Arts Wk 7: Recording the Piano” Tutorial presented at EMU space and Studio 1, Level 5, Schultz building, University of Adelaide, 24th April 2006.